Pink's "Raise Your Glass" Music Video Review

Pink's "Raise Your Glass"

Music Video Review"

By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto

The music video to P!NK’s “Raise Your Glass” depicts the pop star doing her best to speak for the underdogs among us by taking on various iconic roles—Rosie the Riveter, wallflower, um, sumo wrestler—in an attempt to make an uplifting comment about personal triumph and unity. Maybe she’s getting a little too ambitious--the song itself isn’t anything we haven’t heard before, and the music video will only be memorable as a baffling jumble of humor and random moments of sincerity.

During the verses, the images in the video range from the typical, with P!NK busting a few moves for the camera, to the bizarre, with the singer dressed in a ski mask pouring milk into a cow’s mouth as blindfolded young women sit idly by.

We can probably thank Lady Gaga’s success for that confusing moment.

The chorus, on the other hand, appears to be celebrating all the unheard voices that, if the lyrics are to be believed, can conquer all adversity simply by belting out a good song. There are random shots of poor urban youths that suggest they are one of the potential targets of the song’s message. That’s a nice sentiment, but the problems of such people probably won’t be greatly eased by a catchy pop tune. P!NK should have stuck with singing to the insecure teenage girl who doesn’t have a date for the prom.

Then again, it’s teenage girls who are going to buy her records anyway, and they aren’t going to be up in arms over a well-meaning but ineffective music video. For P!NK’s target audience, this video won’t be a classic, but it will be a nice visual aid to give the song a little more punch. No one listens to P!NK for insightful commentary on society. She’s more likely to be heard at a middle school dance than on PBS.

With actual musical programming pretty much gone from MTV, the music video would be a dying art form if it wasn’t for the internet, which provides viewers with these films whenever they care to view them. For a fan of the medium, “Raise Your Glass” is a forgettable and inconsistent effort. But if it sells enough records to make the label a profit, the creative team behind it will probably be satisfied. Just don’t expect it to win a VMA.

View the video below. What are your thoughts?