Together with director Dave Meyers, Missy Elliott was responsible for some of the most eye-catching videos of the past 10 years. Meyers's innovative clips for Missy smashes like "Get Ur Freak On" and "Work It" offered up a casual surrealism unusual for hip-hop: Elliott's jaw splays open to swallow a Lamborghini whole, and backup dancers shoot up from the ground like plants in springtime. Neither has made a video as clever, or watchable, since.
Their latest collaboration, the 3-D video "Ching-a-Ling/Shake Your Pom Pom," lacks the restless creativity of their earlier work, but it still marks a welcome return for one of the most fruitful matchups in music video history.
"Ching-a-Ling" plays like a sketch-dance show; each set of dancers bears a different motif - Marcel Marceau mimes, baseball players lost in the woods, street-corner strutters. Elliott (above, watching "Ching-a-Ling" recently on "TRL" with host Damien Fahey) mostly serves as master of ceremonies for this raucous dance exhibition.
As if afraid viewers will find it all too avant-garde for their tastes, a second video is appended to the song, adding 90 seconds of "Shake Your Pom Pom." The same dancers put on a rigidly synchronized performance at a house party so raucous it sets the very foundations rumbling. That's what happens when Elliott and Meyers get together: There's a little something for everyone.
Video is available on YouTube.com.
Saul Austerlitz is the author of "Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video From the Beatles to the White Stripes."
