With this music video of the day, I have now done 62 of these posts. It has taken that long to hit a music video that came out in 1981.
When I was growing up before I discovered Nirvana, I was listening to my parents’ music. Luckily, they had pretty good taste. I received the standard stuff that anyone of my generation should expect from their parents, but there were a few odd ones. I used to be a little ashamed when my dad would have Neil Sedaka’s greatest hits album playing when he would take me to and from soccer. I’m not ashamed to say I like Sedaka to this day. Especially not when Sedaka apparently made this music video type thing himself back in early 1960s, which reminds me of Centerfold.
My parents were very focused on raising me, so they largely missed out on 80s music, but there were a few exceptions. Two of the most notable examples were Centerfold and The Logical Song by Supertramp.
The song is a given. Freeze Frame is enjoyable, but Centerfold is a classic feel-good song that I would be willing to believe a lot of people have heard without knowing the name of the group.
I love the music video because I don’t see music videos often where the band or a member of the band has fun with some other people in it. I have to wonder how many times the lead singer either fell off the desks, or at least came close. The music video looks as fun as the song sounds. I don’t know what else you can ask for when making one of these for a song like Centerfold.
We have the same crew from Freeze Frame here. Director Paul Justman worked on a handful of music videos. He also did some other films including Gimme an ‘F’ (1984), which I have since found out is about cheerleaders (go figure). I have also since procured a copy of it too.
According to IMVDb, this was cinematographer Andrew Dintenfass’ first music video. He seems to have worked primarily with Russell Mulcahy and Paul Justman, but there is one he did with Kenny Ortega who would later direct the very popular horror musicals for Disney in the 2000s. We’ll get to one of his music videos later.
Justman did a great job capturing the fun of the song. I can’t say that enough. Just enjoy it!
Then maybe come back and listen to Neil Sedaka perform Solitaire.
Through the Shattered Lens 