Music Video Relapse: "Fuck Me Pumps" (2004) by Amy Winehouse

Posted by Adam Fairholm on September 5, 2013 in Music Video Relapse

Staff Post

pumps.jpg

Back to Black is the album that Amy Winehouse will obviously be remembered for, as it's her first album that was a major hit before she died at the age of 27 in 2011. It's definitely one of the classic albums of the 00s, but I don't think Back to Black ever really produced any great music videos besides maybe "Rehab". This is strange, because so much of Amy Winehouse's fame was wrapped up in her appearance - the beehive hairdo, eyeliner, etc, but we never really got an iconic music video from such an iconic figure.

Thankfully, Winehouse had an album before Back to Black that produced some interesting music video work. It was called Frank and it was released in 2003, and we're watching a video off that album called "Fuck Me Pumps" (2004), directed by Marlene Rhein.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that Amy Winehouse looks very different in this video compared to what she looked like in the Back to Black era and later. There's no trademark beehive hairdo, although she does have the eyeliner going. The basic concept is that Winehouse is outside with a microphone on a cord, and she's singing directly into the camera. That's pretty much it.

The song itself is a fun, almost comedic song about party girls in London, and during the video we see two strung out looking party girls arguging with each other outside of some sort of club in broad daylight (maybe they stayed the entire night?). Winehouse is also sometimes in the passenger seat of a parked car with an older man (she's still singing with the microphone). There are also some mean looking little girls with crazy makeup on that are totes mad at Amy for calling them out.

The best thing about this video is that Amy Winehouse looks like she's genuinely having fun. The position she's in is fundmamentally awkward - singing in a car or sitting on a curb with a microphone in your hand is a little wacky, and she seems amused by the whole thing. That combined with the lightheartedness of the video makes this a really fantastic showcase video for Winehouse - she carries the video the whole way through despite the relatively weak sideshows she's presented with.

Case in point is the kid with a camcorder starts filming Winehouse, but by that time it should be clear that this video is pretty incoherent on the concept side, and that's okay since we're just here to watch Winehouse do her thing.

This is a completely different kind of performance than the ones in videos like "Rehab" or "Tears Dry On There Own". She's not catatonic in those videos but she never really seems to deliver any of the songs - she's simply there, and that's a shame since we know she can raelly sell a music video if she wants to.

Adam Fairholm is the co-founder and lead developer of IMVDb. You can find him on twitter at @adamfairholm.



More Music Video Relapse:


Most of the time on Music Video Relapse I am writing about a music video that is a classic for a good reason - either being iconic or just fondly remembered. Sometimes I write about a music video that was release relatively recently but I think needs a second look… Read More

As we've covered on the blog before, ABBA has an interesting history with music videos, using the form back in the late 1970s to spread their music to overseas markets. The videos, while pretty primitive, are well-done for their time, and they are almost all on their ABBA Vevo account,… Read More

When a video gets pulled off of YouTube, they usually tell you who made them do it. Usually it's a record label, but sometimes it's a random name. For instance, Iggy Azalea used to have a video called "Pu$$y," but it now says "This video is no longer available because… Read More

People whose jobs revolve around throwaway "viral" stories hit pay dirt last week when someone noticed that a radio station in LA was playing Nelly's 2002 hit "Hot In Herre" over and over again. This is apparently relatively standard procedure for radio stations undergoing a format change (it has since… Read More

IMVDb Blog




Site Sponsors

Add Your Company




RSS Icon Subscribe with RSS


Search the Blog


Recent Posts


Archive


Categories


Content on the IMVDb blog is ©2012-2024 IMVDb and FilmedInsert, LLC. All Rights Reserved.