As an English major, I am always inclined to media that has purposeful details that I can overanalyze and my favorite form of media to dive into is music videos.
A purposeful well-thought-out music video in many ways can be more impactful than a movie. In theory music videos are short in length, although some can be longer —I am looking at you “Smooth Criminal” —there isn’t a lot of time for build up over the course of an hour and a half and so, every detail and frame in a music video needs to convey the emotion that the artist intends to get across.
Music videos such as “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day do a phenomenal job at telling a long form story through quick snip-its and emotional vignettes. Even the more low-budget “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam is able to shock the audience and take familiar imagery such as a child’s writing and crayons into something haunting when paired with Eddie Vedder’s powerful vocals.
More and more, the music trend is to forgo the typical artist singing in front of a background and trying to give the song a story and engaging visuals.
Baby Queen’s “These Drugs” is a great example of this new trend. The video opens up with a neon pink bathroom, half-dressed dolls hang from the ceiling and fluorescent lights illuminate the room. With a slow pan, the frame switches to Queen staring at the camera in a close up shot — her makeup is beautifully done in a very “Euphoria-esque” fashion followed by shots of the glitter covered sink and her dancing with friends. This is interlaced with Queen’s first verse, introducing us with “I don’t want to do drugs anymore.” Right off the back something feels off, the hanging dolls and steady shot of Baby Queen just staring is unnerving.
This is an incredible way to draw the viewer in — this creepily glamorous lifestyle beckoning you in quite similar to the way in which drugs often enchant people to take them.
The pink bathroom is gone and replaced with a grimy graffitied bathroom complete with flickering lights and a disheveled Baby Queen who is visibly in a trance. Once again we get a close-up shot of Baby Queen in the pink bathroom before coming back once more to the grittier bathroom, showcasing the stark contrast between the perceived glamorization of drugs and the reality.
Finally leaving the run-down bathroom, we get one of my favorite sets in the whole music video, Queen rocks a neon orange eyeliner and denim jacket filled to the brim with pins surrounded in a trippy room complete with flowers growing from the ceiling, strobe lights and a spinning neon wheel. The shots in this set switch from fish-eye to close-up creating a disorienting feeling for the viewer when paired with the bright colors and nonsensical features of the room. It almost feels as if Baby Queen is taking you on a trip, giving the viewer a sneak peek into the fantastical euphoria many uppers create. However just as fleeting as the neon fever dream was we are back to reality as Baby is back in that grimy bathroom lighting a lighter presumably going back to her high.
Queen is shot in a red-lit hallway, dazed and seen getting physical with a male, before being snapped back to the Saw bathroom, where two costumed mascots quickly appear behind her before dissipating with the flicker of a light. From here on out the music video showcases what a bad trip is like, walls begin to be stretched with heads and hands buried underneath, Baby is stumbling around each room, hysterically crying and having a breakdown. The shots are quick-paced only to slow during the refrain in which Baby is following into a void, golden glitter highlights her face and neck, mimicking sweat from coming down from the high. To finish the video there are once again quick shots between each different room, ending with a rotating shot of Queen in the “Wonderland” room laughing on the floor.
These Drugs is not a Wes Anderson movie, nor does it try to be. The subtle nuances in how Queen is styled as well as the cinematography in relation to her vocals tells the story she is sharing. So often in the media, in shows such as Euphoria and music videos, drugs are portrayed in a glamorized fashion and so often an audience will see this fantastical depiction and become entranced themselves with the idea of doing drugs.
Baby Queen makes sure to interlace her more glamorized depictions with a gritty reality check, the run-down bathroom, the sweats, mood swings, anger and anxiety that comes when you finally sober up. When handling songs with this added nuance to them such as These Drugs it is most intriguing when there is this fantastical imagery. Having been through the D.A.R.E. program myself, I can confirm that the “drugs will kill you, drugs bad” message never really resonated with anybody in Gen Z. So often drugs were shown by schools to be death pills sold by tall strange men, when the reality is that they aren’t. So often, it is at parties where the social pressure to get high with everybody else is incredible, you trust these friends, it feels safe and fun.
I firmly believe that the more artists such as Baby Queen and the media show doing drugs in a more realistic fashion from the mindset of somebody who has actually done them, the better prepared and educated younger generations will be.
All in all, Baby Queen’s music video has fabulous cinematography and I am determined to go get a neon orange eyeliner now. Baby Queen does a great job at getting her message across in a down-to-earth way that invites the viewer in, taking them with her on the drug-fueled rollercoaster from highs to disorienting come-downs, and I am giving this music video an 8/10.
I got the chance to talk with Baby Queen at in2une Music’s Campus Campfire Event in late February. The audio segment from this event is included within this article. We talked about what she would call her microgenre, and which artists she would induct into the genre. She called her microgenre “intelligent grunge pop” and among the artists that she named were Phoebe Green, Lorde, and Matt Heely of The 1975.
Stay tuned for more on Baby Queen, as she will be joining Radio DePaul for an interview in the near future!