So this video starts out with a good beat and two people getting close and really, that’s what we need in the world. There’s so many angry and bitter and angst-filled people out there that sometimes, we need a video to remind us that love is the best thing that there is and that there’s nothing wrong with getting close to one another and that….
OH MY GOD, DID SHE JUST RIP OUT HIS HEART!?
Well, maybe. She definitely removed something from his chest but he doesn’t look like he minds. I kind of think of this video gives us an opportunity to see what Grease would have been like it had been directed by David Cronenberg.
Once upon a time, there was a televangelist named Oral Roberts. Oral was very successful and he even had his own university in Oklahoma. One day, Oral said that he had a vision of someone telling him that he needed to build a hospital on the campus of his university and that, of course, he would need people to send him money to help him do that. That someone was Jesus and, according to Oral, Jesus was 900 feet tall.
Mark Griffin, a classically trained musician who had recently graduated from the University of North Texas, happened to hear what Oral said. Griffin, who had played in several local Dallas bands, was on the verge of launching a new career as a rapper. Griffin took the name MC 900 ft Jesus and the rest is history.
As MC 900 ft Jesus, Mark Griffin developed a strong cult following. He still has one, even though he retired from the business in 2001. (He had performed a few times post-retirement and there are annual rumors that he’s on the verge of making a comeback.) If I Only Had A Brain was one of his more popular songs, thanks to this music video from Spike Jonze.
“‘Grey Day’ was a definite step on for Madness. I remember going to a club with a copy of it and Joe Strummer was DJing. I asked him to put this on, because I thought I’d finally done something that he could dig, not just jumping up and down – but he wouldn’t play it.”
— Madness lead singer Suggs on Grey Day
Grey Day may not have been good enough for Joe Strummer but I definitely appreciate it.
The first version of Grey Day was first performed by Madness when they were still known as The North London Invaders. Three years later, they revisited the song and recorded it in the Bahamas “for tax purposes.”
The video was directed by Chris Gabrin, who was active in the 80s. He also did videos for The Cure, Culture Club, John Mellencamp, and Pat Benatar.
Today is John Lydon’s 64th birthday so today’s music video of the day features him at his best.
For the record, John Lydon (or Johnny Rotten, as he was known when he was the Sex Pistols’s lead singer) is not an anarchist. The famous lyrics that start off Anarchy in the U.K, came about because “I am an anarchiste” was the best rhyme that Lydon could come up with for “I am an Antichrist.” Lydon has described anarchism as being “mind games for the middle class.” Lydon’s right, of course.
Remarkable, John Lydon has gone from being regarded as a symbol of everything that was wrong with British youth (a representation of what the Daily Mail famously called “The Filth and the Fury” after drummer Paul Cook called Simon Grundy a “fucking rotter” on national television) to being a national treasure. Songs that once scandalized Britain are now unofficial anthems and, remarkably, Lydon’s gone from hated to beloved without changing a thing about his outlook or even his attitude. Listening to an interview with Lydon from the Sex Pistols-era is not that much different from listening to an interview that Lydon may have given last month. He may now be doing butter commercials and appearing on I’m A Celebrity! Get Me Out Of Here! but he remains that same Johnny Rotten who once scared the Hell out of anyone with a pension.
When these two fashionably-clad gangs had a disagreement in the 1980s, they didn’t settle things with violence. Well, okay — they probably did sometimes. In fact, things get a little bit heated in this video and I’m sure some people would argue that the only reason things didn’t get bad (I mean like, West Side Story bad) is because everyone knew that they were being filmed for prosperity.
Anyway, instead of having a rumble (which may sound silly but is still a lot of fun to say), they had a skate-off! And then they all jumped up into the air! Yay! Everyone’s a winner even though we know that can’t be true because, just by definition, no one can win unless someone else loses. That’s just the way it goes.
Anyway, this is a fun little video and all the gang members look crazy hot with their skateboards and their headbands and their whole neon attitude. This video was shot in Venice Beach and the director was Peter Falloon, who apparently directed a lot of skating videos back in the 80s. My favorite thing about this video is that it really does look like something that was taken off of a crappy VHS tape. You can even tell when the tape’s owner rewound certain scenes and then watched them over and over again.
Anyway, what more can I say about this one? It’s fun and really, for me, that’ the most important thing about any music video. Did I enjoy watching it? Did I actually force myself to concentrate on only doing one thing for three minute so that I could enjoy the video? In this case, the answer is yes.
Today is Australia Day and today’s music video of the day comes from one of the biggest Australian bands of the last century, INXS.
What You Need was the leadoff track from their 1985 album, Listen Like Thieves. It was the first single off the album in Australia and New Zealand while, in the US, it was released after This Time. It also went on to become the band’s first top ten hit in the United States. That shouldn’t be a surprise as the song was recorded after the album’s producer expressed concern that Listen Like Thieves was good but didn’t have a “hit.” The band wrote and recorded the song in one day.
The song’s popularity was undoubtedly helped by this music video, which came out at a time when rotoscope was still a fairly exotic animation technique. The video was named Best Video at the 1985 Countdown and Music Video Awards.
Through the Shattered Lens 