This song is off of Iron Maiden’s 17th studio album, 2021’s Senjutsu. Directed by Swedish animator Gustaf Holtenäs, the epic music video for Stratego imagines an battle in ancient Japan. Thematically and visually, it goes along with the cover of the album, which featured Eddie dressed as a samurai and holding a katana.
Enjoy!
Brother Cane’s And Fools Shine On is best-known for appearing on the soundtrack of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. No matter what else people say about that movie, the general consensus seems to be that at least the music was good.
The video is slightly horror-themed, though Michael Myers doesn’t show up. Instead, the video feels like an homage to the expressionistic cinema of F.W. Munrau and Fritz Lang, as if someone tried to combine Nosferatu with Metropolis.
Enjoy!
Is Alice Cooper haunting her dreams or has she been hypnotized? According to this song’s Wikipedia page, this video received “virtually no airplay” on MTV. 1994 was at the height of MTV’s embrace of grunge and also the beginning of Britpop so I guess Alice Cooper was not high on the channel’s radar.
This song appeared on Alice Cooper’s 13th solo album, The Last Temptation. All of the songs on the album dealt with a mysterious showman and his attempts to get a boy named Steven to join his traveling show. At least some parts of the video feature Alice in character as the showman.
Enjoy!
This was one of the few Guns N’ Roses’s videos to not get heavy play on MTV, perhaps because all of the members of the band appear to be either depressed or under the influence. Black-and-white shots of the sleaziest parts of New York are mixed with color footage of strippers. The video makes 1993 New York look so dangerous that it could almost be a Rudy Guiliani campaign commercial.
(Of course, we all know that it wasn’t New Yorkers fear of crime that elected Guiliani. It was their anger over Yogurt that falsely claimed to be low fat.)
Alice Cooper and the late Shannon Hoon can be heard providing background vocals on this song.
Enjoy!
Is Chris Lowe a ghost in this video?
He better be, just so I can justify picking this video during our annual Shattered Lens Horrorthon.
Neil Tennant and his ghost friend go for walk through London. Among the sights that we see: Waterloo Station, Tower Bridge, West Minster, the South Bank, Leicester Square, and a protest outside the South African Embassy. (This video was filmed at a time when South Africa was still ruled by Apartheid.) Both Fletch and Desperately Seeking Susan are playing at a cinema.
This was the video that first introduced the US to the Pet Shop Boys. Watching it makes me nostalgic for London.
Enjoy!
This song is from Danzig 4.
The guitar tracks in CantSpeak are actually the guitar tracks for another song, Let It Be Captured, played backwards. This was inspired by the frequent accusations that Danzig hid Satanic messages in their songs that could only be heard if you played the song backwards. I don’t hear any secret messages in CantSpeak but the guitar tracks sound good.
In this video, Glenn and the band appear to be trapped in a cast-iron stomach. It’s just another day for Danzig. Real-life monsters, like Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein, also makes cameo appearances as Danzig performs.
Enjoy!
This song is the title track of the album of the same name. The song is about a cyborg super hero who saved the world from destruction. The video is about the band playing the Hell out of the song.
Enjoy!
According to Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, this song and video are “all wrapped up in a lot of messages about greed and the destruction of the planet, with the top one-percenters sitting in their shiny castles, leaving everyone else outside to rot on a dying planet. It’s meant to be pretty on the nose about the current planetary situation”.
Taking place in a dystopian future in which the British slavishly follow behind the Americans while other world leaders ride atop nuclear missiles that are pulled by their slaves, it is fair to say that this video is “on the nose.” Fortunately, Eddie and the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse aren’t going to step to the side, especially not when there are people in ragged Iron Maiden shirts dying in the desert.
Enjoy!
Grim Reaper may be in jail but they are still going to rock you to Hell!
Let’s see what our friends Beavis and Butt-Head had to say about this one.
Enjoy!
Hey Stoopid is the title track off of Alice Cooper’s 12th solo studio album. The song is about drug abuse and suicide, with Alice telling his listeners to stay off drugs, to “put the gun down,” and that rock and roll isn’t about being self-destructive. Alice Cooper even sings, “You ain’t living in a video.” (Thought he did struggle with alcohol and it would probably shock many of the people who criticized him during his 70s heyday, Alice Cooper has always been anti-drug.) Slash plays guitar on the track while Ozzy Osbourne provided backing vocals.
The music videos is a mix of live action, animations, and Alice Cooper performing with a skull. I wouldn’t mind spending a day in Alice Cooper Land.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 