These Music Videos Are Clean, in a Way

I managed to drag myself to the gym early today. One of the advantages of that is that MTV and VH1 air videos in the morning instead of reality shows. This morning I saw Avril Lavigne’s “Wish You Were Here” video, in which she appears in a bathtub. I only take showers, but tubs make for better music videos. Here’s a list of my five bath-featuring favorites, rated on a scale of one to four soap bubbles.

1. I’ll give half a bubble each to Young Money’s “Bed Rock” and the Pussycat Dolls’ “I Don’t Need a Man.”

Young Money wouldn’t normally count because it’s just some random video vixen, rather than the artist, in the tub at 2:14, but at least it happens during Drake’s verse, which is my favorite. Nicki Minaj is also in the video, and all videos get bonus points for Nicki Minaj. The Pussycat Dolls have a cute moment at 1:22 when a Doll is in a tub that tips over. This Dolls’ bodies always persuade me to work on my abs, even when I’m not in the mood, so this video is good for my fitness.

2. One bubble to Rihanna’s “We Found Love.”

I adore Rihanna and I could watch this “crackheads in love” video all day. At 3:58 she executes the most important bathtub music-video maneuver: sinking below the water. But I confess that I prefer the sight of her vomiting ribbons at 4:02.

3. Two bubbles to Britney Spears’s “Everytime.”

A suicidal fantasy with excellent “sinking below the water” action that starts around 2:36.

3. Three bubbles to Prince’s “When Doves Cry.” I’m deducting a bubble because the video isn’t on YouTube due to copyright issues. (You can see it without sound here.) Normally, anything from Prince’s heyday is deserving of four bubbles, even if there’s no bathtub involved! So it pains me to have to do this. As a result, Prince’s extra bubble is going to …

4. Eminem’s “3 a.m.,” which has turned up on my music lists before. I’ll give this four bubbles because there’s nothing like a nice relaxing bath of warm blood.

Em starts sinking into the blood around 4:00. He doesn’t achieve full coverage, but his eyes darting back and forth above the blood make up for it.

4. Finally, on the one-to-four bubble scale, Fiona Apple’s heroin-chic 1997 video for “Criminal” gets ONE MILLION BUBBLES from me.

“Criminal” merges those messy house parties that I usually dislike in music videos with the 1995 Calvin Klein Jeans ad campaign that was deemed child porn by critics. As Fiona slouches down in the water at 1:40 — her face framed by the feet of a bathtub companion — she really seems like the “bad, bad girl” she says she is. This bath makes me feel filthy, and I like it.

Honorary bubbles go to Salt ‘N’ Pepa’s “Whatta Man” (bath action starts around 1:30) and George Michael’s “Freedom ’90” (supermodel Cindy Crawford is in the tub starting at 2:58).

Got some bath-tastic favorites of your own? List them in the comments. Note: Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” doesn’t count!