Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: Any Way You Want It by Journey (1980, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I’ve recently been reading Noel Monk’s memoir about managing Van Halen during the early years of their career, Runnin’ with the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen.  

Among the many revealing stories in the book is one about an incident that happened when Van Halen was touring with Journey.  Monk went backstage and discovered that David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen had gotten into a food fight.  Eddie threw a bowl of peanuts at Dave.  Dave threw guacamole at Eddie but he missed his target and, instead, ended up hitting the lead singer of Journey, Steve Perry.  Monk says that he found Perry in his dressing room, softly crying and trying to get the guacamole off of his leather jacket.  Monk compared Dave and Eddie to “heartless mean children,” picking on the smart kid in the middle school cafeteria.

Steve Perry deserved better.

(He deserved better than the Separate Ways video, too.)

Today’s music video, Journey’s party anthem Any Way You Want It, was selected in honor of Steve Perry.

Ever since I first saw Caddyshack (not to mention the episode of The Simpsons were Rodney Dangerfield played Mr. Burns’ son), Any Way You Want It has always been my favorite Journey song.  The video is also Journey at its best, simple, without pretension, and rocking!

 

 

Music Video Of The Day: Nothing Else Matters by Metallica (1992, directed by Adam Dubin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“At first I didn’t even want to play it for the guys. I thought that Metallica could only be the four of us. These are songs about destroying things, head banging, bleeding for the crowd, whatever it is, as long as it wasn’t about chicks and fast cars, even though that’s what we liked. The song was about a girlfriend at the time. It turned out to be a pretty big song.”

— James Hetfield, on Nothing Else Matters

Eventually, Hetfield did play it for the guys and Nothing Else Matters went on to become one of Metallica’s signature songs.  The song may have been inspired by Hetfield’s feelings about being away from his girlfriend while he was on the road but, as Hetfield explained it to Mojo Magazine, “It’s about being on the road, missing someone at home, but it was written in such a way, it connected with so many people, that it wasn’t just about two people, it was about a connection with your higher power, lots of different things.”

The video was directed by Adam Dubin and edited by Sean Fullan and is made up of clips from the 1992 Metallica documentary, A Year And A Half.  Along with the song, the video is best remembered for a scene where Lars Ulrich throws darts at a poster of Kip Winger.  Do you blame him?

For his part, Kip Winger has said about Metallica’s hatred of him, “That is why it’s the great irony that we ended up on that geeky guy’s shirt on Beavis & Butt-head, because Metallica couldn’t play what we play, they couldn’t do it, they literally — technically — couldn’t do it. And I’ll challenge those chumps to that any day of the week, but we could play their music with our hands tied behind our back. And so, I was a little teed off about that, but in the end, none of that shit matters…”

If you say so, Kipster.

26 years after the release of Nothing Else Matters, Metallica is still selling out stadiums worldwide.  And Winger?  Look for them at the closest county fair.

Let’s give the final words to James Hetfield:

“I remember going to the Hells Angels Clubhouse in New York, and they showed me a film that they’d put together of one of the fallen brothers, and they were playing ‘Nothing Else Matters.’ Wow. This means a lot more than me missing my chick, right? This is brotherhood. The army could use this song. It’s pretty powerful.”

Music Video of the Day: Freeway of Love by Aretha Franklin (1985, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

From an episode of Good Times:

“I didn’t know Benjamin Franklin was on the hundred-dollar bill!”

“Who did you think was on it?”

“Aretha Franklin!”

 Of course, Aretha Franklin was never on the hundred-dollar bill but maybe she should have been.  The singer, who earned the title Queen of Soul, was one of the most influential artists of her time.  When she died yesterday at the age of 76, tributes flowed in from other musicians who were proud to say that she was one of the people who had first inspired them to sing.  Aretha Franklin paved the road that so many other artists have followed.

One of her biggest hits was Freeway of Love, which is also today’s music video of the day.  Appropriately, the video was filmed almost entirely in Detroit, the home of Motown.  Portions of the video were also filmed at Doug’s Body Shop in Ferndale, Michigan.

Keep an eye out for Clarence Clemons and his saxophone.

RIP, Aretha Franklin.

Music Video of the Day: I Said Hi by Amy Shark (2018, dir by Nick Waterman and Amy Billings)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To quote Amy Shark, this song is “an anthem for anyone who is waking up everyday fighting for what they believe in and challenging the universe!”

(For the record, Amy Billings and Amy Shark are one in the same.)

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: My Own Summer by Deftones (1997, dir by Dean Karr)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since it’s shark week on the SyFy Network, I figured this would be as good a time as any to share this shark-related video.

In this video, the Deftones perform while standing on shark cages.  Which … I don’t know.  That, honestly, is something that I would never do.  It just seems like you’re inviting trouble and, to prove my point, Chino Moreno does fall into the water while performing.  Apparently, Chino survived being attacked by the shark because he’s still around.  Maybe he’s like Felix Leiter in the James Bond novels and he’s bionic now.

To quote Mr. Big in Live and Let Die: “He disagreed with something that ate him.”

Anyway, this video was directed by Dean Karr, who has directed music videos for everyone from Korn to Lisa Marie Presley.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Deepest Bluest (Shark Fin) by LL Cool J (1999, dir by Renny Harlin)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Seeing as how this is shark week on the SyFy network and I reviewed both Deep Blue Sea and Deep Blue Sea 2 on Sunday, it seems appropriate that today’s music video of the day should feature LL Cool J turning into a shark.

I mean, doesn’t it!?

Anyway, this is one of the songs that plays over the end credits of Deep Blue Sea.  The video was directed by Renny Harlin and features several clips from the film.  And, of course, LL Cool J turns into a shark.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: After the Rain by Nelson (1990, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Matthew and Gunnar Nelson are the twin sons of the late, 1950s teen idol, Ricky Nelson.  In 1989, they signed a recording contract with Geffen Records.  As Nelson, they released their first album, After the Rain, in 1990.  Coming at the tail end of the hair metal era, Nelson specialized in the type of hard rock that was so radio friendly and inoffensive that even your mother could safely listen to them.  Nelson achieved brief fame before Nirvana came along and permanently changed the musical landscape.

The first single released off of Nelson’s debut album was the title track, After the Rain.  It was also their first music video.

I can’t remember where it was but I once saw the video for After The Rain at the top of a list of the worst music videos of all time.  Actually, I’ve seen it at the top of several similar lists.  After The Rain‘s bad reputation is almost entirely due to the first two minutes of the video.

A slob in a trailer park yells at his son.  The sobbing teen lies down underneath a big Nelson poster than no one over the age of 12 would actually have hanging next to their bed.  Suddenly, the poster comes to life and, in true Dr. Strange fashion, Matthew and Gunnar Nelson take the trailer park teen’s astral form on a journey to some sort of sweat lodge, when a Native American shaman holds up a feather.  The magic feather transports the troubled teen to a Nelson concert and everything is instantly better.

What does it all mean, beyond suggesting that Nelson was the preferred band of both the trailer park and the sweat lodge?  I don’t know.  And was anyone’s life ever actually improved by going to a Nelson concert?  Again, I just don’t know.

Like many bands of the era, Nelson’s popularity was washed away by a tidal wave of Seattle grunge.  Nelson may now be forgotten but we’ll always have the feather.