Today is Rod Stewart’s 79th birthday and today’s music video of the day is One More Time, taken from his 32nd studio album, The Tears of Hercules. Appearing with Stewart in this video are his actual backup singers, Amanda Miller, Holly Brewer, and Becca Kotte.
Rod Stewart, incidentally, holds the record for being the artist featured most frequently during MTV’s first day of broadcast. On August 1st, 1981, MTV featured eleven of his videos.
Enjoy!
Today is David Johansen’s birthday and our music video of the day features Johansen in the role of his alter ego, Buster Poindexter.
Johansen/Poindexter did this cover of Ray Charles’s classic song for a film called The Dream Team. The Dream Team may not be remembered for much today but it did feature an impressive cast — Peter Boyle, Stephen Furst, Christopher Lloyd, and Michael Keaton, all of whom are featured in this video.
Enjoy!
Today’s music video of the day is early one from Madness.
The song was inspired by Madness’s manager, Jon Hasler, who would reportedly show up at the residences of the band’s members and eat whatever leftovers they had for breakfast. The video was directed by Dave Robinson, who was responsible for many of Madness’s videos.
Enjoy!
This is the type of energy that I want to see from everyone in 2024!
Enjoy!
I just recently discovered this video, despite the fact that it’s been around for a while. I like the song, I like the music, and I love the fact that watching the video reminds me of my favorite (and sadly, now closed) restaurant/bar in Denton. Sweetwater had a wonderful outdoor patio, where my friends and I would spend many a night having the most wonderful conversations ever.
This place also reminds me of a few of the clubs in Deep Ellum where I would attempt to flirt my way past the doorman go whenever I snuck out of my house I happened to be in the neighborhood.
Enjoy!
In this video for Freak, Silverchair performs in an oven so that their sweat can be used as some sort of youth tonic. Don’t worry, the band was not actually in an oven. Instead, they were just surrounded by orange lights and they were regularly doused with water to create the impression that they were sweating while performing.
The video was directed by Gerald Casale, a former member of Devo, a far more interesting band than Silverchair. The video won the International Viewer’s Choice Award at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Enjoy!
This song was considered to be very racy for its time (“safe sex!”) and, while the music video was a big hit on MTV, it was actually banned from British television. An official reason for the ban was never announced, though it was speculated that the disembodied limbs were considered to be too disturbing for younger viewers.
According to the band, this video was actually meant to be a joke take on all of the over-sexualized music videos of the time.
Enjoy!
Since today is Grace Slick’s 85th birthday, today’s song of the day features her (and, to be fair, the rest of Jefferson Airplane) performing White Rabbit at the first Woodstock.
Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane not only performed at Woodstock but they were also among the bands who attempted to perform at the Altamont Free Concert a few months later. Needless to say, the vibe at Altamont — which featured the Rolling Stones as headliners and the Hell’s Angels providing security — was far more aggressive and hostile than the vibe at Woodstock. While the Stones were performing, a member of the audience got into a fight with the Hell’s Angels, raised a gun, and was stabbed to death.
As seen in the documentary Gimme Shelter, even before the murder that ended the 60s, the Angels were aggressive, even knocking out Jefferson Airplane’s other singer, Marty Balin, in the middle of the band’s performance. Also seen in that documentary is Grace Slick doing her best to calm the crowd and, along with Paul Kanter, rather fearlessly talking back to a drunk Hell’s Angel who tried to take over the stage.
(It should be noted that Grace did all of that even though she had forgotten to put in her contact lenses that day. Me, I can’t even walk from one end of a room to another if I forget to put in my contacts.)
White Rabbit
(Lyrics by Grace Slick)
Though Accidents Will Happen has since come to be seen as one of Elvis Costello’s signature songs, it was only a moderate hit when it was initially released in the UK. Maybe it would have been more popular if MTV had been around in 1979. The music video was innovative at a time when most videos were just performance clips of the bands in concert.
The video for Accidents Will Happen is considered to be the first fully animated music video. The video was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who also did videos for Rush and Cathy Denis. Jankel and Morton would later go on to create Max Headroom and to direct the infamous first Super Mario Bros. film.
Enjoy!
Yesterday, I shared the first music video for Madness’s first single, The Prince, which was just the band performing the song on Top of the Pops in 1979. That video didn’t have Madness’s signature nuttiness so, over 40 years later, the band released a new, official video for the song.
This video is made up for footage that was taken from 1981 Madness film, Take It or Leave It and it features the band in the studio, on stage, and generally having a good time. The film was directed by Dave Robinson, who was the president of Stiff Records and who directed all of Madness’s early music videos.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 