Rita Ora avoids the spotlight during her off-time, but then shines on stage and serves as an inspiration for the waitress who helped her escape the vulturing paparazzi.
There's a cold rain outside, but things are steamy in the shower between Nick Jonas and Pretty Little Liar Shay Mitchell. Whether it's a sexy reconciliation is left in doubt, especially with all the hints of a severely tumultuous and permanently damaged relationship.
It's a fairy tale where Taylor Swift doesn't need to wait for any Prince Charming to save her in this latest epic collaboration with director Joseph Kahn. She just needs to decide to turn around and move on from her entanglements. That journey is anything but easy, however, as our heroine goes from the oceans edge to an icy peak and into a forest that's invariably filled with snarling dogs, menacing fire and malicious brances (note: I'd reference Evil Dead her, but why start the New Year that twisted, right?).
Can Taylor Swift and director Joseph Kahn do big and intimate at the same time in a video? Of course, they can. Welcome to Africa for this period piece where Taylor is a classic movie starlet falling into and away from her leading man, Scott Eastwood. Stay tuned through the end, since there's one last chance for romance at the fateful, yet chilly movie premiere.
Get on your mopeds kids, cuz Mack is back with something that looks way pricier and more ambitious than what you'd find at a thrift shop. "Downtown" is essentially a rallying cry for all the underdogs and eccentrics out there to get on their wildest ride and meet up for a massive parade with rap Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, rap legends Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Gradmaster Caz, and a scene-stealing Eric Nally from Foxy Shazam.
You knew Eminem's history with both Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre meant he would show up in the Apple Music launch, but did you expect his contribution to be a music video that casts him as an ass-kicking Neo-style action-adventure star? Or, for John Malkovich to have a cameo as a mysterious purveyor of noodles and wisdom? The nearly 8-minute big-budget opus starts in a hospital and ends with a helicopter leap to a rendezvous with Dr Dre — plus, instead of the usual Beats product placements, we get an integrated storyline with an Apple Watch.
Yes, we know Taylor Swift is popular, but just to make sure you realize how big she is on the heels of her star-studded "Bad Blood" video, take a look at the numbers:
20 million - "Bad Blood" broke the 24 hour VEVO record for most views in one day, getting nearly 20 million views in one day.
37 million - Total "Bad Blood" views as I write this, four days after the premiere.
5 billion - Total view count for all her videos.
11 million - Total estimated viewers to the Billboard Music Awards, which televised the exclusive world premiere of the video.
It's like there's the music business, and then there's the Taylor Swift business, with the only similarity being that they use some of the same notes...
Welcome to EXTREME Girl Power. Taylor Swift, director Joseph Kahn and a seemingly countless amount of cameos — Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, Lena Dunham, Hayley Williams, Hailee Steinfeld... you get the picture] — do in four minutes what Sucker Punch tried to do in about 110.
Wouldn't be surprised if the budgets were similar.
Pity the fool who decides to ruin a fairy tale romance with Taylor Swift, because not only do you get banished from the palace — yes, palace — but you also find yourself in serious danger once she unleashes her inner She-Devil.
Usually all the star power in a movie video is via the film footage. Not the case here, as Alicia Keys, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams and even composer Hans Zimmer all show up to electrify NYC just as much as what we see in the Spider-Man 2 clips.
Director Joseph Kahn constructs a tale of two loves in this unexpected video from Britney Spears. "Perfume" is Britney unguarded — favoring a soaring, yet barbed ballad that's worlds away from her recent electro facades — with a video that does away with the occasional superhero and dominatrix motifs she's used in the past: This is the pop star at her most vulnerable, but still stronger than ever.
