Pitchfork

Missy Elliott has been in her share of immediately memorable videos. Her longtime director Dave Meyers' new clip for "Ching-A-Ling/ Shake Your Pom Pom", from the Step Up 2 the Streets soundtrack (out today), doesn't look like one, except for one thing: It's in 3-D. So, um, put on your 3-D glasses, which you can get via distribution locations listed on Elliott's website. Wait, you're still here? Even the blurry way most of us will end up seeing it, the clip's all-over-the-place style does suit the equally zany work of Missy's producer here, Swizz Beatz. As we wrote last month, "Ching-A-Ling" plays "like a cross between a Swizz Beatz production and a Timbaland track, starting with the chaotic sirens also heard in 'It's Me Bitches' or Eve's Swizz-produced 'Tambourine', then settling into a droning snake-dance rhythm, complete with erotic moaning."

The video is a pretty literal take on the song's big-money boasts, with a team of Harajuku-garbed dancers backing Missy through some synchronized choreography while she raps with a gold chain around her neck. Missy swings in a tree at one point, because there's a line about swinging in a tree; she punches her fists at one point, because there's a line about Muhammad Ali; and she shows up with guys in baseball uniforms at one point, because there's a line about a baseball bat. The final segment of the clip, for the song "Shake Your Pom Pom", is a lot more relaxed, content just to be a party video for a song about shaking it like, yup, a pom pom. Well, all right, as long as there's shaking. Another thing that would probably a be a lot cooler if we all actually had 3-D glasses. Remember Captain EO?

[from the Step Up 2 the Streets soundtrack; out now on Atlantic/Warner]