Category Archives: music video

Music Video of The Day: I Want A New Drug by Huey Lewis and the News (1984, directed by David Rathod)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose by KISS (1983, directed by Martin Kaban)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Somebody Save Me by Cinderella (1986, directed by Mark Rezyka)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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:

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Too Late For Goodbyes by Julian Lennon (1984, directed by Sam Peckinpah)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Vallotte by Julian Lennon (1984, directed by Sam Peckinpah)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

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.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Eve of Destruction by the Chemical Brothers, featuring AURORA and Nene (2019, dir by Marcus Lyall and Adam Smith)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh hell yeah!

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!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Everybody’s Crazy by Michael Bolton (1985, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I’ll be honest with you, I love his music, I do, I’m a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don’t know if it gets any better than when he sings “When a Man Loves a Woman”.

— Bob (John C. McGinley) in Office Space (1999)

Yeeeesh!

I guess we can put this one in the “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time” file.  In 1985, your aunt’s favorite adult contemporary singer, Michael Bolton, tried to change his image by recording a hard rock album.  The end result was Everybody’s Crazy and a title track that attempted to mix easy listening with hard rock.

It also led to this video, which starts with Michael Bolton telling his manager that “normal” is only something that people are until you get to know them.  “Everybody’s crazy,” and I guess Michael Bolton is including himself in that.  It’s not that Bolton doesn’t have an adequate voice as that there’s nothing dangerous about him and hard rock has to be dangerous.  In this video, Bolton comes across as such a goof that he makes Kip Winger look like James Hetfield.

Bolton did at least bring in some talent for the video.  For instance, he got Bruce Kulick, who was then with KISS, to play guitar on the song and he brought in Wayne Isham to direct the video.  Wayne Isham’s one of the busiest music video directors around.  If your favorite singer or band was around in the 80s or 90s, chances are that Wayne Isham directed one of their videos.

Enjoy!