Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: Maniac by Michael Sembello (1983, dir. Adrian Lyne)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Warning: If you’re epileptic, then you might not want to watch the video. It does include some very quick flashing for an extended period of time.

I thought I would go with something that wouldn’t immediately jump to mind for October unless you already know the story behind it.

As closely as this song is associated with Flashdance (1983), it wasn’t originally written for it. It was written with William Lusting’s 1980 film Maniac in mind. I can’t find out for sure if it was written for or was inspired by the movie. Everything I have read seems to indicate the latter. In particular, the fact that it was apparently nominated for an Academy Award, but disqualified because the song wasn’t originally written for Flashdance. It didn’t play in my copy of the film either. It was written for a movie about someone with an obsession for trapping people as they are at a certain place in their life by killing, scalping, and then placing their hair on mannequins. He has other issues intertwined with that as well. The remake explains the motive behind what he does a bit better by expanding his relationship with a photographer who was played by Caroline Munro in the original.

Something that’s amazing to me is that Sembello didn’t change much to get the version we all know from Flashdance. With a few tweaks, you can play this over certain sections of the original film, and it would fit just fine. In addition, there are sections of this video that feel like they were put together in such a way because they would resemble a scene from Maniac.

The part where she’s running in a building while we watch via a tracking shot. That instantly made me think of the scene where the nurse is trying to get away in the subway station.

Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting)

Also, he hammered the scalps onto the heads of the mannequins.

Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting)

One last thing that caught my attention was the prostitute at the start of the film who is dressed like she could start dancing, and is shown to be as flexible.

Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting)

Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting)

Maniac (1980, dir. William Lusting)

I wouldn’t be surprised if these things were intentional because according to Songfacts, this was the first music video to use nothing but scenes from the movie the song was from. I have a strong feeling that Lyne and editors Bob Lederman, Walt Mulconery, and Bud Smith put those in there for that reason.

The postings of this video on YouTube are numerous, unofficial, and all appear to have been marked for monetization or have a link inserted to where you can buy or rent the movie. That makes sense. In retrospect, this music video acts as a trailer for the movie.

So, there you go, Flashdance for October. If Songfacts is accurate, some of the lyrics originally went like this:

He’s a maniac, maniac that’s for sure
He will kill your cat and nail him to the door

Gruesome. The story is that producer Phil Ramone is the one who got Sembello to write lyrics for “a girl possessed with the passion of a gift for dance.”

All three editors worked on Personal Best (1982). They have all done many things over the years from editing The Karate Kid (1984) to producing a lot of Star Trek to directing Johnny Be Good (1988).

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Something In My House by Dead Or Alive (1986, dir. ???)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Yes, I did Creeper by Islands a few days ago. However, that song didn’t spin me right round like a record, baby, right round round round.

I can’t find much information on this one. The song was edited down for the music video. According to Wikipedia, the video is an homage to Jean Cocteau’s Beauty And The Beast. I buy that. It may have been about a decade since I saw that movie, but things like knockers made of human faces definitely remind me of that film. That’s all I can find.

We lost Pete Burns on October 23rd of 2016. On the 24th of this year, we lost Fats Domino. I thought about breaking with the October theme to do the live video of Cheap Trick covering Ain’t That A Shame, but I decided against devoting a whole post to it. Then I decided, I still wanted to include it. So, here is their cover of Ain’t That A Shame performed from where else, than Budokan.

Enjoy!

Music Video of The Day — Burn The Witch by Radiohead (2016, dir by Chris Hopewell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi!  Lisa here with today’s music video of the day!

Today, we have the video for Radiohead’s Burn the Witch.  Through the use of stop motion animation, Burn the Witch tells a disturbing little story, one that deals with an inspector who comes to a seemingly idyllic English village and who eventually ends up getting trapped in a wicker man.  If any of this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen either the original Wicker Man or the remake starring Nicolas Cage.  The video for Burn the Witch is actually a bit more positive than the film that inspired it.   In the video, the inspector escapes at the end.  Neither Edward Woodward nor Nic Cage were quite as lucky.

As for the song itself, it deals with the dangers of groupthink and blind obedience to authority.  Since Radiohead’s music has always possessed a libertarian streak, that’s certainly not a shock.  The video condemns not only those who would demand blind obedience but also on those who are foolish enough to give it.

Of course, with The Wicker Man theme, it’s also perfect for October!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Night Boat by Duran Duran (1983, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I meant to do this video a few days ago, but I’ve been a zombie lately, including today–pun intended.

From the Duran Duran wiki:

“It is possible that the video is a homage to the Italian horror film Zombi 2, with settings and zombies that look very much like the ones in the film.”

That is exactly what I thought of when I started it. This video screams “Italian horror film.” The shot below that shows up within the first ten seconds immediately made me think of Italian horror.

It took me awhile to recall what movie that shot was reminding me of. It’s Come And Out Play (2012). That was a remake of the Spanish film Who Can Kill A Child? (1976). Italian. Spanish. It’s all the same in this context. A good example is Amando de Ossorio’s film Zombi 8 (1975).

From IMDb

You can read Lisa’s review of it here.

The lines that Simon Le Bon speaks are part of a speech that Mercutio delivers in Romeo And Juliet. It’s probably there because it announces to the audience that there is something wrong with him in addition to everything else.

As for the similarities to Zombie/Zombi 2/Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979), I only watched the movie for the first time the other day. It does bear some resemblance to it. On a superficial level, I would think of that movie. I would also think of The Blind Dead films, as well other Lucio Fulci horror movies. The following shots remind me of both City Of The Living Dead (1980) and Zombie (1979).

City Of The Living Dead (1980, dir. Lucio Fulci)

Zombi (1980, dir. Lucio Fulci)

The zombies bear a resemblance to the ones in Zombie.

Zombie (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

We also get a cameo appearance from the Caribbean crabs since this video was shot in Antigua and the island sequences of Zombie were shot a bit west in Santa Domingo.

Zombie (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

Even the Night Boat itself ties back to Zombie. The beginning of Zombie starts with a boat, not too dissimilar from the one Le Bon leaves on, arriving in New York City with a zombie onboard so that Fulci could have zombies walking on the Brooklyn bridge at the end of the movie while drivers below go about their day.

Zombie (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

Zombie (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

Zombie (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

This is possibly my new favorite Duran Duran music video. It’s the complete opposite of Rio. There’s nothing glamorous about this. It’s just stylish. They even worked in references to Rio.

Rio by Duran Duran (1982)

Rio by Duran Duran (1982)

The boat is a reference too. And, what is her name this time, Le Bon?

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Dr. Mabuse by Propaganda (1984, dir. Anton Corbijn)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

According to mvdbase, this is Corbijn’s third music video. I remember in an interview he gave that he said he considers this to be his first music video. I can understand why. I kind of like Hockey by Palais Schaumburg and Beat Box by Art Of Noise, but this is much better. It is a black-and-white visual feast containing everything from M to The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, as you would expect from a German band. He tried to re-create the experience of watching something like the movie Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler and other works of German Expressionism.

I didn’t see it in their Wikipedia page, but The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse was banned by Joseph Goebbels when he became Minister of Propaganda. I wonder if that had anything to do with the choice of their name. It would make sense.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The House Is Haunted By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye by Marc Almond (1986, dir. Peter Christopherson)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Edit: I didn’t notice when I posted it that you have to click the link to the YouTube page in order for it to play. It will play if you click on it.

It’s about time that something Soft Cell related was spotlighted. In this case, it’s a video for a song by the former lead-singer of Soft Cell, Marc Almond.

The video is simple. It’s a haunted house video. Or is it a prank? Does it matter when this story is over on Wikipedia:

In his autobiography Almond describes being invited for initiation into Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, and that “not being one to turn down a theatrical moment and a chance to be relegated to the bad book, I immediately said yes.” Noise musician Boyd Rice performed the simple ceremony in “a small grotto in a wood” close to where the Hellfire Club used to meet. Almond states that the ceremony involved “no dancing naked, no bonfires, no blood sacrifice”, but even so “every hair on my neck stood on end and sweat broke out on my top lip.”. Almond would later state in a 2016 interview with Loud and Quiet that the initiation was “a theatrical joke that got a bit out of hand” and that he did not consider himself a Satanist.

The guy who sang Tainted Love was at a Satanic ritual. I never thought I could write that sentence.

The video was directed by Peter Christopherson. He appears to have directed over 100 music videos from the mid-80s through the 90s.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Creeper by Islands (2008, dir. ???)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I think I’d have an easier time trying to explain the video for Lullaby by The Cure with its spider-man on ceiling than this one.

Lullaby by The Cure (1989)

But this is one of several that was recommended by Lisa, so here’s what I see.

The poster for The Exorcist.

Looking stoned.

Things I would expect in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain.

Tarman.

Getting hit with a paper airplane…

sends you to The Lawnmower Man dimension.

Doing this fight slow enough causes it to look like they are going to make-out.

Knocking over water will spawn three CGI watermen.

Changing angles teleports cups.

The evil T-1000.

Waxman.

Alternate Waxman.

And the three Jodorowsky things are back.

According to the lyrics, “Hum it, you will remember some of it/But if you solve it, you will remember all of it.” I can do the first, but not the second. I’m just going to assume that like the video for their song Hallways, this also has to do with internal tensions within this band and the prior band, The Unicorns. It’s just a feeling I get about both of them. I could be wrong.

Other videos by Islands seem to be just as weird even if they don’t have horror elements to them like this one appears to have.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus (1979, dir. Christopher Collins)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I’m not going to pretend I know anything about Bauhaus other than that they are an early gothic rock group and that I’m amazed this video is out there.

It’s a simple stage performance video. The most noteworthy things are lead-singer Peter Murphy’s performance, the use of lighting, and the casket of sorts. It creates a low-budget dark performance that never felt like it was alienating me. I felt pulled in.

A couple of years later this song was used for the vampire film The Hunger (1983). I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve included a video below of the opening credits where they play it.

I also haven’t seen D.W. Griffith’s film The Sorrows Of Satan (1926) yet. That’s where they got the cover art for the single.

I’ll rectify having not seen either of those movies soon. I apologize.

Enjoy this early example of gothic rock. I certainly have. This is a pleasant surprise for me. I was planing to skip the video for today and feature the song Every Day Is Halloween by Ministry–also gothic rock.

Music Video of the Day: Dig Up Her Bones by Misfits (1997, dir. John Cafiero)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Wow! Johnny Zontal over at Drunk In A Graveyard isn’t a fan of this video. I’m not even sure I need to say anything. He sums this up quite well.

It’s pretty bad. This was the first official music video ever released for a song by Misfits. I have two main problems with it.

  1. It looks ingenious and lacks energy. It really does remind me of something like Blair Witch 2: Book Of Shadows (2000) with its Wiccan and Goth characters. They just seemed to be there because that was trendy. I was in school around that time. It was trendy. This feels like it was meant to tap into those trends rather than being their thing anymore. This doesn’t seem to have a reason to exist other than that it was popular. It doesn’t help that they show fans that don’t only in retrospect tell you this was popular at the time. These were the same kind of people you would see trolling MTV, which caused me to turn away from new music till this stuff started to fade away. It could have made up for this by being cheesy and fun like some metal videos of the 80s. It didn’t.
  2. The integration of the Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) footage. As in it isn’t. They just cut to it here and there because she was on the cover of the single–I guess. I hate to reference it again, but take a look at The Number Of The Beast by Iron Maiden. Mallet did a good job. Run To The Hills did it even better. You could edit out the movie footage from this video, and I doubt you would miss it. You can’t say the same of those two Iron Maiden videos.

A few years later, Misfits got Romero to direct a video for their song Scream! I can’t say that song sticks with me anymore than this one will, but the video is done well-enough. I’m not sure what director John Cafiero was thinking. He seems to have only done music videos for two songs–both by Misfits. The other one being American Psycho.

Follow the link at the start for someone making fun of the video. Then watch the video and look for when lead-singer Graves walks his fingers across the top of a gravestone.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Halloween by Glass Candy (2016, dir. René & Radka)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Remember that video yesterday for this song by the same group? It was reminiscent of something like Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order. It looked like it could have been put together with grindhouse trailers, but was probably all original footage. It would have quick flashes of things that could be weird or unsettling. It didn’t completely work. Still, it was quite good. This video is none of those things.

In 2016, Glass Candy reworked the song Halloween–cutting about a minute from it–and released it with a new video. That video is a little girl played by Isla Ferrier trying to act creepy while the directors…they certainly are shooting short videos that would do well in a fashion or photography book as static photos. Kind of like what photographers René & Radka actually do. You can go over to their website and see some of their work. It all looks perfectly serviceable for glamour shots. It’s the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in a magazine or as someone’s main IMDb photo. I guess i’m saying it all starts to blend together and is a bit bland to me. It doesn’t automatically translate to shooting a short film. A couple of their other videos do look better even if they are along similar lines.

The closest this video gets to something creepy is the following shot:

Close, but no cigar. That’s because of two problems:

  1. It’s the kind of shot you’d flash to without calling attention to it or have in the background to set an uncomfortable atmosphere. This video lingers on it and makes it the entire thing. Then it also cuts to a close up shot just in case you didn’t see it. It gives us time to get over it and let our mind wander.
  2. It comes in at 1:13 into the video. We have already spent a fair amount of time with her. We’re comfortable with her being there. She’s not this disturbing little girl that we see the for the first and only time. That could leave us wondering who or what that is. Here, she’s a little girl playing around trying to look scary. I don’t think that’s what they were going for with this video.

The part of the video that I have the hardest time with is when she is playing with the webs.

I think, “Mommy, I look scary, right?”

Both of those images on their own probably look just fine. That’s the problem. It doesn’t look like a short film. It looks like a series of behind-the-scenes videos of photography shoots strung together with the song playing in the background. Something like that can work. Check out What If I Go? by Mura Masa. I just don’t think it works here.

It’s not an awful video. It’s a video that didn’t need to exist. I also think that René & Radka need to look more with the eyes of a filmmaker than a photographer. They’re related. They’re not the same.

Regardless, enjoy!