Sugar Water: Deconstruction on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

So sitting around and watching a bunch of music videos was a whole lot more fun that I could have imagined. The music video Sugar Water by Cibo Matto was one of my favorites. I actually recognized the song but couldn't quite place it. I looked it up, and turns out the band performed on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the Bronx. The one part of the show that I always found really cool was the various bands that perform on the show. For those of you who do not know, in Buffy there is a club called the Bronx where all of the teenagers go and dance after school. In nearly every episode, a new band plays at the Bronx every night. I always wondered if these were actually bands performing their own songs trying to make it big by airing on an episode of Buffy. Did they have to audition? It would have definitely been a  way to make a big break at that time, since it was a very popular show in its day, and still is.

I was really excited to learn that these were actual bands that no one had heard of. It seems like a really cool way to give artists opportunities to get their name and their songs out there. The class on Tuesday got me thinking of deconstruction, especially after watching the Gorillaz music video. In Buffy, the scenes in the Bronx show you "live" performances of no-name bands. These are ultimately small scenes in the lives of these bands. Most of them probably play in small clubs or bars as shown in Buffy every night trying to gain popularity or make some cash. What is really interesting about what Buffy is doing is that it is showing this struggle that many of these artists are facing (the live performances, the small scene, etc.) and putting it on a big screen, something that will be viewed by millions of people. Meanwhile, millions of people are getting this late night, crowded concert atmosphere while watching countless bands they never would have heard of from their couches on TV. It's just really bizarre what this show gave both to these no-name bands and to the viewers. If you look up the music video on YouTube, you will see many people saying "Buffy the Vampire Slayer brought me here!", which is just phenomenal. 

It's a bit of a weird scene, but here is the scene from Buffy. Not one of her greatest moments.