Meet the Candidates, Part I

Only six days remain before the voting closes for Los Premios MTV 2008, the Latin American version of the MTV awards...less than a week in which to help Alizée triumph over the likes of Katy Perry and the eeeeeevil Jonas Brothers, and be crowned as 'Mejor Artista Nuevo Internacional' (Best New International Artist).

Regular readers may recall--because I've only mentioned in every single post since--that I created the above YouTube video to promote Alizée at the MTVLA awards, and to explain in plain English exactly how one could go about voting for her. The key is not to just vote for Alizée, but to vote in all the categories in order for your vote to count. The problem is, not only is this kind of a pain in the butt, but most of the other categories are filled with artists who are unknown to North Americans like myself.

Who to vote for, then? Once again, folks, Operation: Disque Drop is here for you. Allow me to drop some science on you, and share a little of my own voting strategy with the following outtakes from the aforementioned YouTube video.

Op Drop Recommends...


OK, not so obscure and kind of a gimmie, but I thought we'd warm up with a really easy one first, and work our way down to the really hard ones. Nominated in the categories 'Mejor Artista Pop Internacional' (Best International Pop Artist) and 'Mejor Ringtone Musical' (Best Musical Ringtone...seriously, there's an award for this?), Madonna is arguably the most recognizable nominee to most North American voters. (Unless, of course, you're a twelve year-old girl with a crush on Joe Jonas.)

Though personally I'm not a big fan of her later stuff, Madonna has served as a major influence on Alizée and her music since the age of five. Lili has done covers of both La Isla Bonita and Hung Up (both of which appear on the Op Drop disque), and samples Music in the 'new' version of Moi...Lolita that she performs on the Psychédélices tour. And as aw has speculated on his blog, she may even have drawn inspiration from Madonna's video for Deeper and Deeper in creating the song Fifty Sixy. There's no questioning the fact that Alizée would vote for Madonna herself...so, since Alizée is kind of the point of all this, we vote for Madonna.

I mean, screw Tokio Hotel anyway, right?

Next up...


A little more obscure, at least to North Americans, but also a nominee with an Alizée connection...for me, anyway. See, I stumbled across the video for Belanova's single 1, 2, 3, Go! in a post they'd made on Alizée's offical MySpace page a couple of months ago (back when embedding videos on her page was still allowed), and absolutely fell in love with it. Bouncy and fun, with an awesome bassline, it's one of the few non-Alizée tracks to see heavy rotation on my iPod in recent months. And the video is cute.

Nominated in the categories 'Artista Del Ano' (Artist of the Year), 'Group O Duo' (Group or Duo), 'Mejor Artista Pop' (Best Pop Artist), 'Video Del Ano' (Video of the Year), and kinda/sorta in 'Mejor Fan Club' (Best Fan Club), Belanova is one of the few nominees I can genuinely say I'm voting for on merit...as you'll see when we get further down the list, here.

For example...


Seriously. That's a pretty kick-ass hat, man.

Actually, since I began voting in this thing, I have bothered to do a little research into the artists I've been voting for (often with the flimsiest of excuses), and I've discovered that Café Tacvba is one I can genuinely get behind...if only because their video for Eres perfectly captures what it was like to be me at twelve years old. I guess some experiences are universal. Café Tacvba is nominated in a bunch of the same categories as Belanova, but is my choice for 'Mejor Artista Alternativo' (Best Alternative Artist).

More recommendations tomorrow. Until then, get out there and rock the vote for Alizée!