Category Archives: Music Review

Music Video of the Day: In The Future To Come by Europe (1983, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1983, the Swedish heavy metal band, Europe, released their first album.  It was called Europe.  The first album is always the easiest to title.

In The Future To Come was their very first single and this was their very first video.  The video features the band performing on a windy plain and singing about the possibility of the world ending as a result of a nuclear war.  This was a theme to which they would return in the best-known song, The Final Countdown.  Joey Tempest was only 19 when he wrote this song and it very much reflects a 19 year-old’s worldview but, at the same time, Europe rocked.

For those curious, here are the lyrics for In The Future To Come.  It should be remembered that these lyrics were written at a time when many people agreed that nuclear war was an inevitability.  In the 80s, many believed it wasn’t a question of whether or not it would happen.  Instead, it was a question of when it would happen.

So many tears ago the people on this earth
They were laughin’
They didn’t think of anything else
Than love and peace
But generations failed to see
That they were causin’
Trouble for the future
They didn’t know that one single war

Would continue to increase
But I’ll be beside you
‘Cause I want to hide you

I’ll cover my pain
Or I’ll gone insane
Oh Lord where will it end
When tomorrow is done
Oh Lord can we stop to pretend
That we can survive in the future to come

As long as you can see
As long as you can feel
There’s no cause for alarm
As long as you can touch
As long as you can more

It ain’t too bad
But one day or another
This world would maybe
Be destroyed forever
A holocaust maybe be spread
And drive us all mad

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Coming Up Roses by Elliott Smith (1995, directed by Ross Harris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day is Coming Up Roses, Elliott Smith’s first solo music video.  Elliott Smith would go on to become one of the most influential indie musicians of the 90s, though he never seemed to get the recognition that he deserved when he was alive.  Even his Oscar nomination for composing Miss Misery for Good Will Hunting was overshadowed by all the bombast surrounding Titanic and My Heart Will Go On.

This is a simple video, one that will look familiar to anyone who has ever seen an indie video from the 90s but it feels very appropriate for Elliott Smith and his style of music.  This video was directed by Ross Harris, who was himself a former child actor.  Remember Joey, the little kid who was invited up to the cockpit in Airplane?  That was Ross Harris.

Here are the lyrics for Coming Up Roses, composed by Elliott Smith:

I’m a junkyard full of false starts
And I don’t need your permission
To bury my love under this bare lightbulb

The moon is a sickle-cell
I’ll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Like spun glass in your sore eye

While the moon does it’s division
You’re buried below
And it’s coming up roses everywhere
You’ve gone red roses fall in love

The things that you tell yourself
They’ll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Spinning in the night sky

While the moon does its division
You’re buried below
And it’s coming up roses everywhere
You’ve gone red roses

So you got in a kind of trouble
That nobody knows
It’s coming up roses everywhere
You’ve gone red roses.

Music Video of the Day: Deep Deep Trouble by Bart Simpson (1990, directed by Gregg Vanzo)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since yesterday, I shared Do The Bartman, I guess it only makes sense to share the 2nd Simpsons music video today.  Deep Deep Trouble is more of the same but, for those of us who remember when The Simpsons was funny, it still generates a feeling of welcome nostalgia.

Deep Deep Trouble was written by Matt Groening and DJ Jazzy Jeff and it’s easy to actually imagine this as one of the Fresh Prince’s songs from the Parents Just Don’t Understand era.  Bart, of course, was voiced by Nancy Cartwright.  The video was directed by Simpsons animated Gregg Vanzo.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Do The Bartman by Bart Simpson (1990, directed by Brad Bird)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Way back in 1990, The Simpsons were still a new phenomena and, even more importantly, the show was still funny.  Today, it can be easy to forget that The Simpsons were once considered to be cutting edge.  Of course, they were also a merchandizing bonanza and this lead to the release of an album called The Simpsons Sing The Blues.  The first single and video released from that album was Do The Bartman, which had nothing to do with the blues but which was a big hit nonetheless.

The video, which features Bart up to his usual tricks, was directed by Brad Bird.  At the time, Bird was a former Disney animator who had helped to develop The Simpsons after animating some of the original shorts that aired during The Tracey Ullman Show.  Long after Do The Bartman, Bird would find fame and acclaim for his work with PIXAR, in particularly The Incredibles.  He would also move into live action directing with Mission Impossible — Ghost Protocol.

Bart Simpson, of course, was and is voiced by Nancy Cartwright.  Later episodes of The Simpsons would poke fun at both The Simpsons Sing The Blues and the Bartman.  That probably wouldn’t happen today but, back in the 90s, The Simpsons were still funny and the show was still capable of poking fun at itself.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Nervous Shakedown by AC/DC (1983, directed by Paul Belcher)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

One thing you can say about AC/DC: they’ve never been afraid to let the music speak for itself.  At a time when other bands were creating increasingly elaborate music videos and worrying more about how they would look on MTV than how they would sound while performing, AC/DC simply went out on stage and rocked while the cameras were rolling.  AC/DC’s videos are direct and make no excuses, much like the band itself.

This is the video for Nervous Shakedown.  Just like all of AC/DC’s other music videos, this video is about the performance and nothing else.  Nervous Shakedown is the fourth song off of AC/DC’s album, Flick of the Switch.  The song peaked at #35 on the UK charts, while reaching #20 in Ireland.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Lick It Up by KISS (1983, directed by Martin Kahan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Right.  What to make of this?

Lick It Up almost sounds like the title of a song that you would come up with if you were attempting to parody a KISS song.  However, KISS beat you to it because KISS is a band that has never been afraid to descend into self-parody.

The video has a very Spinal Tap feel to it, opening with a group of beautiful women living in a burned-out city.  They’ve figured out how to survive on their own but they’re still not happy.  Then the members of KISS come walking down to the street and start singing “Lick it up,” and everyone realizes what this post-apocalyptic hellscape has been missing.

This video was from the period where KISS stopped wearing their makeup because, when you’ve got a songs like Lick It Up, who needs a gimmick?

This video was directed by Martin Kahan, who also directed the video for KISS’s All Hell’s Breaking Loose.  That video also featured KISS performing in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.  I guess that was the thing to do in 1983.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Flight of Icarus by Iron Maiden (1983, directed by Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

We all know the story of Icarus.  Imprisoned on the island of Crete with his father Daedalus, Icarus fashioned artificial wings so he could fly to freedom.  His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun but the cocky Icarus ignored his father.  The sun melted his wings and Icarus plummeted to his death.  Whenever someone allows their hubris and cockiness to defeat them or they get too ambitious for their own good, we compare them to Icarus.

Iron Maiden wrote a song about the Flight of Icarus, reimaging the story as being about a teenager rebelling against his father.  That’s not surprising as every Greek myth inspired at least one heavy metal song.  Flight of Icarus was Iron Maiden’s first single to be released in the United States.  (At the time, Iron Maiden was better known in the UK than in the US.)  It’s also one of their few singles to receive substantial radio airplay at the time that it was released.

The video was shot at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas.  The Grim Reaper was played by drummer Nicko McBrain.  As for director Jim Yukich, he was one another one of those music video directors who everyone seemed to work with in the 80s and 90s.  He did videos with everyone from Iron Maiden to Genesis to Huey Lewis to Debbie Gibson and David Hasselhoff.  That’s range!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: May The Cube Be With You by Thomas Dolby (1985, directed by Thomas Dolby and Peter Care)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this video, George Clinton is an alien who manufactures green cubes that cause who people who swallow them to enter into virtual reality.  Thomas Dolby is force fed a cube and soon, he’s making out with Marilyn Monroe, bombing Washington D.C., and imagining himself as Marlon Brando in The Wild One.  It proves Dolby with the type of rush that he couldn’t get just from going to the local video shop.  Can you say LSD?

This video came out in 1985 but May The Cube Be With You didn’t actually appear on any of Dolby’s albums until 1988.  That was when it was included as a bonus track on Dolby’s third studio album, Aliens Ate My Buick.  People who bought the album on vinyl didn’t get the bonus track but those who purchased it on either cassette or CD did.  Yes, there was a time when people bought cassettes for the extras.

The video shop at the start of this video was located in London.  It’s now an internet cafe.

Peter Care co-directed this video with Dolby.  Care is also credited with directing videos for R.E.M, New Order, Depeche Mode, and Bonnie Tyler.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Shakedown by Bob Seger (1987, directed by Tony Scott?)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Written for the film Beverly Hills Cop II, Shakedown was nearly a Glenn Frey song.

Frey was hired to perform the song but, on the day he was set to record it, he came down with laryngitis.  As Frey didn’t really like the song to begin with and wanted to change the lyrics, it was decided to instead hire Bob Seger to do the song.  Seger did not object to the lyrics and the end result was another number one hit for him.  As Frey and Seger were both from Detroit and close friends, Frey later said that he was happy that they at least keep the payday in Michigan.

The song was also nominated for an Academy Award.  It lost the Oscar to I’ve Had The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing.  1987, admittedly, was not a strong year as far as the Best Original Song competition was concerned.  Among the other songs nominated were the title song from Cry Freedom, Storybook Love from The Princess Bride, and, from Mannequin, Nothing’s Going To Stop Us Now, a song that was so vacuous that only Starship could have performed it.  Shakedown, at least, has some life to it.

The music video is basically a trailer for Beverly Hills Cop II.  Shots of Bob Seger performing are mixed with shots of Brigitte Nielsen’s legs and Eddie Murphy doing his thing.  I couldn’t find any directorial credits for the video but all of the Beverly Hills Cop II footage was directed by Tony Scott so, even if someone else directed the footage of Seger performing, this is still definitely a Tony Scott music video.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Shattered Dreams by Johnny Hates Jazz (1988, directed by David Fincher)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

If you did not already know that David FIncher directed the music video for Shattered Dreams, you would guess it as soon as you watched it.

Everything about this video, from the black-and-white cinematography to the disorientating camera angles to its overall melancholy feel, identifies this as being the work of David Fincher.  Long before Fincher ever directed his first film (Alien 3 in 1992, though Fincher has subsequently disowned the film due to the amount of studio interference that he had to deal with), he was a director of commercials and music videos.  Even at the start of his career, Fincher’s aesthetic vision was so clearly defined that his work stood out.  Fincher’s music videos are more than just showcases for musicians.  They are also mini-films, each one of which tells its own unique story.

This was the first single to be released by Johnny Hates Jazz and, to this date, it remains their biggest hit.  Despite popular belief, there is no one named Johnny in the band.  The three members of the band did have a mutual friend named Johnny who apparently hated jazz, which somehow led to the band’s name.  When the band was first signed to Virgin Records, they were playing in a jazz club so jazz has actually been good to Johnny Hates Jazz.

Enjoy!