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And then you go home to your studio, make some beats, filter some loops, bust some mad sounds on your crazy track, bung the whole thing on a CD, take it to the clubs, get a good response, pass out some CD-Rs, get some white-labels made up, spread the word, storm some barns, get some record company interest...and then they go "hey, have you got any ideas for the video?"

It's at this point you've got to make a choice. You can do the indie/rock/pop act thing and insist that you - and you alone - have enough charisma, animal magnetism and general watchability that people will thrill to the sight of you doing your job on camera, wiggling faders, turning knobs, nodding, all that... (don't scoff, there's plenty of indie bass-players who labour under the same mis-apprehension)...

...OR you can just give in and let the record company pay some pervert to make a video in which a gang of lady dancers dress up in doll's clothing and bend over a lot.

It's a tough choice, isnit? Made all the harder when the record company point out that every big-selling dance hit of the last two years has had a video you could use to teach female biology with (and the history of uniforms), and the ones without the sexy video don't tend to be the hits.

Take Alex Gaudino's video for 'Destination Calabria'...a video which is apparently so near the knuckle that YouTube are insisting that you prove you are over 18 before they will let you watch it. It's not THAT saucy, mind, cos it's been on TV. Maybe the sight of girls in band costumes licking trumpets is OK, but the bit where one of them hoicks her pants out of her hungry bum is a bit ripe for some people.

Which is a shame, cos it's clearly a smashing song, which is storming up the charts RIGHT NOW. And as soon as it's a proper hit, everyone will claim that it only made it because of the video.

So, here's a test. There's another dance track heading chartward at the moment by Seamus Haji. You'll have heard it on Radio 1 a lot, it's called 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life' and its (windows media) video is

Notice anything? That's right, some of the scantily-clad women are MEN, and some of THEM aren't even scantily clad at all. Is that messing with the very fabric of REASON ITSELF, or what?

So, if this record is a hit, and let's face it, it deserves to be...does that mean we can expect to see a lot more videos which feature transvestite dance-offs? C'mon, marketing people, let's use your logic for a second...if it works for Seamus Haji, it's BOUND to work for someone else, right?

*Dusts hands off, looks smug*

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