Category Archives: Music Review

Music Video of the Day: Legs by ZZ Top (1983, directed by Tim Newman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I was driving in Los Angeles, and there was this unusual downpour. And there was a real pretty girl on the side of the road. I passed her, and then I thought, ‘Well, I’d better pull over’ or at least turn around and offer her a ride, and by the time I got back she was gone. Her legs were the first thing I noticed. Then I noticed that she had a Brooke Shields hairdo that was in danger of falling. She was not going to get wet. She had legs and she knew how to use them.”

— Billy Gibbons, on the inspiration behind Legs

With Legs, the third of their Eliminator videos (following Gimme All Your Lovin’ and Sharp Dressed Man), ZZ Top showed that they knew better than to mess with a good thing.  This video follows the same plot as the previous two videos, except this time it’s a young woman (played by Wendy Frazier) getting the help of the ZZ Top girls instead of a young man.  I don’t know how the video’s heroine ended up working in the Hellscape that opens this video but it’s a good thing that the ghosts of ZZ Top were around to help her.  As the video makes clear from the start, she does have legs and, after a trip in the Eliminator and a makeover, she knows how to use them.

The three ZZ Top girls were played by brunette Jeana Tomasino, blonde Daniele Arnaud, and Kymberly Herrin, who is identifiable by the red top she’s wearing.  Tomasino and Arnaud appeared in the previous Eliminator videos while Herrin made her first appearance in this video.

Like the previous two videos, Legs was directed by Tim Newman.  Though the girls and the Eliminator would return for one more video, Newman would not.  Sleeping Bag would be directed by Steve Barron and we’ll see how he did tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top (1983, directed by Tim Newman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Sharp-dressed depends on who you are. If you’re on a motorcycle, really sharp leather is great. If you’re a punk rocker, you can get sharp that way. You can be sharp or not sharp in any mode. It’s all in your head. If you feel sharp, you be sharp.”

— Dusty Hill, bassist, ZZ Top

The video for Sharp Dressed Man picks where the video for Gimme All Your Lovin’ left off.  The three girls are still driving the Eliminator, the ghosts of ZZ Top are still giving away the keys to the car, and Peter Tramm is still stuck in a job where he gets no respect.  In Gimme All Your Lovin’, Tramm was a gas station attendant.  In this video, he’s working as a valet at an exclusive club and not even Truman Capote is willing to give him any respect.  Luckily, the ghosts of ZZ Top have not forgotten about Tramm and, after one ride in the Eliminator, Tramm is ready to hit the dance floor and win the love of the young woman (played by Galyn Gorg) who earlier looked back at him while being dragged into the club by her boorish boyfriend.  By the end of the video, even Truman Capote is getting down!

Sharp Dressed Man remains one of ZZ Top’s signature songs and this video is still among their best-remembered.  It’s not surprising that the video was an MTV hit because, for many members of the then-young network’s audience, it was the ultimate in wish-fulfillment.  No matter who you were or who was treating you with disrespect, there was always a chance that ZZ Top might appear and toss you the keys to Billy Gibbons’s car.

Like Gimme All Your Lovin’, this video was directed by Randy Newman’s brother, Tim.  Tim Newman would return to direct the next installment in the adventures of the Eliminator and the ZZ Top Girls, Legs.  Anyone want to guess what tomorrow’s music video of the day is going to be?

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Gimme All Your Lovin’ by ZZ Top (1983, directed by Tim Newman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Judging from this video, the early 80s were a mystical time when the ghosts of ZZ Top haunted the desert and improved the lives of random people.  That was the plot of three of ZZ Top’s best-known videos, the first one of which was for Gimme All Your Lovin’.

This video follows a gas station attendant (played by Peter Tramm) as he not only gets to go on an adventure with the “ZZ Girls” but also gets to drive the ZZ car, a red, 1933 Ford coupe known as “The Eliminator.”  At the end of the video, he wakes up to discover that it was all a dream.  Or was it?

Though ZZ Top had been performing since 1969 and had a dedicated fan base of Southern rock enthusiasts, the video for Gimme All Your Lovin’ was largely responsible for introducing them to the MTV generation.  It also introduced some of the best-known parts of the ZZ Top mythology.  In particular, the famous ZZ Top hand gesture started with this video.  It wasn’t planned ahead-of-time.  Instead, the members of the band had done several shots in which they watched the Eliminator drive by them and they came up with the gesture out of pure boredom.

The Eliminator belonged to Billy Gibbons and, by putting it in the video and on the cover of the band’s latest album (which was also named after the car), Gibbons was able to write off, as a business expense, all the money that he had previously spent buying and restoring the car.  Gibbons may have simply been trying to get out of debt but the car went on to become the best-known symbol of the band.

This video was directed by Tim Newman, who was the brother of Randy Newman.  Newman would also direct the two sequels to Gimme All Your Lovin’, Sharp-Dressed Man and Legs.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Jessie’s Girl by Rick Springfield (1981, directed by Rick Springfield)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Who was Jessie’s girl?

We’ll probably never know.  Not even Rick Springfield, the man who first sang of her existence, seems to be sure.  Here’s what he told Songfacts about the subject of his most enduring song:

I don’t know her name. It was a brief relationship I had when I was making stained glass for a while. I was going to a stained glass class in Pasadena, and I met this guy and his girlfriend. I was completely turned on to his girlfriend, but she was just not interested. So I had a lot of sexual angst, and I went home and wrote a song about it. Then about four months later I stopped going to the class and lost contact with them. The only thing I remember is his name was Gary, so I changed the name, because ‘Gary’ didn’t sing very well. But the whole thing is absolutely what I was feeling. He was getting it and I wasn’t, and it was really tearing me up. And sexual angst is an amazing motivator to write a song. Actually, Oprah’s people tried to find her, and they got as far back as finding the stained glass guy. I couldn’t remember his name, but I said it was late ’70s; they found him, and he had died two years earlier, and they’d thrown all his papers out a year after that. So we missed finding out who she was by a year.

As the old saying goes, “When not even Oprah can find you…”

Today, this song is probably best remembered for its prominent use in Boogie Nights and for one frequently misheard lyric.  Many people still continue to believe that Springfield sings, “I wish I was Jessie’s girl,” instead of “I wish I had Jessie’s girl.”

This simple video was directed by Rick Springfield himself.  The song was Springfield’s second top 20 hit, the first being the now-forgotten Speak To The Sky.  At the time that this song and video came out, Springfield was better known for appearing on General Hospital.  Though he had started out as a singer, when Springfield’s musical career temporarily stalled, he followed the advice of his then-girlfriend, Linda Blair (yes, that Linda Blair), and pursued an acting career.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bop ‘Til You Drop by Rick Springfield (1984, directed by David Fincher)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When you think of which 1980s pop singer was most likely to fuse his music with a science fiction epic about a group of intergalactic prisoners being enslaved by some sort of smirking lizard king, Rick Springfield is probably not the name that immediately comes to mind.  But that’s just what happens with the music video for his song, Bop ‘Til You Drop.

Not surprisingly, this video was directed by David Fincher.  Before Fincher moved into feature films, he specialized in music videos that took artists to new and unexpected places.  According to both the Internet Movie Database and the Internet Music Video Database, this was Fincher’s first music video.  A year earlier, he had worked as an assistant cameraman on Return of the Jedi and both the slaves and the aliens in this video feel like they would not have been out of place as a part of Jabba the Hutt’s entourage.  Visually, the video also has much in common with Fincher’s feature directorial debut, Alien 3.

This song was recorded for the soundtrack of Hard To Hold, an apparently unsuccessful attempt to turn Rick Springfield into a film star.  I haven’t seen Hard to Hold but Wikipedia offers up the following plot description:

James “Jamie” Roberts (played by singer-songwriter Rick Springfield), being a pop idol, is used to having his way with women. He meets child psychologist Diana Lawson (Janet Eilber) in a car accident, however, who not only doesn’t swoon at his attention but has also never heard of him. He tries to win her affection but complicating things is that his ex-lover, Nicky Nides (Patti Hansen), remains a member of his band.

It sounds like the music video was more interesting than the movie.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: In the Sun by She & Him (2010, dir by Peyton Reed)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

You’re going to have to excuse me if my thinking is a bit incoherent right now.  Between my DVR exploding on Monday night and some issues with my laptop on Tuesday, I’ve only had about 4 hours of sleep over the past two days and, as I sit here typing this, I am on the verge of passing out.  On the plus side, I may be exhausted but at least everything seems to be working now.  The laptop is working fine.  The new DVR has arrived.  My thumb — which I slightly burned when, while unplugging the DVR, I accidentally grabbed the metal part of the plug, despite the fact that there was an actual plume of smoke rising up off of it — has finally stopped throbbing and is back to being it’s wonderful self.  Now, I just need to get some sleep and hopefully, when I wake up, my heart will no longer be racing and my thoughts will be much more coherent.

Fortunately, there’s a solution for when you’re trying to write about a music video but your brain is screaming at you to fall asleep.  You can just pick something from She & Him!  She & Him, of course, are Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward.  Both their music and their videos tend to be so wonderful and endearing that they can pretty much speak for themselves.

This video was directed by Peyton Reed.  Today, of course, Reed is probably best known for directing the Ant-Man films.  When this video was shot, he was best known for directing the original Bring It On.  As such, it’s not surprising to see him selected to bring this video’s high school world to life.

Enjoy and good night!

Music Video of the Day: Go by The Black Keys (2019, dir by Bryan Schlam)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Uh-oh!  It appears that the Black Keys now hate each other!  Well, it happens to the best of us.

Still, will they be able to set aside their differences and continue to make great music?  Will a spiritual retreat help to rebuild their working relationship?  Watch today’s music video of the day to find out!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bombs Away by ADI (2017, shoot and edit by Yaniv Kirshon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve mentioned on this site before, I was introduced to the music of Adi Ulmansky by my best friend, Evelyn, and she quickly became one of my favorite artists.  This is an acoustic version of ADI’s song, Bombs Away, which was filmed for and by Tel Aviv TV.

Enjoy!