Calling Savion Glover

So this past weekend, I’m watching an old Alanis music video. No, I wasn't breaking out the plaid and thinking about dreading my hair; the only reason I’ve just discovered this video is because there’s a Six Degrees of Separation thing going between this music video from the 90s and the movie I Am Legend, which we just saw on Friday night. Don’t ask.

So….anyway! I’m watching this video, getting really into the vibe (and what are you doing to do about it?) when I notice something which I had hoped was banned around the start of the millennium. And that would be The Tap. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s those tap-dancing sounds employed in videos and films when they're trying to convince you that the people are actually tap dancing. Here…a perfect case in point – Paula Abdul in "Opposites Attract" at timestap 2:57 when she does that little pas de deux with Mr. Cartoon Cat:



Now we all know that cats can't tap. But we do know Paula Abdul can. Paula has made abba-solutely, pah-ha-sitively sure that we know she can tap. See the beginning of "Straight Up", hence a surge in the rate of broken toes in 1989 (including mine) from little girls thinking they could be anything close to the tap-dancing fool that was Paula Abdul. Hey, that rhymes!

So why is The Tap being employed here? To make it more…tappier? Paula Abdul don’t need no help tapping!

Fast forward to the Alanis video. She can dance, right? Considering all the moaning and groaning she does when she sings, literally and figuratively, so heavy was she with the philsophical musings on life and love, I’d never have guessed she was that light on her feet. I’m suitably impressed. And then at the timestamp of 1:27?

I present to you The Tap



At first, I’m looking over my shoulder like “Where’s that sound coming from?” And then it’s like “Aw, man! Is that The Tap?” The whole thing just becomes so fake. Faker than fake. Because you can't just pretend to tap! You must feeeeeel the tapper tapping, seeeeee the tapper tapping!

If The Tap is the audio version of steroids, that would make Alanis Morrissette the Jose Canseco of tap dancing.