.. but one big step for music lovers in Saudi Arabia?
Saudi Arabia produces first music video
Maybe not -- considering the first clip to be fully produced in Saudi Arabia sounds like a propoganda video made by religious leaders to try to reign in their youth. But music is music - so what if the message (“You can be cool and devout") is different than music videos you and I watch and does not feature any "sexy performers in revealing clothes crooning about love."
Al-Khatib, 37, who heads an advertising agency, has previously produced music videos, but this is the first that is an all-Saudi work. It was filmed along Jiddah's boardwalk on the Red Sea, a popular hangout for youths. He said he wanted to give Saudi youths an alternative to music videos produced abroad but popular on satellite TV. "The problem is not the music. It's how you utilize it. We wanted to talk to them in their own language.Instead of saying, 'Don't listen to music,' we're saying, 'Listen to music that's good for you," he said.
Viva music.... once you give them a taste of music, they'll want more and that can only be good. (Of course, the reality of this is that people probably enjoy good music from around the world anyways through "illegal" means... this big show-n-tell by the government just makes for fluffy news as the "first ever" music video! Ok...the cynic in me has to come out. Back to reality!)
Speaking of first-ever music videos, August 1st was the 26th anniversary of MTV, which launched in 1981 with “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. Like Freakanomics Blog pointed out -- "Appropriately enough, during the 2006 MTV Video Awards the Raconteurs performed a parody of that song, called “Internet Killed the Video Star.”
Indeed… I could blame the internet for preventing me from reading good books, seeing good movies, and getting some exercise.* But in the end, it is my own lack of discipline and will-power, isn’t it? Didn’t you just read – “It isn’t the internet…it’s how you utilize it.”
* Here is a good cartoon that captures my life very well. Sorry.. I saved this online some time back and do not know the source. If someone does, let me know and I will give due credit.
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