"Carmen" by Stromae - A Critical Song about Twitter

Meet Stromae, the Belgian pop star that is changing the music game. While Stromae hasn't quite reached mainstream audiences or recognizable popularity in the United States he is still a rising star throughout the rest of the world. On Youtube Stromae has songs with tens and hundreds of millions of views. Additionally a rousing performance at Coachella this past weekend will be sure to raise Stromae's star factor here.

But his popularity isn't what sets Stromae apart from other artists; it is his ability to make meaningful but still catchy pop music. Meaningful pop music is something that is rare like a brief and passing shooting star but hopefully Stromae is here to stay because his music is redefining pop.

The video above is the music video to Stromae's song "Carmen" which released at the beginning of the month. It immediately caught my attention with its awesome visuals and interesting commentary on Twitter. Yes, Twitter as in the social networking platform. I really had never encountered music that directly challenged or addressed social media until "Carmen" and Stromae accomplishes it in breathtaking fashion.

The video begins with a chirping, oddly familiar looking, blue bird that approaches cartoon Stromae's windowsill. As it reaches the windowsill however the chirping transforms into a sort of distorted blaring alarm that begins our song. Stromae equates love to Twitter as it is only blue skies for a little while before the trouble begins.

The music video includes haunting visuals such as Stromae's blue twitter bird growing as his number of follows do too. It also includes the subtle inclusion of criticisms such as Stromae posting pictures of his food (a strange but common Internet practice) to only have his blue bird eat it. One of my personally favorite scenes was Stromae taking a selfie of him grinning at a party to post to the Internet. Yet moments later the shot pans out and the audience learns that Stromae is alone at his party with only his blue bird as company. In that moment Stromae draws the stark contrast between friends and followers.

Stromae depicts himself as a man isolated by his own celebrity. In real life Stromae's Twitter has close to two million followers, so perhaps Stromae truly does feel trapped in our world of social media and constant need for recognition.