My goodness I love this! I'm honestly having the hardest time deciding which is better, this song or "Move".
Let me talk about the song first before I get to the video. I haven't actually listened to the album Salute yet, so yesterday was my first time hearing this song. Everything about this song, in my opinion, is perfect. It's a metaphorical song about female empowerment, and one of the few pop songs these days that I can appreciate lyrically. Obviously this concept has been done before (my first thought was that it's like Beyoncé's "Run the World" meets AKB48's "RIVER"), but Little Mix, with their style and vocals, just do it better, and they make it feel fresh.
I love the lyrics which speak about being proud of who you are ("It's who we are, we don't need no camouflage") and celebrating diversity ("Get your killer heels, sneakers, pumps, or lace up your boots"). The Little Mix army isn't just looking for one type of woman, they're just looking for women who can stand up for themselves, plain and simple.
Now let's take a look at the video. Before I actually watched the video, I saw a couple of comments calling this video "raunchy" and "dirty". Of course I was preparing myself for the worst, expecting to be disappointed that they were going down the route that most girl groups go down, but when I finished the video, all I could think was "Did I watch the same video they did?" I mean, maybe those words apply in the literal sense that there's actually dirt in them, but sexually? I don't think so.
Yeah, it was a bit sexy; there was plenty of leg shown, and there were a couple of slightly awkward shots. But as a whole, I think the image shown in this video was less trying to be sexy, and more about showing off their womanly bodies. Normally I hate when people say things like that, because I feel like they're just trying to justify the overt sexiness that girl groups so often have to exhibit, but in this case, in this context of this song, I think it's the truth. It's not about being sexy for the men, it's about being confident in your body as a woman.
The one problem I did have with this video, however, was this particular scene:
Um, she pretty much has those men on leashes.
While on the bright side, this made for some pretty cool choreography, the apparent symbolism in it irritates me. For me, things like this seem to spread the idea that for women to powerful, they have to be manipulative. That's not a positive message for girls at all. Thank God this scene only lasted for a few seconds, and it's really not worth an outrage or anything, but this is a review and to be fair I had to bring it up.
The rest of the video is well done, though describing it is simple. Basically the girls show off their toughness and their beauty, dance with their army, and salute (duh). I love the aesthetics of this video. It's dark and it's grungy, but it's fabulous.
Yet another A+ song and video from Little Mix. Now will someone please tell me why they're not famous in America yet?
