Rebecca Ferguson - Glitter & Gold: Music Video Review

By Josh Webb / April 17, 2012

In these hard, troubling times where Britain and the world struggles through rising debt and the economic downturn, people often end up looking for new ways to muster up the last few notes to pay the bills. You may have seen those many adverts on TV which implore you to part with your golden belongings for the sake of humanity such as cashmygold.com, wewantyourgold.co.uk and arrrghibehavingyelootmehearty.org. The wellbeing these institutions promote is staggering and the government has clearly noted how important their dedicated work has been for the masses. Therefore, to heighten public awareness, they€™ve combined forces with ex-X Factor chanteuse-of-the-static-feet Rebecca Ferguson to create a powerful viral advertising campaign warning the general public of the impeding dangers of wearing cheap gold jewellery to swanky parties. Or at least I think that€™s what this confusing hodgepodge is€ Oh a music video you say? Well that changes everything. Yes, Rebecca Ferguson€™s ascent to critical success has been as low-key as her many piano backed performances on the X Factor but upon hearing she was making Glitter & Gold, a barn-storming sassy soul-diva number, into her third single off debut album Heaven, my mind turned to mush at the visual possibilities. Is it glitter, gold and wild horses of which you speak? Well then, give me glitter cannons! Give me gold painted stallions! Give me haute couture hats that look like bedazzled marine creatures! Give me Rebecca Fierce Diva-son amongst exploding sequined plinths, if you please. With all that in mind, ladies and gentleman may I introduce to you the actual setting of this video: a house party. No it€™s not a BEP I Gotta Feeling kind of house party; this is a subdued Made in Chelsea cast in their downtime kind of house party. No Rebecca, no amount of close-up shots of pretend socialites wearing costume jewellery will ever make up for the sadness I feel inside. Nope, not even your lovely floral number (bang on spring/summer €™12 trends right there), leant-against-wall glances and patio based posing. My spangly dreams have been blasted away.To the narrative then and some chap in a hideous jacket/gold chain combo is stalking up all the women to no avail; he tries flashing his watch but he forgets that this chat-up technique only works if you do the Rolex Sweep straight after. Silly Oaf. Our main character, known officially as Girl- Caught-in-Headlights, is just not feeling the love. Rebecca gives her slight evils (which is a sign you've definately done something immoral) and two Made in Chelsea extras go into evil eye overdrive before she materialises on the porch in a trance of gold-plated self-doubt. Her worries are no mystery when we learn the deadly consequences of wearing cheap jewellery and acting like a posh buffoon €“ you turn into€ cardboard cut-outs. Yes, it€™s Invasion of the Tacky Trinkets from Mars! A B-Movie idea just waiting to be made but, whilst I can see the message the director was aiming for, it ends up portrayed as laughable instead of stylised. What is done better, in my opinion, is the rapid shot sequence of golden accessories (plus champagne darlings) towards the end proving that you don€™t need some convoluted conflicted character narrative to pull off a message with flair. So by the song's end we're left with Girl-Caught-in-Headlights acting out a mirror scene as if this was an GCSE media studies project and poor glam Rebecca stood on her lonesome on the porch, probably trying to avoid sweeping up all those cardboard Rahs just out of shot. Considering last single Too Good to Lose didn't even touch the top 100, despite having a video a gazillion times more fitting than this one, I have very little hope for Glitter & Gold on the singles chart but fingers crossed it can keep her album sales bolstered up and next time Syco might aim for jeweled potential rather than cardboard mediocrity. Oh and, in case you were wondering, yes! Invasion of the Tacky Trinkets from Mars! will be coming to a cinema near you (in the very very very distant future)...