Today is Rod Stewart’s 79th birthday and today’s music video of the day is One More Time, taken from his 32nd studio album, The Tears of Hercules. Appearing with Stewart in this video are his actual backup singers, Amanda Miller, Holly Brewer, and Becca Kotte.
Rod Stewart, incidentally, holds the record for being the artist featured most frequently during MTV’s first day of broadcast. On August 1st, 1981, MTV featured eleven of his videos.
Enjoy!
Today is David Johansen’s birthday and our music video of the day features Johansen in the role of his alter ego, Buster Poindexter.
Johansen/Poindexter did this cover of Ray Charles’s classic song for a film called The Dream Team. The Dream Team may not be remembered for much today but it did feature an impressive cast — Peter Boyle, Stephen Furst, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael Keaton, all of whom are featured in this video.
Enjoy!
Elvis Presley would have been 89 years old today.
Elvis always said that one of his biggest regrets was that he never had full control over his film career. While he had dreams of being taken seriously as an actor and admired James Dean and Marlon Brando, his management continually forced him into silly movies that only required him to sing a few songs.
Elvis’s early films, which were made before his military service and which allowed him to act as well as sing, were his best. Today’s scene comes from one of those films, 1957’s Jailhouse Rock.
Today is John McTiernan’s birthday! Obviously, McTiernan’s career has had its ups and downs but he’s still responsible for directing some of the best action films ever made.
4 Shots From 4 John McTiernan Films
Predator (1987, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Donald McAlpine)
Die Hard (1988, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Jan de Bont)
The Hunt for Red October (1990, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Jan de Bont)
The Last Action Hero (1993, directed by John McTiernan, DP: Dean Semler)
Hey, loyal readers, here are today’s live tweets or watch parties or whatever we’re calling them now in the X-era.
First off, #MondyActionMovie has got A.P.E.X., which is a movie about killer robots and time travel. I’ve never seen it but it’s on YouTube and, if you want to watch it with us, you can find the movie on YouTube and join the watch party on Mastodon at 8:oo et.
Then, after that, #MondayMuggers is doing Payback, starring Mel Gibson as a thief seeking his money. I’ve seen Payback a few times. It’s intense. The movie is on Prime and the watch party starts on X/Twitter at 10 pm et.
Today’s music video of the day is early one from Madness.
The song was inspired by Madness’s manager, Jon Hasler, who would reportedly show up at the residences of the band’s members and eat whatever leftovers they had for breakfast. The video was directed by Dave Robinson, who was responsible for many of Madness’s videos.
Enjoy!
In this video for Freak, Silverchair performs in an oven so that their sweat can be used as some sort of youth tonic. Don’t worry, the band was not actually in an oven. Instead, they were just surrounded by orange lights and they were regularly doused with water to create the impression that they were sweating while performing.
The video was directed by Gerald Casale, a former member of Devo, a far more interesting band than Silverchair. The video won the International Viewer’s Choice Award at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Enjoy!
This song was considered to be very racy for its time (“safe sex!”) and, while the music video was a big hit on MTV, it was actually banned from British television. An official reason for the ban was never announced, though it was speculated that the disembodied limbs were considered to be too disturbing for younger viewers.
According to the band, this video was actually meant to be a joke take on all of the over-sexualized music videos of the time.
Enjoy!
Though Accidents Will Happen has since come to be seen as one of Elvis Costello’s signature songs, it was only a moderate hit when it was initially released in the UK. Maybe it would have been more popular if MTV had been around in 1979. The music video was innovative at a time when most videos were just performance clips of the bands in concert.
The video for Accidents Will Happen is considered to be the first fully animated music video. The video was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who also did videos for Rush and Cathy Denis. Jankel and Morton would later go on to create Max Headroom and to direct the infamous first Super Mario Bros. film.
Enjoy!
Yesterday, I shared the first music video for Madness’s first single, The Prince, which was just the band performing the song on Top of the Pops in 1979. That video didn’t have Madness’s signature nuttiness so, over 40 years later, the band released a new, official video for the song.
This video is made up for footage that was taken from 1981 Madness film, Take It or Leave It and it features the band in the studio, on stage, and generally having a good time. The film was directed by Dave Robinson, who was the president of Stiff Records and who directed all of Madness’s early music videos.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 