I like this video because the story it tells can be viewed either negatively or positively.
Now, if you take a literal interpretation, it would appear that the video details not only a possible demonic possession but also an intergalactic invasion of some sort. I mean, when graffiti comes to life, it’s probably reasonable to be a little bit concerned. I guess it depends on how good the artists are in your area.
However, I tend to view the video much more positively, as a celebration of the vibrancy of music, art, and freedom! Myself, whenever I watch this video, I want to go out and dance in the middle of the night. Actually, I do that most nights anyway but still, this video always puts me in a good mood.
(Or an even better mood, as the case may be.)
How you view it will probably depend on how pessimistic or optimistic you are right now.
18 and Life was based on a true story, about an 18 year-old boy who accidentally shot his best friend with a gun that he thought he was unloaded and who was given a life sentence as a result. Did the video do justice to the real-life tragedy? Let’s break it down.
0:01 — The video starts in prison, with the usual tracking shot of men smoking behind bars. Ricky is already serving his sentence, thinking about how his life got so messed up.
0:27 — At the time this song was recorded, Sebastian Bach was Skid Row’s lead singer. In 1996, Bach was fired from Skid Row when he suggested they accept the opening spot on KISS’s latest tour.
0:45 — Ricky ends up on the patio, where his best friend is waiting for him. Fortunately, Ricky has not been injured by all of that broken glass so, after saluting his father, he and his friend go off to have some fun, 80s style.
1:16 — Secret handshakes, 80s style!.
1:27 — Hanging out, 80s style!
1:31 — Setting shit on fire, 80s style!
1:39 — Breaking and entering, 80s style!
1:46 — Shooting liquor bottles in an alley, 80s style!
1:51 — Not following common sense gun safety rules, 80s style!
2:00 — Wasting your life away in prison, 80s style!
2:09 — Vandalism, 80s style!
2:18 — Ricky is Tipper Gore’s worst nightmare.
2:23 — They’re back to playing with the gun. Will these youngsters never learn?
2:34 — Is his friend begging or daring Ricky to shoot him? This part of the video is open to interpretation. In real life, the shooting happened because the gun was believed to be empty but, in this video, they’ve both been firing gun so they both know it’s loaded.
2:35 — Ricky has obviously read Watchmen, but he probably still doesn’t understand why Richard Nixon was still the president.
2:53 — Ricky shoots his only friend. But why? Ricky does not look shocked and we saw him firing the gun earlier so there is no reason to believe that Ricky, unlike the real person who inspired this song, didn’t know it was loaded. Was Ricky crazy? Was Ricky angry? Or was Ricky just stupid?
3:13 — Ricky throws his gun into the fire, which has been raging for at least two days now.
3:26 — In 2017, Sebastian Bach announced that he was having a “singing-related” hernia operation because, in his own words, he literally “sang my guts out.”
3:37 — In prison, Ricky ponders how different his life would have been if he wasn’t an idiot.
3:49 — Did anyone ever put out that fire? It looked serious.
This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who has been everyone’s go-to video director for decades. The song was Skid Row’s biggest hit and it was also the most played video on MTV in 1989.
This is another one of those videos where you spend the majority of the video waiting for a bunch of zombies to pop out of nowhere and start chasing the living down the street. That doesn’t happen here but I still like the atmospheric desolation of this video.
In a way, it actually reminds me a bit of Lost River. I gave that movie a negative review when it was first released but it’s actually grown on me a little bit.
Today, as they tend to say, is the first day of the rest of your life. What better way to celebrate than with a little Blanck Mass?
Dead Format is off of Blanck Mass’s second album, Dumb Flesh. If a rogue planet ever threatens to crash into Earth and exterminate all human life, Dumb Flesh is something that I will definitely make sure to listen to one final time before the end comes. The video for Dead Format is both exuberant and ominous. You’re not really sure if you want to repent your sins or maybe commit some news ones. This is perfect end of the world music. Listen to this track with the knowledge that you could very well be dead and that all of your hopes and dreams could be rendered meaningless within the next two hours.
Not even Beck seems to be sure. According to Songfacts, Beck has offered up several different interpretations. He’s said that the song was an updated version of the American folk song, Stagger Lee:
“I don’t know if I ever HAD any youthful purity, but I can understand that you might be tempted to make commercial shit and compromise to do it. I try not to compromise on anything. I think we associate becoming an adult with compromise. Maybe that’s what the devil is. In ‘Devils Haircut’ that was the scenario. I imagined Stagger Lee… I thought, what if this guy showed up now in 1996. The song had this ’60s grooviness, and I thought of using him as a Rumplestiltskin figure, this Lazarus figure to comment on where we’ve ended up as people. What would he make of materialism and greed and ideals of beauty and perfection? His reaction would be, ‘Whoa, this is disturbing shit.'”
He’s also said that the song is simply about the evil of vanity (literally a devil’s haircut) or a song about being on tour (hence, the briefcase blues). Beck has also said that, while writing the song, he thought that “Devil’s haircut was a really bad lyric. If I can’t finish a song, I’ll just put in something temporary. That’s what ‘Loser’ was. Then the temporary one always becomes the best one, because it wasn’t all thought out.”
As for the video, director Mark Romanek claims that it was inspired by both Midnight Cowboy and The 400 Blows. Beck, wandering through New York City with his cowboy hat and his radio, was meant to be a modern-day Joe Buck while the freeze frames were inspired by the end of Truffaut’s portrait of alienated youth.
Two of the videos most memorable moments were accidental. When the car nearly runs over Beck, it is meant to recall the “I’m walking here!” scene from Midnight Cowboy but the car’s driver didn’t hit the brakes soon enough and Beck was actually hit by the car and injured his leg as a result. The other unplanned scene was when the pigeons took flight just as Beck approached them.
The video for Devil’s Haircut would go on to win two MTV Music Video Awards, one for Best Editing and one for Best Male Video.
When this video started, I was a bit worried that the kid was going to end up getting dragged into the sewers by Pennywise but, instead, things worked out pretty well. That’s good. This is a fun video.
There was once a speed metal band out of Texas that played music that was loud, aggressive, fast, and definitely not radio friendly. The name of that band was REO Speedealer and they had a strong cult following among metal fans across the country. In 1998, after they had released their third CD under that name, REO Speedealer received a cease-and-desist letter from REO Speedwagon.
As REO Speedealer’s bassist, “Hot” Rod Skelton explained it to MTV, “”They’re worried about our name being close enough to their name that it would be a conflict in stores. I think it’s silly, but there have been a couple of people who supposedly thought they were buying their record and they bought ours. They e-mail us and say, ‘I think your band sucks shit.’ I think that’s hilarious. We consider that a compliment.”
‘In the same MTV story, REO Speedwagon’s manager, John Baruck argued, “We spent 30 years developing the name REO Speedwagon and promoting their career. To have another band come out and take three-quarters of the name didn’t seem right.”
In hindsight, I can see where REO Speedwagon was coming from but a cease-and-desist letter still doesn’t seem like a very “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” thing to do. Of course, just listening to any of REO Speedwagon’s songs will reveal that they were never about any of those things. REO Speedwagon’s music was the epitome of soft rock. While REO Speedealer was performing songs like Double Clutchin’ Finger Fuckin’, REO Speedwagon was best known for Keep on Loving You and Can’t Fight This Feeling.
In 1998, it was easy to cast REO Speedwagon as a bunch of bitter has-beens but, to their credit, their music epitomized an era. Can’t Fight This Feeling is one of the essential songs of the mid-1980s. It was also one of their biggest hits, spending three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. When REO Speedwagon appeared at Live Aid, Can’t Fight This Feeling was the song that they performed.
(Their Live Aid performance was introduced by someone else who epitomized an era, Chevy Chase.)
Two music videos were releases for Can’t Fight This Feeling. One was a simple video that featured the band performing. The second one, which is also the one at the top of this post, began with a baby and ended with an old man and was supposed to be about the life-cycle.
Can’t Fight This Feeling continues to be one of REO Speedwagon’s best known songs. It’s another song that I automatically associate with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It can be heard on Emotion 98.3. It was playing the night that I first drove my car into the ocean and discovered that Tommy Vercetti couldn’t swim.
REO Speedwagon is still together and, this summer, toured with Chicago. REO Speedealer is also still together, though they are now simply known as Speedealer. According to their Facebook page, they should be releasing their new album, Blue Days/Black Knights, in early 2019.
Through the Shattered Lens 