Today’s music video of the day is dedicated to Marianne Williamson. I don’t endorse political candidates. I learned my lesson from all the angry messages that I got after I said I was planning on voting for Gary Johnson in 2016. My outlook is more libertarian than liberal but who knows? Marianne might get my primary vote.
Before anyone says anything, I know that Moby is now officially on the creepy list but I still like his music, especially from the 18 and Play eras. So, you know, why not?
So, yesterday, I was in a terrible mood because I’d gotten a parking ticket and my pick for music video of the day reflected that.
Today, I’m in a great mood! It turns out that my parking ticket was just a warning and I’m not going to have to pay a fine! That makes me feel like dancing! And hence, today’s music video of the day.
Seriously, this exuberance of this music video just makes me happy!
All of the darkness in this video goes along nicely with my current mood.
For instance, on Monday, we had company so, when I came home from work, there were already two cars sitting in the driveway. So, in order to not to block anyone in, I parked in front of the house. I then went inside and had a wonderful dinner and got caught up with some old friends. Around 8:15, I got a call from our neighbor across the street, informing me that some guy had just put a piece of paper on my windshield. I went outside to see what was going on and guess what I found?
A PARKING TICKET!
That’s right. I parked in front of my own house and I got ticketed. Officially, I was ticketed for “illegal parking — facing traffic.” And now, apparently, I’m supposed to go down to our municipal court (which is located “right behind Walgreen’s,” to quote the court’s website) and pay $60 because I parked IN FRONT OF MY OWN HOUSE!
Needless to say, that ruined my entire Monday night and it ruined most of Tuesday as well. And I’m still pretty mad even as I sit here typing this. I mean, if you’ve ever wondered why I have issues of authority, it’s because of crap like this!
But this song and this video both helped to cheer me up. The Ting Tings are a group that I tend to listen to whenever I’m feeling down. They made me feel better about things and I hope they’ll do the same for you!
Despite what Patrick Bateman might try to tell you, Huey Lewis and the News has never been a band that most people would associate with drugs. Instead, Huey Lewis and the News wrote and performed the type of songs that you might expect to hear in a sports bar (albeit a sports bar with an 80s theme). If you need proof, just take a look at the cover of their third album, 1983’s Sports:
That cover sums up who Huey Lewis And The News were as a band. While only the members of the band can say for sure what they did behind closed doors, most people would look at this cover and say that these weren’t the guys you’d find smoking weed and debating philosophy or doing coke and going crazy on Wall Street. These were the guys who were waiting for you to come down to the local bar and shoot some pool, with the winner buying the next round.
Ironically, one of their biggest hits was so widely misinterpreted as being a pro-drug song that they actually made a music video with the expressed intent to show everyone that it wasn’t. I Want A New Drug wasn’t about wanting a new drug. It was about being so in love with a woman that the feeling was better than anything that any drug could provide.
The video features Huey waking up late and remembering that he has a show that night. He races across San Francisco and, noticeably, he doesn’t do a single drug during the journey. He does spot a woman played by Signy Coleman, whose mom was friends with Huey’s mom.
This video was directed by David Rathod, who also directed the videos for two other songs from Huey Lewis and the News, Heart and Soul and He Don’t Know.
As you can tell from watching this video, this from the period of time where KISS was performing without their trademark makeup. All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose was their second single from the album Lick It Up and, while the video itself got some airplay on MTV, the song failed to chart in the U.S. Compared to their success in the 70s, KISS struggled through the 80s and the early 90s. Taking off the makeup and essentially looking like every other hard rock band that was around at that time did not help.
Today, All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose is best-remembered as the song in which Paul Stanley raps. The majority of the song was written by KISS’s then drummer, the late Eric Carr and Carr was initially not happy with the decision to have Stanley rap one of the verses. However, later, Carr said that Stanley rapping was actually what the song needed to distinguish itself from the rest of the album and that the rap was probably the reason why All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose was eventually released as a single.
The video is a hard rock fantasy, with the members of KISS walking around a burned-out city and running into criminals, circus performers, and, of course, barely dressed women. This was probably a video that KISS could only have made during the period when they weren’t wearing their makeup. The Demon and the Starchild would have looked out-of-place wandering around the city but Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Carr, and Vinny Vincent fit right in.
In retrospect, it’s hard not to be amused that, back in the 70s and 80s, so many parents groups viewed KISS as being a threat to young minds. (There are people who still believe that KISS stands for Knights In Satan’s Service.) I would guess that few of those concerned parents actually listened to any of the music that they were so concerned about. Instead, they just saw songs with titles like All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose and jumped to their conclusions.
Today’s music video of the day comes from 1985, the year when anyone with big hair could be a rock star.
It starts with two women running down a hallway in Philadelphia. Are they excited to see Cinderella, the generic glam rock band that had a few hits in the 80s just to be washed away, as so many similar bands were, by the arrival of grunge?
No, of course not!
The girls are excited because they’ve heard that Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora are in the building! Bon Jovi and Sambora’s cameos are significant because Jon Bon Jovi was the person who initially discovered Cinderella and convinced PolyGram Records to sign them. So, basically, this is all Bon Jovi’s fault.
To be honest, this video would probably be totally forgotten if not for it’s appearance on an episode of Beavis and Butthead:
Not surprisingly, a lot of people have assumed that Julian Lennon was singing about his father, John Lennon, in this song. Julian, himself, has denied that interpretation, saying that this song was just his way of dealing with a breakup and nothing more.
Like yesterday’s video, Too Late For Goodbyes was directed by Sam Peckinpah, the notorious director behind The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. It was directed at a time when Peckinpah’s Hollywood career was nearly over, having been sabotaged by too many fights with the studios and too many rumors about his drug and alcohol-intake. His two videos for Julian Lennnon would be Peckinpah’s final work as a director. He died just a few months after they were released.
In the UK, Too Late For Goodbyes was Julian Lennon’s first single and was followed by Valotte. In the United States, the order was reversed and Too Late For Goodbyes came out after Valotte. To date, Too Late For Goodbyes is the most successful single that Julian Lennon has ever released. It reached #1 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary Chart and stayed there for two weeks.
I am as shocked as anyone to discover that this sedate video was directed by the director who was known (affectionately or not) as Bloody Sam but indeed it was.
Valotte was the first U.S. single from Julian Lennon, a musician whose talent was often overshadowed by the fact that he was the son of John and Cynthia Lennon. John divorced Cynthia, leaving her for Yoko Ono, when Julian was only five years old and, by his own admission, Julian’s feelings towards his father have often been mixed. (Paul McCartney reportedly wrote what would become Hey Jude in an attempt to console Julian after the divorce.) When Julian Lennon pursued his own musical career, many reviewers spent more time discussing Julian’s physical and vocal resemblance to his father than his music.
As for the song, it was a ballad about finding love and not, as many have incorrectly assumed, a song about Julian’s relationship with John. The song was initially written at a French chateau known as the Manor de Valotte, which is how the song got its name. The single was subsequently recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. The line, “Sitting on a pebble by the river playing guitar” is a reference to the location of the studio.
As for Sam Peckinpah, both his career and his health were in decline when he directed this video. Peckinpah made a huge impression in the late 60s and early 70s with films like The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs but, by the time the 80s came around, the critics had turned on him and his abuse of drugs and alcohol had become so notorious that he couldn’t get a job in Hollywood. Peckinpah directed both this video and Lennon’s follow-up, Too Late For Goodbyes. His work on the videos was critically acclaimed but unfortunately, Peckinpah would pass away shortly after they were released.
From The Chemical Brothers, here’s the video for the lead track off of No Geography, Eve of Destruction!
Judging from what AURORA and Nene have to say on this track, it would appear that the world is on the verge of ending. Humans minds are simplified. Sacrifice is justified. We can’t afford the water. But maybe — just maybe — you can find a friend to dance with for the weekend.
And really, that’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it? Things are frequently terrible but at least you can still dance. So, what are you going to do? Sit around and whine on twitter or are you going to get out there and dance and at least enjoy the eve of your destruction? Because seriously, if the whole world’s going to end anyway, you might as well have a good time before your turned into ash and wiped off of the face of history.
Fortunately, judging from this video, it does appear that we do have a plan in place in case the world gets attacked by vaguely goofy kaiju. So, there’s at least one reason to be optimistic.
Anyway, I love the Chemical Brothers, I love this track especially, and I am totally in love with this video. AURORA and the Chemical Brothers are exactly what the world needs right now!
Through the Shattered Lens 