Yeah, I don’t know about Rihanna’s performance of “Vogue” on Fashion Rocks, which was taped last week and aired on CBS last night. On the one hand, this is the sort of “looking back into the past” performance that one thought would have aired on the VMAs Sunday night, what with the run-up to the ceremony touting the whole 25th-anniversary aspect of the show. On the other hand, the pitching of the song is kind of weird, and Rihanna’s charisma is, uh, sort of lacking when you compare it to Madge’s–for further evidence of that, peep the clip I’ve placed after the jump–and I can’t help but wonder whether or not she can identify more than, say, two or three of the fashion icons who are name-checked during the bridge. One thing’s for sure, though: Ri-Ri sure likes playing the whole “illusion of wearing a really big dress” card.
Rihanna - Vogue [YouTube]
Madonna - Vogue MTV [YouTube]
Or Fergie singing Call Me as an example of punk. Jesus Christ.
@Clevertrousers:
‘Disinterested shimmying.’
Actually, fashion really doesn’t rock. In fact, whatever the polar opposite of rocking is? That’s what fashion does - thoroughly and consistently.
There’s very little that would top that Versailles Vogue performance. I don’t know why anyone thought it was a good idea to make Rihanna try. Couldn’t they have let her just run through “Don’t Stop the Music” or something?
(Also, what was up with that obnoxious lighting? Did they not want people to see the choreography?)
@Clevertrousers: I have a feeling that *nothing* “rocks,” actually. The verb “rock,” like the noun “hipster,” has been pretty much drained of meaning, especially in the press-releases-as-content era.
I dunno, I rock pretty hard myself.
Let’s not complain about this performance, which, lip-synching and all, was not that bad. Let’s talk about Justin Timberlakes smug ass performance of Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up, which he -and a few people standing up grooving in the audience- thought was the “bizness” when it fact, it was not.