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She’s like Derek Zoolander: she’s got Blue Steel, but that’s all, folks.

Her smoky looks alone can’t make her video interesting. Ciara is more of a back-up dancer than she is a star. Scrobble, find and rediscover music with a Last.fm account. Whatever it is, “Like a Boy” doesn’t quite cut it. Watch the video for Like a Boy from Ciaras The Evolution for free, and see the artwork. Perhaps it’s the mediocre singing, the trite lyrics, the excessive dancing, or the fact that she just seems to be having too much fun traipsing around in drag while singing about being burned by a lover. It’s kind of cool, but that moment of creativity is fleeting. And there is one inspired instant when she sings the words “I love you” and the dancers’ silhouettes become that of a beating heart. On the upside, she sure is pretty and flexible, and goddamn is she toned. She’s not an actress, not a performer, and she’s barely a musician, and this video isn’t distracting enough to carry her along with it. But she just doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi that makes her interesting to watch. The video relies almost totally on her–her face, her legs, and her dancing (basically everything but her singing). “Like a Boy” ultimately reveals the unfortunate truth that Ciara’s just not charismatic enough. The black and white color scheme makes the video even less interesting. The dancing is good but it’s common to every female R&B/pop video. Sadly, Ciara’s new music video for “Like a Boy” merely consists of her dressing up in drag, grabbing her crotch every available moment, and threatening to “act like a boy” to one that has presumably done something to hurt her. If an artist with no real talent releases a single that’s boring, repetitive, and anticlimactic, then the music video should compensate with an interesting plot or stunning special effects.

Music video ciara like a boy