I would consider my admiration and enjoyment of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be sufficient enough that I have their hypothetical backs. They’re not my favorite band by any means, but they make great songs/records and can play harder than most musicians of their time. Basically, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are pretty cool, so it upsets me when mediocre rap-metal bands come out of nowhere, only to score one half-witted hit and sample Kiedis, Flea, Smith and Slovak. People sample parts of tracks every day in modern music, but few acts dare to claim they wrote the song. This is merely only the beginning as to why I hate the music video for Crazy Town’s one and horrible single, “Butterfly”.
Most of you who had a radio at the turn of the millennium probably remember the song “Butterfly”. And those of you who watched MTV before school every morning in 2001 probably remember the video for “Butterfly.” I know I do, and it’s unfortunate. People who remember this song properly most likely feel the same way Colin Hank’s character feels about it in Orange County. The song was extremely overplayed, heavily advertised, and a complete and total rip-off, but nevertheless, sometimes the talentless get lucky.
As I said earlier, Crazy Town’s one song was a Chili Peppers rip off, as the entire song is nothing more than a looped segment of “Pretty Little Ditty”, off Mother’s Milk, an obscure Peppers album from the ’80s. The only thing Crazy Town did to liven things up were add a drum track, and write horrible rhymes that compared women to insects. And within the first few moments of this video, we are introduced to the band that was Crazy Town, which essentially was two rappers and a “backing band” who did what they could to fill in the blanks within the Chili Peppers loop (while researching this article, I learned Crazy Town’s first major tour was opening for them, go figure). In this video, though, the band seems completely pointless, since the majority of this song is merely a sample. It would be like the Beastie Boys playing their instruments on “No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn”.
The band is playing in a jungle that looks like Tim Burton’s rendition of Wonderland if he’d had the balls to try doing that kind of CGI in 1984. The camera continues to swoop around them, to try and mimic the moves of a butterfly would be my best guess. One of their singers by the name of “Shifty” begins to rap while gazing up at the camera with so many piercings in tattoos that my knees get weak thinking about the amount of needles he has dealt with. Within the first verse, we’re shown this mysterious girl, who we can only assume is Shifty’s magic butterfly, but to me she looks more like a typical San Francisco raver. She’s just lying in a very bright field, that is equally as mystical as the forest, and there appear to be butterflies all around her.
All around the band as well, there are many monarch butterflies landing everywhere. Why they didn’t think to use more vibrantly colored butterflies is beyond me, but those things are landing all over the band and their gear. The other singer, “Epic”, only seems to sing the chorus for a majority of the song, while rapping flamboyantly in his D.A.R.E. t-shirt. The rest of the band just sort of bobs around in the background, with haircuts that would make even Dee Snider laugh at their absurdity. Also, for some reason, the video keeps doing this sort of warp effect, which I can’t tell if it’s really artistic, making it cutting edge, or it’s really stupid, making it trippy in the same way iPhoto can be trippy.
When the second verse starts, Shifty’s star tattoos on his shoulders suddenly illuminate, and then take off from his body and into the sky. This method of tattoo removal seems so much less complex than laser surgery. It then cuts to Shifty molesting the previously seen woman’s face, but all I care about at this point is where the star tattoos went. Obviously, they flew across the jungle to this mysterious girl in the field, as she hopefully gazes out over the horizon. The obnoxious chorus returns so that Epic can get his moment, but then shortly after, the monarch covered D.A.R.E. graduate spits his verse. As he raps, we get to watch the girl get joined by a few other equally hot, but slightly punk, all frolic around together in a fit of joy that is slightly erotic.
The video finally comes to an end shortly after, with another chorus that lasts a lifetime, Shifty blowing monarchs at the camera, and the “band” rocking their hardest. The best surprise though is when the mysterious girl suddenly sprouts a pair of purple wings, only to reveal she is a butterfly. However, I find her more to resemble a fairy from the Mountain Corporation’s line of fantasy t-shirts. To finish it off though, Shifty and the butterfly chick meet up, face to face, and engage in possibly the worst and most loveless kiss I have ever seen. The only worse romance I’ve ever seen was three hours long, on a boat, and about a lady who was 101 years old.
Let’s face facts; Crazy Town was no Led Zeppelin. Hell, Crazy Town wasn’t even Limp Bizkit (at a time where being Limp Bizkit meant something). That whole rap-metal trend came and went so fast, and Crazy Town missed out. Who knows, maybe if “Butterfly” came out before “Nookie”, the world of music would be different. Instead though, Crazy Town and their one hit have become a piece of new-millennium nostalgia, which will forever be associated with raver chicks, MTV hype, and quality Jack Black movies. You won’t ever see this video on TV again, and you won’t ever hear it on the radio either, but chances are if you lived during our generation, you’ll certainly be cursed with a memory of this song.
