Peaches made it very clear to me, both in her words and her actions, that she no longer believes in our work — both in the Urban Planning Committee and our pop music. She felt trapped by my relative power. For example, she knows that even though she is no longer a part of my work, her nondisclosure agreements are so binding that if she talks publicly or even privately about any of my secrets, I will have the power to ruin her life in a serious way. I’m angry enough right now that I would probably do it. I trust she won’t talk about the Urban Planning Committee, in any case. I think that, unfortunately, she would sound insane if she tried to do so. I didn’t mean for it to be like that.
I know you’ve done some reading about the Situationists — so you know that to rigorously maintain the focus and driving force of the group, Guy [Debord] had to expel several members, including a few of his painter friends. I’ve exchanged a few e-mails with an academic named McKenzie Wark (under a pseudonym of course) who has just written a book about the Situationists, and has been asked to write the introduction to a collection of Guy’s correspondence. I convinced him to send me a few of the translated letters he’s working with and I read Guy’s own words on expelling members from the Situationists.
It comes down to this: it was incredibly painful for Guy to break with his friends and oust them, but if he hadn’t done so, the Situationists would’ve crumbled. I won’t let my own efforts crumble. I’ve worked too hard and come to [sic] far. If Peaches didn’t mean to hurt the Urban Planning Committee and my pop career, I would be able to work with her — but she acted against me deliberately. I can’t deal with that. I won’t ever see her again. I don’t care if you maintain a friendship with her, but you can’t speak to her about the Urban Planning Committee. If you do, I’ll expel you too. I’m sorry to sound so strict with you. I love you. Any forcefulness behind my words is because I’m hurt and frightened of losing you as well.
The first thing I want to do when I get back to Chicago is talk deeply and seriously with you. I miss you. I will see you when I return.
Ali and Molly did speak “deeply and seriously” and Ali reassured Molly, who put the incident with Peaches out of her mind.s Molly stopped worrying, and Ali continued her friendship with Peaches.
Meanwhile, Berliner and Molly had been working like mad on The Ghost Network, piling map on top of map at a frantic pace, as “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” started to get more and more airtime on Top 40 radio. To keep up their breakneck speed, Berliner often traveled from Chicago to wherever Molly was promoting her album and singles. Berliner enjoyed visiting Molly’s other world, her vibrant life as a steadily rising pop star, so they were together for the climax of the work on The Ghost Network, on the set of the “New Vogue Riche” music video.
On August 31, 2008, more than a year after Molly and Berliner had begun building The Ghost Network, Molly’s dancers, entourage, and a film crew descended on a mansion in the affluent Los Angeles suburb of Westlake Village to shoot the music video for “New Vogue Riche,” Molly’s first EDM-influenced single. Molly conceptualized the video, which follows a girl who discovers a portal to her own city hidden inside the second floor of a fancy mansion. It is a sequel to her first music video, for “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas).”
As she hadn’t yet proven she could record a hit, the label spent almost nothing on the “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” video production. To direct, they had hired Danielle Skendarian (not yet as in demand as she is today, and therefore cheaper), rented a mansion, and told Joe Frank Parker to choreograph a “normal pop video dance.”t Parker obliged and developed a routine that combined sharp jazz movement with provocative hip-hop dance aesthetics, plus a few movements that would become dance signatures for Molly: a slinky walk with little flicks of her legs, her hands blocking her face, her whole upper body still; rolling into what, in yoga, would be called a “shoulder stand” and haphazardly peddling her legs; and overall jerking, rather than fluid, movements.
SDFC had foisted upon Molly a concept for the “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” video. It begins with Molly and her friends (Peaches and Ali) driving to a mansion on a hill, lit with teal and purple lights. During the chorus, they crash the party, and dance around as the guests dressed in Gatsby-esque costumes look on, perplexed. In a dazzling, back-lit close up, Molly lip-syncs her hook: “Don’t stop stop / stop never stop / Keep dancing, dancing / dancing ’til we drop.” She finds Astroman, the song’s producer, among the guests and gyrates against him, mouthing his lyrics: “Work, work, work your body / Pop, pop, pop a Molly.” The video ends with a long dance sequence on the mansion’s grand staircase. In the final shot, Molly laughs and runs up the stairs, an outtake edited into the video for its considerable charm. In later interviews, when SDFC was giving Molly more money and creative power, she called the “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” video the intro to “New Vogue Riche.”
Molly designed the “New Vogue Riche” video herself. On the concept, she took creative input from Momo Waxler, her creative director, and her choreographer, Parker. Though SDFC and Rappaport, Molly’s handler from the label, had to approve of the concept before they would fund the video, they did so without giving Molly any notes and approved her choice of Skendarian to direct again.u
Unlike the “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” video, “New Vogue Riche” smacks of Molly’s own aesthetic, and despite the record company’s minimal involvement, it serves as a sharp marker of her new power within the music industry and her label in particular. “New Vogue Riche” begins where “Don’t Stop (N’Arrête Pas)” left off, with Molly running up the giant staircase. At the top of the stairs, Molly’s costume transforms into a bodysuit outfitted with panels of LED lights.
Ali follows Molly up the stairs, and they find abandoned rooms, the furniture covered with white sheets. During the first verse, while Molly sings about wanting to be Madonna when she was a little girl, Molly rips the sheets off couches and statues. She throws the white fabric, billowing, to Ali, who uses them as props in Parker’s ballet-inflected choreography.
After the first chorus (“When I get money [New!] / I throw a party [Vogue!] / For everybody [Riche!] / New. Vogue. Riche. Dance.”), Molly uncovers a miniature skyscraper, the size of a child’s playhouse. As Molly removes the tarp, the skyscraper’s little windows glow purple. Molly wraps herself around the skyscraper, humping and licking it, and generally acting like a sexed-up King Kong.v After a verse, a door on the side of the skyscraper springs open.
Dropping to her hands and knees, Molly Metropolis crawls into the skyscraper, with Ali at her heels. Molly then finds herself in a seemingly empty city, her costume transformed again, this time into a jet-black leotard with metallic sleeves. The map travels off the leotard and, in body paint, across Molly’s arms, legs, neck and face. Molly gazes at the sky, where the words Molly’s Metropolis dangle, a purple neon light attached to nothing in particular. In the giant neon words, all the O’s are rendered as small triangles, conforming to the visual ascetics associated with the ’80s-style Outrun Electro genre Molly détourns for many of her tracks.