Music Video Monday: "Turn Up the Radio" by Madonna

Nearly a month ago, Madonna Youtube released her latest music video for her single "Turn Up the Radio," which debuted a week ago. Surprisingly, the vid hasn't received a whole lot of attention, only garnering 4.5 million views as of today. Or is it not surprising?

For one, it premiered on her VEVO channel, which only has one-sixth the amount of subscribers as her official channel that houses ALL her other music videos, even her other two from album MDNA. Perhaps, she is trying to move to VEVO, since her own channel is flooded with uploads from highlights from her tour. Madonna isn't the only artist to do this in their return to music during the VEVO-era. Fellow pop-mogul Kylie Minogue has a library as large as Madonna, but only her two most recent videos are housed on her VEVO, while she uses her own channel for tour and other promotional highlights.

Further, it was released three weeks before its availability as a single. A bit hasty? Perhaps. Also, the vid seems to have had little promotion is other spheres. This may be that her company is busy with her world tour. Who knows?

Maybe it's the video itself. It doesn't flow into the extraordinary or the exceptionally exciting. It's a simple video, which isn't a bad thing if it's charming enough to keep people's attention, though even Madonna seems bored in it. Thanks to the filters of soft-focus lenses used throughout, Madonna looks half her 54-year age. The vintage look seems more like a fallback on the popularity of Instagram, though. Madonna has had an eye for trends, so this use is not surprising, even if it follows a similar move by Minogue (again) in her use of sepia tone for parts of her "Timebomb" video released a month prior to the filming of "Turn Up the Radio."

Basically, the video consists of Madonna fleeing Italian press and fans with her chaffeur, while picking up a few characters along the way, including her twenty-five-year-old boyfriend French dancer Brahim Zaibat (he's about my age...puts their relationship into perspective for me...weird...). Yep, that's about it. The vid's nothing more or less than that. In all, it is a fun video for a positive song that seems to have been a better choice for a lead single and Super Bowl headliner than "Give Me All Your Luvin'," but apparently, Madonna had hoped to capitalize on the stardom of collaborators Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. at the time.

No idea why "(Explicit)" is included in the title when there is nothing "explicit" in the video and there is no "clean" version to compare it to. Anyway, check it out. It's a fine vid.