Skylar Grey will tell you that "C'mon Let Me Ride" is probably her "catchiest single" to date, but that doesn't mean it's your typical polished pop number.
If it weren't obvious from the lyrics that she's mocking our highly sexualized culture ("If you got a sweet tooth, you can taste my watermelons"), that's made clear in her new video, which also features Eminem.
"I'm poking fun at the overtly sexualized aspect of everything in this world today," Grey told. "The video is a combined effort between director Isaac Rentz, me and Eminem, and we just wanted to make sure it was very clear that it's a sarcastic song."
The clip was shot at a trailer park in Detroit, and one of the best parody moments finds the singer operating her own plastic-surgery center as Dr. Grey, serving up some botched alterations. The grotesque surgery results, including wildly inflated lips, aren't too far from what viewers might find on shows like "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
As for her own sexed-up scene in the video, the 26-year-old simply laughed at its absurdity.
"There's one scene in the music video where I'm dressed up in this pink polka-dot swimming suit with a pink background, pink nails, a pink bicycle with an ice-cream cone on the back of it and it's totally girly — and not me at all," she explained. "I think that's clear, because that scene happens over the bridge of the song, where I say, 'I'm only f---ing with you, and f--- you for thinking it's true,' and that's when I have the pink polka-dot thing on, so it's saying, 'This isn't really me.' "
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"C'mon Let Me Ride" will appear on Grey's Don't Look Down album, scheduled to debut next spring. Eminem has signed on to executive produce the LP, and he had no trouble understanding her vision for the new single and its accompanying video.
"Eminem stands on my side when it comes to that stuff," she said of her decision to parody contemporary culture. "He used to be really silly back in the day with his Slim Shady stuff, so he's definitely got a good sense of humor, and it's fun to see him on set and in front of the camera."