In 1997, Atlantic Records released a single version of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love that was edited down from the band’s original 1969 recording. They also put together this video, featuring footage edited together from various live performances, to promote it.
Enjoy!
As far as I can tell, this performance clip is the only video that has ever been released for Quiet Riot’s Run For Cover. I am not even sure when this was recorded but, since Run For Cover appeared on 1983’s Mental Health, that’s the year that I am going to use here.
Enjoy!
Today’s music video of the day comes from the Baltimore-born rapper and producer, Sagat.
There’s actually two versions of this song. The first one was called Fuk Dat and was a list of things that annoyed Sagat in ’93 and which are still annoying today. That version became a club hit but, when it was time to release the song commercially, it was obvious that the song would need a title that wouldn’t get radio stations fined by the FCC. Hence, Fuk Dat became the slightly cleaner Funk Dat.
The music video for Funk Dat was filmed on the streets of New York. The video features not only Sagat but also a really cool kid who has it up to here with the radio playing the same five songs over and over again. This video achieved perhaps its greatest exposure when it was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead.
Enjoy!
Rest in peace, Bonnie Tyler.
Today’s music video of the day is for another song that I discovered while driving around Vice City in a stolen car.
(Several stolen cars, actually.)
Talk Talk’s Life’s What You Make It is one of the most popular songs on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘s FLASH FM. It’s the perfect song to listen to when you’re heading out to take down some drug dealers or if you just want to drive along the beach and wonder why Tommy Vercetti never learned how to swim.
The song was a hit both when it was originally released in 1985 and when it re-released in 1990. The video was filmed in Wimbledon Common, London, during the early hours of the day. The video was directed by Tim Pope, who directed videos for almost everyone in the 80s and 90s but is probably best-regarded for his work with The Cure.
Pope also directed the film, The Crow” City of Angels and was the original director for The Last King of Scotland. Though Pope eventually left and was replaced on that project, he was responsible for casting Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, the role that would eventually win Whitaker an Oscar.
Enjoy!
This video was directed by the French mime, dancer, and choreographer, Philippe Decouflé. Starting with a slap fight to end all slap fights, it also features a person in green makeup hand signing the song’s lyrics. As is so often the case with New Order, what it all actually means is open to interpretation.
Philippe Decouflé went on to direct the video for the Fine Young Cannibals’ She Drives Me Crazy, as well as choreographing the opening ceremony of the 1992 Winter Olympics.
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This song spent 109 weeks on the charts after its release and it remains one of Mötley Crüe’s most popular singles.
Nikki Sixx, who wrote the song, later told Rolling Stone that the song was based on several different drug dealers that he had done business with before getting sober. Just two years before Dr. Feelgood became a hit, Sixx had been a notorious junkie who, after a heroin overdose, was actually legally dead for two minutes before a paramedic was able to revive him with two shots of adrenaline.
Dr. Feelgood became Mötley Crüe’s first and, to date, only gold single in the United States. The video follows the song’s title character as he goes from working the streets to owning a mansion. In a repeat of what happened to Tony Montana, Dr. Feelgood’s own hubris eventually brings him down. As for why Mötley Crüe is performing in a revival tent, it probably just looked cool.
Director Wayne Isham is one of the most recognizable names when it comes to music video directors. If you were someone who was anyone in the music business, Isham probably directed at least one video for you.
Enjoy!
A New York-based band that once featured Madonna on drums, Breakfast Club’s biggest hit was Drive My Car, a cover of a song that had previously been made famous by The Beatles. The cover appeared on the soundtrack of License to Drive, one of the better films to co-star Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.
The video is the usual combination of clips from the film and scenes of the band acting crazy. Since they were already covering a Beatles song, it made sense to go ahead and put Breakfast Club in a 1980s version of Hard Day’s Night and have them spend most of the video trying to escape their obsessed fans. Luckily, they’ve got an invisible car.
Breakfast Club split up shortly after the release of License to Drive.
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This song was a part of an attempt to rebrand Donny Osmond as a contemporary rocker. The song was a hit and the video was popular on MTV but once an Osmond, always an Osmond.
The video is pure Michael Bay. Donny, several hot women, and a group of construction workers drive out to the middle of the desert. While Donny looks over blue prints and gives orders, the models and the day laborers start carrying boards and hammering nails. Are they building a house or a temple? No, it turns out that they’re building a stage so that Donny can perform in front of an audience that spontaneously shows up. Donny does such a good job performing that it starts to rain and the video goes from being in black and white to being in color. Bay directs with the same style that he would later bring to his feature films. This video presents Donny Osmond as an epic hero and it nearly works.
It would be easy to mistake this video for being the most wholesome beer commercial ever made.
Enjoy!
Whale was a Swedish alternative band, made up for Gordon Cyrus, Henrik Schyffert, and Cia Berg. During the mid-90s, they were big in Europe while, in America, they were best known for this video.
When this video was first released, there was a lot of confusion as to what was meant by Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe. Everyone knew what a hobo and a babe were. Everyone understood humpin’. But what did slobo mean? According to the band, they misheard the British term “sloane.” A sloane is a type of fashionable, upper class person. How that ties into hobo humpin’ is open to interpretation.
Mark Pellington won the inaugural MTV Europe Music Video Award for best video for Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe. Whale broke up in 1999, though all three members remain active on the Swedish entertainment scene.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 