Video[s] Of The Day: "Umbrella"

Hey, anyone remember Mandy Moore?

Well, Mandy is recording again, and she has reinvented herself as something like Paula Cole's or late-career Alanis Morissette's younger sister. Mandy's new record, Wild Hope, is pretty good if you're into that kind of emo-chick pop.

Anyway, Mandy recently covered Rihanna's smash "Umbrella" [not on her new record, unfortunately] for Yahoo! Music's "Cover Art" section [cover songs -- get it?]. Mandy gave it the Wild Hope treatment, and the results are certainly interesting:



[Nice touch performing in front of the monitors showing the original outstanding video for the track.

Maybe soon -- maybe -- I'll have to unpack all that nonsense at the beginning of the clip. Mandy, why are you throwing your early career under the bus like that???]

Okay, that may not be everyone's thing, and I'm a little conflicted about it myself. But the real gem in this episode is that on the Mandy page is a link to "the original" -- which is not, in fact, Rihanna's original video, but is actually RIHANNA HERSELF performing the song live for Yahoo! Music.

I've never seen Rihanna perform live, and I didn't know she had a real "band". Quite rightly, directors keep the band out of sight, because, let's face it, if you've got someone as breathtakingly beautiful as Rihanna on stage, you want to show Rihanna. But this band is terrific, and they really funked and rocked the shit out of that song. The result is an obvious choice for Video Of The Day:



[Okay, we coulda done without the umbrella dancers, and MORE RIHANNA, but still, well done!]

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For reference, and also just because, here is the original video for "Umbrella", which is undeniably the most artistically sexy video I've seen in at least 5 years: