Music Video of the Day: Magic by The Cars (1984, dir. Tim Pope)

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

According to my calendar, today is Imbolc that is celebrated by Pagans and Wiccans. I know that there is some sorta music video that does exist from 1979 for The Cars’ song Dangerous Type. All I can find are live performances. I could use the cover version that Letters To Cleo did for the movie The Craft (1996). I don’t want to. Especially not when there is this one called Magic, where Ric Ocasek walks on water. I’ve been itching to spotlight this music video.

I kind of wanna just say to simply sit back and enjoy, but there are a couple of things to point out:

This is the obvious one. The song is about a relationship that makes you feel like you can walk on water, so they literally made it seem that Ocasek was walking on water. That’s at least what Songfacts tells me. It makes sense to me.
To create the illusion of walking on water, they built a little platform for him to stand on in the pool that you can see in several shots. The platform collapsed the first time, and they had to adjust it to take his weight.
This is best one. It was filmed at Paris Hilton’s family estate when she was little. I believe she would have been 2 or 3 at the time. She’s not in the video. According to Wikipedia, Kathy Hilton rented the band her house for the music video. The house would also be used a few years later for the movie Blind Date (1987).

I know one of the people is Uncle Sam and another is probably Jesus, but if you have a guess as to who the guy with the eyepatch is, then let me know. I would have thought Patch, of Patch Kayla from Days Of Our Lives. Unfortunately, their characters wouldn’t become a thing till 1986.

The video was produced by Beth Broday. She seems to have done about 20 music videos. A notable one being True Colors for Cyndi Lauper.

With that out of the way, sit back and enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Det Kommer En Vår by Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

According to Google Translate, the title of this song is “There Will Be A Spring”. I guess that explains the water and flowers. I have no idea how that explains the super low-angle though. Maybe they were trying to show the sky? Your guess is as good as mine.

Unless I am forgetting one, there are two more pre-ABBA videos before I can finally get back on track.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Nu Ska Vi Opp, Opp, Opp by Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

This time we have Agnetha joining the Swedish Air Force I guess. To my knowledge, Agentha today is afraid of such travel, which has been one of the big stumbling blocks to an ABBA reunion. That makes it a little weird to watch this video.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Söderhavets Sång by Frida (1970, dir. ???)

Posted on January 29, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

There’s still a couple of pre-ABBA videos to knock off. This time Frida appears to have traveled to Hawaii to rehearse for the sailboat version of Knowing Me, Knowing You.

I love how one of the comments on this video says, “that was wierd”. No, it doesn’t truly get weird till you see Frida boxing with herself. That, and when you find out that One Night In Bangkok was written by Benny and Björn, along with Tim Rice.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Stuck With You by Huey Lewis & The News (1986, dir. Edd Griles)

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I did Friday Night by The Darkness yesterday, so here’s the music video that I have no doubt they had in mind when making Friday Night.

If you recognize the director, then it is probably from Cyndi Lauper videos like Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

If you recognize the woman who gets stranded with Huey, then you probably know her because she is married to Pierce Brosnan. That’s Keely Shaye Brosnan or Keely Shaye Smith depending on how she gets credited on something. She was also a correspondent on Unsolved Mysteries back in the 1990s.

If you recognize the name Susan R. Feldott, the production manager, then you must have been in the business.

If you recognize the shark, then these posts are useless. Yes, Edd Griles also directed the video for If This Is It by Huey Lewis & The News. That’s the music video where a Sand Shark goes after a family at the end. They were obviously making fun of that here.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Friday Night by The Darkness (200x, dir. ???)

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I was sick most of yesterday. I needed a video at the last minute. Nothing fails to cheer me up like The Darkness. This one picks up after the video for I Believe In A Thing Called Love when their ZZ Top spaceship crash lands on every island of woman from every exploitation movie ever made–complete with a giant skull to reference Iron Maiden. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the shark is a reference to the one that stranded Huey Lewis on an island in the video for Stuck With You.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Can I Sit Next To You Girl? by AC/DC (1974, dir. ???)

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Happy Australia Day!

To my knowledge, this was not only the debut single for the band, but also their first music video. You might have noticed that is not Bon Scott. AC/DC’s first lead-singer was a guy named Dave Evans. He’s a good singer and clearly a good performer, but I can see why the band let him go. Despite attempts over the years to classify the band as “hard rock”, they have maintained that they are just rock ‘n roll. I see that when I watch Bon Scott and Brian Johnson. When I watch Dave Evans, I see Marc Bolan of T-Rex or a frontman for one of the Sunset Strip bands of the 1980s. He doesn’t quite fit. Of course this is all in retrospect. Still, that is the feeling I take away from this music video.

The music video was filmed for the show The Last Picture Show because clearly that big sign above them didn’t make that clear.

Going into doing these “music video of the day” posts, I never would have imagined that Alice Cooper, ABBA, AC/DC, and Hall & Oates would be trailblazers for the modern music video.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: She’s Gone by Hall & Oates (1973, dir. Diane Oates)

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

There’s still some pre-ABBA music videos to do. I need a break again. So why not take this time to do one of the weirdest videos from the 1970s that I am aware of? There’s a fair amount of information out there on this video, so I’ll just cover some of the basics and let you enjoy the video.

It was shot in 1973. According to at least one site, it was originally thought to have been shot in 1976.
John’s sister Diane made it for them.
The devil is played by the band’s tour manager, Randy Hoffman.
The girl is Sara Allen who had a longtime relationship with the duo that includes the song Sara Smile being about her.
Note when Daryl actually does lip-sync in the video. He really only does it when both he and John are singing together. That’s funny because while being one of the most successful duos of all-time, Hall really did the singing, and Oates the backup vocals. Sometimes they would do songs where they would sing together, but that is what you normally would hear in their songs. This became so much the formula for Hall & Oates that when they were inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall Of Fame, John said that he is probably the most well-paid backup singer in music. However, jump back to 1973, and you have a video where Hall seems to have gone out of his way to make sure you see them as a duo.
That said, the best part is easily Daryl Hall’s give-no-fucks performance. That’s not to say that Oates does a bad job, but there is just something about Daryl’s dead-face staring at you that is amazing.

Here is some additional information from an interview Oates gave concerning the video:

[Oates:] Well, I’ll give you a little background about what happened with that “She’s Gone” thing. First of all, it was 1973. There was no MTV, there was no outlet for anything like this. You know, it might be one of the first music videos ever made. I really couldn’t say, honestly, but it definitely would be a contender. What happened was, we were asked to lip sync “She’s Gone” for a teenage TV dance show broadcast out of Atlantic City, New Jersey. And we really didn’t want to do that; we didn’t want to pretend to sing the song. It was supposed to be shot in a television studio in Philadelphia. So we thought, with the mindset that we were in at the time — and I won’t say more on that, either —

([Interviewer] Ryan is laughing again.)

[Oates:] We showed up at the television studio with a chair from our living room. The woman who’s walking through the picture — that’s Sarah…

[Ryan:] Oh, wow.

[Oates:] And the devil who comes through was our road manager at the time. And we brought Monopoly money, and those weird instruments, and they thought we were nuts. They really thought that. My sister directed that video.

[Ryan:] You’re kidding me.

[Oates:] They thought we were completely insane. They actually didn’t air it; they wouldn’t air it. But we had it this whole time, and eventually I leaked it out to the internet, ’cause I just thought the world should see it.

(John Oates is laughing. Ryan is laughing.)

Enjoy!