To me, there is no better way to close out the year than with this classic song from Journey! Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve!
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!
2025 may soon come to a close but have no fear. As Frank Stallone reminds us, we are far from over!
Enjoy!
Made up of 3 former members of Bauhaus and named after the comic book series by the Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets had their first minor hit with this cover of Motown’s Ball of Confusion.
Ball of Confusion was one of the many songs that Norman Whitefield and Barrett Strong wrote for The Temptations during their “psychedelic soul” period of the late 60s and the early 70s. (Another one was War, which became a much bigger hit when it was covered by Edwin Starr.) When Ball of Confusion was first released, the lyrics dealt directly with the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration, and drug abuse, making it one of Motown’s more directly political songs. However, the song’s power and message has remained timeless and it was subsequently covered by everyone from Tina Turner to Anthrax to, of course, Love and Rockets. The Love and Rockets cover was released shortly before their first album, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. Despite being the band’s first hit, the song was not included on the album until it was eventually reissued in 2000.
And the band played on.
In 1987, ITV commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley by airing Love Me Tender, a special that featured popular British acts covering songs that were originally made famous by Elvis. Pet Shop Boys’s synth-pop version of Always on My Mind proved to be the unexpected hit of the program and the band released the song as a single. It went on to become the UK’s Christmas number one single for the year.
It was also featured in It Couldn’t Happen Here, a surreal film that starred Pet Shop Boys and which was directed by documentarian Jack Bond, who had started his career with a ground-breaking film about Salvador Dali and who later became famous for his work with The South Bank Show. The subsequent music video was lifted from the film. In the movie and the video, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant are driving a taxi cab. They stop to pick up a passenger, an older man played by Joss Ackland. (In the movie, there’s an earlier scene in which Lowe and Tennant hear a news report about an escaped killed who matches their new passenger’s description.) While their passenger rambles on, Lowe and Tennant turn on the radio and listen to the song, which leads to several other clips from the film. And while the critics may not have cared much for It Couldn’t Happen Here, the band’s version of Always On My Mind remains a popular classic.
Enjoy!
The year is nearly done and we need disco!
Enjoy!
Don’t Stop Believin’ is now probably destined to be forever associated with The Sopranos but the song itself had established itself as a classic long before it was used in the finale of HBO’s famous show about the New Jersey mafia.
In fact, the song means so much to Journey’s Steve Perry that he was hesitant to give HBO permission to use the song until it was explained to him exactly how the song was going to be used and he was assured that it wouldn’t be played over any type of violence. Other than the members of the cast and the production crew, Steve Perry was one of the few people to know, in advance, how The Sopranos was going to end.
While Perry has said that the majority of the lyrics were inspired by his own early struggles to find success in the music industry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain says that the name was inspired by something that his father told him when Cain was thinking about leaving Hollywood and returning to Chicago. Cain’s father told him, ‘No, son. Stay the course. We have a vision. It’s gonna happen. Don’t stop believin’.”
As for the video, it was filmed in Houston and features Journey performing the song as a part of their Escape tour. With the exception of the infamous video for Separate Ways, Journey was known for keeping things simple and straight-forward when it came to their music videos. This one is no exception.
“The sad part is, I can’t really play the song live anymore because too many people misunderstand the connotations of Ground Zero. It’s not a reference to 9/11, obviously. It was written in 1986 when ‘ground zero’ just meant the epicenter of a nuclear attack.”
— Weird Al Yankovic
Try to force Weird Al to do a Christmas album and this is what you’re going to get.
In 1986, Weird Al’s record label insisted that he record something for the holiday season. In response, Yankovic came up with Christmas At Ground Zero, a Phil Spector-style production about Christmas in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It wasn’t really what the record company had expected and, at first, they refused to release it. Yankovic responded by creating his own music video for the song. This video was not only his first stab at directing but it also proved to be popular enough to convince the record company to change their position on the song.
Though the majority of this video is made up of stock footage, the live action scenes of Weird Al and the carolers performing surrounded by rubble were filmed in The Bronx. No nuclear explosions were needed to get the bombed-out feel. Instead, they just filmed in New York in the 80s.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas!
Christmas in Hollis is one of the most famous Christmas rap songs, though it nearly didn’t happen. When Bill Adler first approached Run-DMC and asked them to contribute to the holiday compilation album, A Very Special Christmas, the band turned him down. It wasn’t until Adler suggested the title Christmas in Hollis that the band changed their mind.
All of the proceeds of A Very Special Christmas went to support the Special Olympics. (Other contributors included Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Eurythmics, U2, and Pertenders.) Christmas In Hollis was the only original composition to appear on the album and it has gone on to become a holiday mainstay.
Hollis, of course, refers to the neighborhood of Hollis, Queens, where the members of Run-DMC grew up.
This video was named the “Best Video of 1987” by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Enjoy and Merry Christmas Eve!
Even the Ramones enjoy the holidays!
Enjoy!
Usually, I’m the one who cries on Christmas. This is the month that I allow myself to get sentimental and everything. Seeing my presents. Getting my presents. Unwrapping my presents. Trying my presents on. Showing my presents off. Seriously, it touches my heart every time.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 