Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: Don’t Stand So Close To Me by The Police (1980, directed by Derek Burbidge)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Because Sting was famously a teacher before he became a rock star, it’s easy to assume that this song, about a teacher tempted to have an affair with a student, was autobiographical. Sting insists that it was not, beyond that it was somewhat inspired by the groupies who were, at that time, crazy about The Police.

This video was directed by Derek Burbidge, who also directed several videos for bands like AC/DC, Squeeze, Queen, Gary Numan, The Eurythmics, and Stray Cats. In the early 80s, if you were a successful band looking to get some extra exposure on MTV, it’s extremely probable that Burbidge would have ended up directing a video for you.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Many Too Many by Genesis (1978, directed by Ken O’Neill)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The video for this Tony Banks-penned song was shot during a soundcheck at the Knebworth Festival on June 24th, 1978.  The audio was a replay of the studio version of the song, with the band miming the performance.  Despite having a music video, Many Too Many only made it the 43rd position on the UK charts and it is one of the few Genesis songs that has never been performed in concert.

Along with his work with Genesis, director Ken O’Neill also did videos for The Smiths and Elton John.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Kiss and Tell by Bryan Ferry (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This is one of two videos for Kiss and Tell.  Both videos features Ferry performing the song while model Mandy Smith and Christine Keeler pose for the camera.  (Smith was the wife of Rolling Stone Bill Wyman while Christine Keeler was at the center of the Profumo Affair, which brought down Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963.)  However, the second version of the video also featured scenes from the film adaptation of Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City.

As can be seen in the video, Michael J. Fox played the cocaine-addled main character in the film.  It was a largely unsuccessful attempt to change Fox’s clean-cut image and the film struggled at the box office.  However, both the song and and the video proved to be very popular on MTV.  The video was nominated for Best Video From A Film at the MTV Video Music Awards, though it lost to Los Lobos’s video for La Bamba.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Right Here Waiting by Richard Marx (1989, directed by Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1989, Richard Marx was so busy touring that director Jim Yukich was forced to go with a simple approach to the video for Right Here Waiting.  The footage of Marx performing the song in an empty auditorium was filmed in Los Angeles during a soundcheck.  Black-and-white tour footage was then added to turn that soundcheck into a music video.  Though the video was simple by necessity, it also captured the loneliness of being on the road and separated from your significant other.

Right Here Waiting was the second single off of Marx’s second studio album, Repeat Offender.  He wrote the song for his then-wife Cynthia Rhodes, who was shooting a film in South Africa.  It went on to become one of Marx’s biggest hits and is still regularly covered by other artists.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Midnight Mover by Accept (1985, directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Midnight Mover is the Accept song that wasn’t Balls to the Wall.  I actually prefer Midnight Mover to Balls to the Wall as both a song and video but Midnight Mover was never featured on Beavis and Butt-Head and is lesser known as a result.

The song is about a drug dealer, one who moves his product at midnight.  The video is mostly interesting as an early example of the “bullet time” technology that would later be made famous by The Matrix.  Accept did it first!

The director also did videos for Pet Shop Boys, Replacements, Mick Jagger, Rush, and the Fat Boys, amongst others.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Across The Miles by Survivor (1988, directed by Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

To date, Across The Miles is Survivor’s final original single. (Eye of Tiger reentered the singles chart in 2007, coinciding the release of Rocky Balboa and the Best of Rocky soundtrack compilation.) The video for Across the Miles does feature one woman waiting for a phone call in a lonely room but it’s mostly just a clip of the band performing. Like many of the videos from the time, it’s shot in noirish black-and-white.

Director Jim Yukich directed music videos for almost everyone. If you were a band whose music appeared on the Adult Contemporary charts, it’s probable that Jim Yukich did a video for you.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: All I Want Is Everything by Def Leppard (1996, directed by Matt Mahurin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This is actually one of Def Leppard’s better songs but it had the misfortune to be released in 1996, after the band’s 80s heyday. Visually, the music video has more in common with the melancholy video style of 90s grunge than with the energetic and upbeat videos that we typically associate with Def Leppard.

This video was directed by photographer Matt Mahurin. Mahurin started directing videos in 1986 and has worked with everyone from U2, Queensrÿche, Metallica, and Dreams So Real to Tracy Chapman, Tom Waits, R.E.M., and Alice In Chains.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Paper In Fire by John Mellencamp (1987, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video was shot outside of a house on a dirt road near Savannah, Georgia.  John Mellencamp wanted to highlight the poverty that many Americans were living under.  This video was also shot at a time when Mellencamp was still trying to escape from the “Johnny Cougar” persona that was forced on him early on in his career.  (In fact, at the time this song was recorded, he was still officially known as John Cougar Mellencamp.)

Enjoy!