Iyiyi by Cody Simpson
Have you been stressing since Justin Beiber hit puberty that you won’t have any pre-teen blonde boys singing about things they’d have no idea about? Sounding just like the girls they’re pining for? Well, stress no more because Australia has you covered with “youtube sensation” Cody Simpson (ie. he posted a video on youtube singing a Jason Mraz song and being 13, everyone found this adorable. Obviously, the next step was to age him up a bit and make him sing ~serious songs).
Admittedly, and for some unknown reason, Cody annoys me less than Beibs. I just can’t comprehend how there is such a large market for these sorts of singers. Ok, so when I was 10, I loved Hansen and at that stage the drummer was only 12. But at least they were a band and not just a pretty face. At least they had talent and not just auto tune. And at least they wrote their own songs! (I think…. that’s not even Michael Nesmith’s real hat.)
There are a lot of things about this song and video that confuse me. Why is Flo Rida in it? Why didn’t they just call the song ‘Missing You’? What does 143 mean? (I looked it up. it means ‘I Love You’ - because there is 1 letter in ‘I’, 4 in ‘love’ and 3 in ‘You.’ - I feel so old and cynical right now). And why oh why is there a ‘Ya mum!’ joke at the beginning???
Technically, it’s quite a nice video. Beautifully shot and the lighting and colour palate is so consistent. For a 13 year old kid with little experience, Cody looks comfortable and cute. And the product placement is nice and subtle. It’s fun and (aside from Flo) the other actors are age appropriate. They’ve very craftily created a Beiber clone that also has a cool, surfy, somewhat edgy but incredible non-threatening vibe to him and hey, if that’s what the masses want, who am I to dismiss it?
