Jason Derulo's "In My Head" is a typical pop song with predictable pitch-perfect auto tuning, bridges nestled in cookie-cutter verses, and anemic lyrics about unintentionally sexist intercourse.
Though there is an obvious imitation, great steps have been taken to push forward while acknowledging Michael Jackson's groundbreaking, although sometimes controversial, music video style. Filmed in late 2009, still in the wake of Jackson's death, Derulo's eulogy is more than imitation, more than wearing a blue hoodie instead of a blue buttoned-down shirt. The "In My Head" video takes the grandeur of 1987 and rebuilds it in 2010.
But despite all this, there is one aspect that makes the song more than a repetitive echo in the Top 40 charts: The "In My Head" music video, directed by Kai Crawford, is a purposeful and elegant homage to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" directed by Joe Pytka. Though Derulo's lyrics have little connection to Jackson's 1987 classic, the music video is a subtle, almost masterful, update to Jackson's wooing dance tune.
At the heart of both videos, a male character engages in flirtations, dancing, and flirtatious dancing. Though Derulo doesn't solely imitate Jackson's dance moves, the specific cinematics of those dance moves are similarly silhouetted. Derulo's video goes even further to introduce a blue hue to the screen in a similar style as Jackson's dramatic final dance number.
Derulo goes beyond simple imitation though. One criticism of Jackson's "They Way You Make Me Feel" is negative portrayal of the loitering and fraternizing aspects of male society. Jackson's video, in a misogynistic fashion, isolates the female object of affection (Tatiana Thumbzen) in an accosting manner. Jackson chases her around the streets, simulates sex (or rape), but still manages to win her over.
Derulo's video, perhaps trying to avoid this distasteful perception, updates this idea by providing his female character supportive friends from the start of the video. Also, the female lead in "In My Head" clearly enjoys Derulo's advances from the start, while Thumbzen seemed actually to fear Jackson up until the end of the 1987 video.
Though there is an obvious imitation, great steps have been taken to push forward while acknowledging Michael Jackson's groundbreaking, although sometimes controversial, music video style. Filmed in late 2009, still in the wake of Jackson's death, Derulo's eulogy is more than imitation, more than wearing a blue hoodie instead of a blue buttoned-down shirt. The "In My Head" video takes the grandeur of 1987 and rebuilds it in 2010.
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