"It's a Britney Spears sex riot!"

Okay, I really couldn't resist. I love hip hop dance, and I've a good friend who danced to this very same song in our college days, so it brought back lots of memories :D



Yes, I know. Seductive, complete with suggestive actions and almost obscene gestures. I especially love Jane Lynch's disgusted exclamation, "It's a Britney Spears sex riot!"

A lot of mainstream music videos these days showcase painfully thin singers wearing skin-tight leotards while 'shaking their booties'. When I was a kid, I remember my parents objecting that these videos were disturbing and bordering pornography. But now, such videos are considered the norm. It can't even have been 15 years since that time - what happened?

It's Adam and Eve all again, only now the fruit that provides (more) knowledge of good and evil has a name - The Internet. Gone were the days when TV broadcast channel signals could be blocked out and censored. No, the Internet provides access to everything. And it's cheap (I wouldn't purchase a broadcasting station to watch porn - would you?).

But even with the advent of the Internet, music and dance did not originally go hand in hand. Singers were singers - they didn't have to be dancers as well. People formed bands. They didn't form music-video troupes. But one guy came along and changed all that. He revolutionized the entire music industry and propelled it to where it is today.

And the award for the most phenomenal music and arts person (in my books) goes to....

Yes you guessed it. Michael Jackson. He was a genius. (And I actually think that at stages of his transformation, he was rather cute :P) Before he came along, music videos could be compared to still photographs. Sure, you'd get to see the singers' lips move, but that was about it. The most movement that a music video got was the Stylistics (think line dance with stiff upper bodies, minimal arm gestures, and no more than two steps in any direction) - that was considered modern.

So, when Michael Jackson came along with his jaw-dropping moonwalk and superb dance moves, the world was thrown into chaos. People's minds were opened to a whole new way of music and video expression. Hip hop, R&B and dozens of other dance genres were spawned through the influence of one man. Of course, along with it came his trademark crotch-grabbing high pitched scream. Who on earth would think that grabbing your crotch and shrieking like a girl would prove to be this popular?

So, what's the point of this post? Absolutely nothing. I just saw that video and had the urge to put it up :P

Pictures thanks to nubiangraphics.com and vanityfair.com