trapped in the closet

For a fascinating train-wreck of artistic failure, check out R. Kelly's five episode "urban opera" trapped in the closet. (can't manage to link straight to the video page, just click that link when the main page loads.)

It's spectacularly terrible by pretty much any measure. Awful story, some laugh-out-loud bad lyrics ("I flipped back the cover. Oh my god... a rubber!"), low rent special effects (they keep using the same two second shot of him driving in front of a greenscreen over and over again, poorly compositing different background shots in), combined with bad acting and illogical directing choices (why does he keep waving that gun around? ...and he must be the world's greatest lover if he manages to fuck his wife that good with his pants zipped up.)... where do you start?

Why, if he's going to attempt something as ambitious as an "urban opera" would he obviously spend so little time on the music? 20 minutes of two chords? It's not like the man doesn't know how to write a harmonically interesting song.

I'm tempted to ask why R. Kelly would feel the need to write an "urban opera" when he's already better than almost anyone in the game at writing a club banger, bump-and-grind slow jam or uplifting disney ballad, but honestly he probably would stand a better chance of writing a musically satisfying urban opera-ish piece of music than an opera composer would of producing a club hit. The real question is, why is it so bad?

I guess I can't blame him for not realizing that the story he wrote doesn't even come close to the low bar of O'Henry's gotcha style of irony (I hit every "cliffhanger" and ask "that's it?" and at the end wonder "she wanted him to sit down for that?"), but I truly can't understand why someone with the skills to write interesting music would attempt to hold my attention for 20 minutes by laying down a four minute, two-chord track and repeating it five times.

... all of which should not take away from the fact, once again, that the lyrics, acting and directing are bad beyond measure.

... and he's a pedophile with a scat fetish.