Category Archives: Music Review

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!

Music Video of the Day: New York City by Kylie Minogue (2019, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

New York City has inspired many great songs and movies.  Maybe not as many as Paris, or even London for that matter, but still, out of the cities that can be visited on the North American continent, New York City is definitely one of the cultural leaders.  After all, it’s got more of a history than Los Angeles and it’s less corrupt than Chicago.  ALL HAIL NEW YORK!

Of course, I live in Texas and we tend to make a lot of jokes about New York down here.  But we do it out of love.  Or, at the very least, I do.  Of course, the main thing that I love about New York is that everyone’s in a hurry and you don’t have to waste a lot of time being polite.  I like that.  The whole avoiding eye contact thing is a part of what makes New York great, in my honest opinion.

Anyway, this video from Kyle Minogue has a 1970s New York-on-cocaine feel to it.  At least, that’s what I assume New York was like in the disco era.  I’ve only got the movies to go on and Saturday Night Fever always seems like it’s just a few seconds away from showing someone doing a line of coke while John Travolta’s on the dance floor.

What I’m saying here is that there’s a lot that I don’t know for sure.  But I do like New York and I do like dancing and I probably would have had fun in the 70s.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over (1991, dir by Jesse Dylan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I love this song.  It’s simple but it’s profound and I think the video works for the exact same reason.  Sometimes, you don’t need to be flashy.  You don’t need to show off.  Sometimes, you just have to let the music do its thing.

Enjoy!