Avicii finds love at a roller rink in "You Make Me"

Swedish DJ, remixer, and record producer Avicii premieres the official music video for his upcoming smash, "You Make Me," the second single from the 24-year-old DJ's debut studio album, "True," which is out now in the UK and today in the US through PRMD Music/Universal Island. Underpinned by a driving electronic beat, this bold and bright anthem is more of a traditional House music track than the Swedish EDM artist's previous chart-topping worldwide hit, "Wake Me Up," which blended Country and Dance elements.
The song features a vocal from Salem Al Fakir, the Swedish Soul-Pop singer who sang on Avicii 's 2012 dance tune "Silhouettes." Al Fakir is best known in his home country for his Top 3 hit "Keep On Walking," which was runner up in the 2010 Melodifestivalen final, the Swedish national selection for that year's Eurovision Song Contest. The song is catchy, and has the words 'commercial success' and 'club smasher' written all over it. The beat is a tad generic, but it's exciting, though. The auto-tune applied to Al Fakir's vocals in the choruses in the electro-pop song is also kind of nice, in the sense it goes well with the atmosphere created.
As for the "You Make Me" music video, a hospitality industry romance turns into a full-blown love story that features Pairs love and rollerskates and ends with a twist, tells the story of tragic love triangle, with a battle for love taking place in a roller-skating club. Avicii isn’t known for big budget video extravaganzas but that's about to change with his new "You Make Me" visual. Imagine Saturday Night Fever on roller skates with some cheesy Kung Fu moves thrown in for good measure to get some idea of what's in store for you. It's a cute concept and completely ridiculous but extremely well-executed and lots of fun.
In his new video for "You Make Me," Avicii hits a New York rollerrink for a showdown of slick dance moves and fierce fighting. The story follows high-rolling Henry as he fixates on the object of his desire Mercedes, a waitress serving up drinks. Henry hits the floor to strut his stuff and Mercedes is impressed – too impressed for her jealous ex-boyfriend Chang's liking. Chang and his cronies storm the floor for a fight, and the rink becomes a ring as the opposing crews battle it out. Will Henry win out and the good times resume?  It's an age-old question of love, sound-tracked to Avicii's poppy new single.

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Nicki Minaj defends her brand for "Up In Flames"

After turning up the heat with her "High School" video, Nicki Minaj takes it down a notch, takes us back to the old mixtape days and defends her brand with another moody video for her latest track "Up in Flames," the opener and yet another cut off the endlessly long-slash-promotable "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded - The Re-Up." And if there's any takeaway here, it's that Minaj is 110 percent serious about being the best rapper in the game, male or female. She already admitted to being the best in a recent interview, but now instead of telling us, she's showing us in her no-frills clip.
Minaj takes her standard boastful tone on the track, which is definitely more "mixtape" Nicki Minaj. As she recently spoke about the track to MTV News, saying, "Like 'Up in Flames,' if a dude was on a that song with me, everyone would've talked about it and they would [argue] 'who had the best verse' but when I put a song out by myself..." she trailed off, before adding that the male-dominated industry has something to do with it. "[It's] because men run the hip-hop game-let's be honest, they're the program directors, they wanna be able to rap stuff and they're not gonna recite a female [verse], they just feel funny and it is what it is."
The 30-year-old YMCMB rapper/American Idol judge made a big shift in tone for this Grizz Lee-directed video compared to some of her past. It's a less-than-subtle product placement shot of the rapper's perfume and cosmetics. The darkly themed clip for "Up In Flames" begins with a motorcycle powering down a road, while we jump cut to a hoodie-clad Minaj spends some serious screen-time mugging seriously in the dark with a companion, as she walking through a dark home with a pout on her face and a black hoodie on her back, before sitting down to play the piano with a bunch of lit candles and rapping in the studio while wearing sunglasses.
While Minaj also makes room for wheelie-poppin' motorcycles as the biker does all kinds of stunts on the pavement, Queen Barbie stunts lyrically in a lavish house. But don't get confused: Minaj's not trying to be fabulous here but she's keeping it minimal by putting her visceral flow on center stage, working in the studio, and writing down rhymes and checking her production. This very slow beat allows for Minaj's Queens accent bite at her competitors in full-throat. Instead, she seems defensive, rather than offensive, and the camera is out fishing for proof of her successes. Overall, this is all flames.

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Kanye West Plays Up In "Lost in the World"

After a rush of new material from Kanye West in April, the Chicago rapper is turning to the archives his latest video for "Lost in the World," the first part of the finale to his critically acclaimed 2010 solo effort, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." Collaborated with filmmaker Ruth Hogben, the black-and-white visual reliant on simple, but effective, imagery. In typical Yeezy fashion, the video breaks the mould of popular rap aesthetics while still celebrating the extraordinary talent that has made West a modern icon and captures the pulsing energy of the Bon Iver-assisted track.
"Lost in the World" about love gone wrong features tribal drums and samples Bon Iver's "Woods," a song originally written about alienation, applied by West "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie" on the album. It features several musical changes, beginning with indie-folk singer Justin Vernon of Bon Iver frontman's faint vocals, followed by 4/4 drums, gospel-styled chorus, and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo.
The song also samples the vocals from the soul musician and jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron's "Comment No.1," a blunt, surrealist piece in spoken word about the African-American experience and the fated idealism of the American dream. West explained to MTV News: "That was the last song on the album and emotionally it just fit the crescendo of everything that I was saying and what I wanted to say to this girl. And it's also my favorite eight bars that I've ever written in my life. I think it's one of the greatest pieces of writing."
The dark clip plays up the desperation of the "Lost in the World," with cloud-filled images and a group of models dressed in sheer fabric expressing their pain through dance. West himself appears on a mirrored platform, which reflects the dark sky above, and as the video progresses, the looming structures overhead begin to part, revealing an ominous city skyline. It's simple but beautiful imagery that turns dark and intense as West turns on the bright lights in the form of jarring strobes as the video swerves into abstract urban scenes.

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