Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Music Video of the Day: Across The Miles by Survivor (1988, directed by Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

To date, Across The Miles is Survivor’s final original single. (Eye of Tiger reentered the singles chart in 2007, coinciding the release of Rocky Balboa and the Best of Rocky soundtrack compilation.) The video for Across the Miles does feature one woman waiting for a phone call in a lonely room but it’s mostly just a clip of the band performing. Like many of the videos from the time, it’s shot in noirish black-and-white.

Director Jim Yukich directed music videos for almost everyone. If you were a band whose music appeared on the Adult Contemporary charts, it’s probable that Jim Yukich did a video for you.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: All I Want Is Everything by Def Leppard (1996, directed by Matt Mahurin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This is actually one of Def Leppard’s better songs but it had the misfortune to be released in 1996, after the band’s 80s heyday. Visually, the music video has more in common with the melancholy video style of 90s grunge than with the energetic and upbeat videos that we typically associate with Def Leppard.

This video was directed by photographer Matt Mahurin. Mahurin started directing videos in 1986 and has worked with everyone from U2, Queensrÿche, Metallica, and Dreams So Real to Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, R.E.M., and Alice In Chains.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Paper In Fire by John Mellencamp (1987, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video was shot outside of a house on a dirt road near Savannah, Georgia.  John Mellencamp wanted to highlight the poverty that many Americans were living under.  This video was also shot at a time when Mellencamp was still trying to escape from the “Johnny Cougar” persona that was forced on him early on in his career.  (In fact, at the time this song was recorded, he was still officially known as John Cougar Mellencamp.)

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Dream On by Aerosmith (1993, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Dream On has been one of Aerosmith’s signature tunes since the band’s early days in the 70s but it didn’t get its own music video until 1993, when it was included on the soundtrack for Last Action Hero.

You may remember Last Action Hero as being the notorious box office disappointment that forced Arnold Schwarzenegger to start thinking about what he might be interested in doing if his film career ever came to an end (like entering politics, perhaps). It was also one of the first films to show Hollywood that Aerosmith’s music can literally be plugged into almost any scene in any movie. Despite its reputation, Last Action Hero is not that bad. The F. Murray Abraham cameo alone is worth the price of admission.

This video is made up of footage that was shot for MTV’s 10-year anniversary celebration in 1991. It was directed by Marty Callner, who directed music videos for everyone in the 90s.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Dirty Black Summer by Danzig (1992, directed by Anton Corbijn)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video was directed by Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer who directed videos from Depeche Mode, U2, and Nirvana.  (He was the director behind the video for Heart–Shaped Box).  Corbijn has since gone on to direct feature films as well, Control, The American, and Most Wanted Man.

Long before Hugh Jackman got the role, Glenn Danzig was considered for the role of Wolverine in a potential X-Men feature film.  I think he would have rocked that roll.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: More Than A Feeling by Boston (1977, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

An instant hit when it was first released in 1976, More Than A Feeling was a song that spent several years in the making.  The founder of Boston, MIT graduate Tom Scholz, spent five years working on the song, recording and re-recording it in his basement while working his day job at Polaroid.

When Boston finally signed with CBS Records, More Than A Feeling was the first single released off of their debut album and it has since remained a classic rock mainstay, with the chorus riff becoming one of the most familiar sounds in the history of rock.  Scholz has said that he was inspired to write More Than A Feeling by the Left Bank’s song, Walk Away Renée.  “I see my Marianne walk away” was a reference to an older cousin whom Tom Scholz had a crush on when he was nine years old.

For me, though, More Than A Feeling will always be the song that I used to listen to whenever I was driving a stolen car around San Andreas, looking for hot coffee and trying to avoid the police.

 

Music Video of the Day: Abuse Me By Silverchair (1997, directed by Nick Egan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I don’t know if there’s any abuse that can really compare to being forced to listen to Silverchair but some may disagree, The group’s lead singer, Daniel Johns, for instance, said that this song was an answer to all of their critics. Go ahead and abuse me, the song says, I’m still going to play my music. Johns also once said, in answer to the band’s many critics, that, “every song I’ve heard sounds like another song I’ve heard.” That’s certainly true if you’re listening to Silverchair.

This song was the band’s second biggest hit in the U.S. Much of that popularity may have had something to do with this video, which is a pretty good video regardless of what you think about the band’s sound. It was directed by Nick Egan, who also did videos for Duran Duran, Oasis, Alanis Morissette, and many others.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: A Song for Donny Hathaway by The Whispers (1979, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

With this song, The Whispers paid tribute to the legendary soul singer Donny Hathaway, who was best-known for songs like “The Ghetto”, “This Christmas”, “Someday We’ll All Be Free”, and “Little Ghetto Boy” and for his collaborations with Roberta Flack. Tragically, Hathaway, who struggled with depression and who was diagnosed as being paranoid schizophrenic in 1971, committed suicide in 1979 but his music and influence lives on. The Whispers were one of the many groups to pay tribute to Hathaway after his death.

This video is a simple performance clip, as the majority of music videos were in the days before MTV.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Ship of Fools by Robert Plant (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Ship of Fools was the second single to be released from Robert Plant’s fourth solo album, Now and Zen. Now and Zen was the most financially and critically successful of all of Planet’s solo albums, though Plant himself has said that he feels that the album’s music “got lost in the technology of the time.” I would be disappointed if Robert Plant didn’t decry “the technology of the time” but, in this case, he’s being too hard on himself. Now and Zen is a very good album.

This song is mood piece, a love song. In the video, Plant appears to be singing in the rain and it works. The song was later used in “Freefall,” the final episode of Miami Vice, the show that epitomized the 80s and the technology of the time like no other.

Enjoy!