Kanye West "All of the Lights ft. Rihanna, Kid Cudi" Music Video Review

Kanye West "All of the Lights ft. Rihanna, Kid Cudi"

Music Video Review

By our guest blogger, Nick Hanover

The big buzz amongst critics about Kanye West's "All of the Lights" video is that director Hype Williams pretty much entirely lifted the title sequence from Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void for the middle portion of the video. Hell, Williams even went out of his way to play up the epileptic fit-inducing traits of that part of West's video, with a warning at the beginning and in the YouTube description. It's pretty easy to see why, since Hype Williams is and will always be a music video director who is first and foremost concerned with spectacle and flash.

As such, the portions of the video that aren't a rip-off of Noe's screwe- up drug epic feel a little lacking. There's some kind of story here but it's thin at best and the fact that "All of the Lights" features Rihanna prominently while West goes off about a (one time) abusive partner trying to be forgiven makes that story unnecessarily awkward.

Sopleasefortheloveofgodjustkeepshowingtheprettyprettylights.

Ahem.

Williams does manage to fit those pretty pretty lights into lots of places, though, like alleyways and on top of police cars and in a house that feels vaguely like the abode from one and/or both of those Paranormal Activity movies. No, it doesn't make sense. No, no one cares. All that should matter to you is that the whole thing could make you have an epileptic fit and that at one point, West is jumping on cop car roofs like he was Michael Jackson in "Black or White." Or maybe I only think that because I swear both West and Kid Cudi are rocking leather jackets from separate eras of Michael Jackson history.

Is "All of the Lights" a good video? Not in comparison to other West or Hype Williams productions, no. Will it enhance and/or totally ruin your acid trip? Yes, most definitely.

View the video below. Thoughts?