In honor of Canada Day, today’s music video of the day comes from Rush.
Circumstances was an autobiographical song, written by Neil Peart, about how he came to be disillusioned with pursuing a musical career in England. (It was in England where Peart reportedly first came across the writings of Ayn Rand.) Realizing that stardom waited for him not in London but instead back home, Peart returned to Canada, where he was eventually recruited to play drums in Rush.
Enjoy and Happy Canada Day!
Twist and Shout is a song that has been a hit for a lot of artists. Rodney Dangerfield took a swing at it 1987, performing the song for the Back to School soundtrack. The video is largely made up of scenes from Back to School and introduced a whole generation of MTV viewers to not only Rodney Dangerfield but also Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, and Ned Beatty. They probably already knew Sam Kinison.
Enjoy!
This is one of two videos for Kiss and Tell. Both videos features Ferry performing the song while model Mandy Smith and Christine Keeler pose for the camera. (Smith was the wife of Rolling Stone Bill Wyman while Christine Keeler was at the center of the Profumo Affair, which brought down Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963.) However, the second version of the video also featured scenes from the film adaptation of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City.
As can be seen in the video, Michael J. Fox played the cocaine-addled main character in the film. It was a largely unsuccessful attempt to change Fox’s clean-cut image and the film struggled at the box office. However, both the song and and the video proved to be very popular on MTV. The video was nominated for Best Video From A Film at the MTV Video Music Awards, though it lost to Los Lobos’s video for La Bamba.
Enjoy!
Both this video and this post count as a rush job. I’m writing this at the last second so I picked an easy video to write about. Meanwhile, in 1989, Richard Marx was so busy touring that director Jim Yukich was forced to go with a simple approach to the video for Right Here Waiting. The footage of Marx performing the song in an empty auditorium was filmed in Los Angeles during a soundcheck. Black-and-white tour footage was then added to turn that soundcheck into a music video. Though the video was simple by necessity, it also captured the loneliness of being on the road and separated from your significant other.
Right Here Waiting was the second single off of Marx’s second studio album, Repeat Offender. He wrote the song for his then-wife Cynthia Rhodes, who was shooting a film in South Africa. It went on to become one of Marx’s biggest hits and is still regularly covered by other artists.
Enjoy!
Today’s music video of the day is for Neutron Dance, a Pointer Sisters song that became a hit when it was featured in the film Beverly Hills Cop. The song was not originally meant to be a part of the soundtrack but was instead just used a placeholder during a chase scene in the first cut of the film. However, music producer Richard Perry convinced producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer that Neutron Dance was the perfect song for the scene. Audiences agreed and Neutron Dance ended up a top ten hit.
The music video features not just scenes from Beverly Hills Cop but also Bronson Pinchot and Gary Burghoff as employees (along with the Pointer Sisters) of a theater showing the film. Pinchot, of course, played Serge in Beverly Hills Cop while Burghoff was best known for playing Radar O’Reilly on M*A*S*H.
Enjoy!
The Day That Never Comes was the lead single from Metallica’s 9th studio album, Death Magnetic. Lars Ulrich has said that the song was actually written about a father and a son and their efforts to repair their relationship and move on from the resentments of the past. The music video, as conceived by director Thomas Vinterberg, re-imagines the song as telling the story of a solider deployed to the Middle East. James Hetfield, who has always been outspoken in his belief that musicians should not push their political beliefs on their audience, has said that the video is not meant to be a commentary on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but instead, it’s about remembering that everyone is human.
Vinterberg is a well-known and acclaimed Danish director and one of the founders of Dogme 95. 13 years after the release of this video, Vinterberg would become the first Danish director to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director for Another Round. Another Round also won the Oscar for Best International Film.
Enjoy!
Conceived and performed by Andy Summers, the guitarist for the Police, 2010 was a re-imagining of Also Sprach Zarathustra and was included as part of the soundtrack of the 1984 film, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Though the song itself did not appear in the film, a music video featuring scenes from 2010 was put together for the song and was occasionally played on MTV.
Enjoy!
Stormbringer was song that David Coverdale originally performed as the lead singer of Deep Purple. In 2015, it was one of the many Deep Purple songs that Coverdale covered with Whitesnake, which explains why the video has a purplish hue.
The video was directed by Tyler Bourns, who is also credited as being a camera operator for the 2014 video for Newsted’s As the Crow Flies.
Enjoy!
This video, for what is arguably Pantera’s best-known song, was filmed at shows in Chicago and Minneapolis. Phil Anselmo has said that the song was a message to everyone who claimed that Pantera had allowed this success to go to their heads. The song was their way of saying, “Take a walk with your attitude.”
Director Paul Andreson has also worked with Insane Clown Posse, Metallica, Urge Overkill, Collective Soul, and Meredith Brooks.
Enjoy!
Fear of the Dark, a song about a man who is scared of the dark, was based on the a very real fear that is held by Iron Maiden founder/bassist/songwriter Steve Harris. The song served as the title track for Iron Maiden’s ninth studio album and it’s gone on to become one of the band’s best known songs.
The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who was another one of those music video directors who worked with everyone and who made a huge cultural impact even if most of the people who enjoyed his work never learned his name. Among the other videos that Bayer directed: Garbage’s Only Happy When It Rains, Melissa Etheridge’s Come To My Window, LL Cool J’s Father, and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 