Game-changing moves

Depeche Mode had been around for a decade when it released 1990's Violator album. It turned out to be a game changer for the band and for electro-pop/Brit pop in general. The Pet Shop Boys' masterpiece Behaviour was a response to it, an album that placed the PSB on a track that has kept them relevant to this day. Depeche Mode had shown how versatility and depth could be wrung out of a preexisting sound and image. Shania Twain performed a similar kind of magic when her Come on Over album showed how country music could be loosed from its genre, how production techniques could re-purpose songs for different markets.

(As an aside: During DM's recent Toronto concert, the first time I've ever seen them live, I was surprised how theatrical the show was, how much closer it was to glam rock than to knob-fiddling; as someone who does most of his music-listening through headphones, who thinks of Depeche Mode as a studio band, the energy and the spectacle was totally unexpected, helping me understand how the band's longevity and success has been nurtured on the stage as much as in the CD player. It's hard to imagine, say, New Order selling millions of concert albums and tour T-shirts.)

When it first came out, I thought Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" video was brilliant. Well, of course, a lot of other people did as well. But it wasn't until I saw Shakira's "She Wolf" that I realized that "Single Ladies" was a game changer.

Dance has always been integral to the music video genre; early videos were often merely shots of people dancing. As some contributors to the recent outpouring of retrospection about Michael Jackson have argued, dance was an integral part of Jackson's talent tool-set long before the "Thriller" behemoth. But, with due respect to Paula Abdul, "Single Ladies" is a particularly provocative waypoint.

Where music-video dancing had, even at its most profound and eye-catching, usually been relaxed and accessible, with moves the viewer might want to casually try out at a nightclub, Beyonce introduced a particular kind of aspirational precision coupled with a choreographic specificity. If you have mastered these steps in "Single Ladies," you will not be muddling through them to an Ashlee Simpson song, you will be tied to a very singular notion of what those moves are--your success or failure at mastering them will be obvious to any observer.

Not only are Beyonce and her posse tight and polished, the steps they are dancing are innovative, adding contemporary dance tropes to refined hip-hop moves. And they're shot in a way that the dancing is the video, not just something to cutaway to, from closeups of an emotive singer or some vague storyline. The presentation is relentless. Even in her regimented "Rhythm Nation", Janet Jackson doesn't stay so intently in choreographic character, breaking from shot-to-shot to swaying-and-facing-the-camera mode. The group dancing in Janet's video also allows the camera to break away from close-ups, allowing any potential flaws to be edited away.

Which brings me to Shakira, who has recognized the athleticism and the precision of Beyonce--well, she's even recognized the hair styling and posture of Beyonce--and met the challenge with a style that's both exact and--her own contribution--loopy. Her flexibility is aspirational. Her choreography is as unnerving as some of the most cutting-edge contemporary dance. Her delivery is clean and confident, as it it is perfectly natural to arrange your knee above your head. Her spider pose, for example, would be a little circus-show freaky if it was not delivered with a playful wink. Shakira has shown that she can match Beyonce move for move, that she can suffer the glare of an unforgiving camera and also--her trump card but also the twist that might obstruct her way to international domination--that she doesn't take her Olympian performance skills so seriously.