Category Archives: Music

Music Video of the Day: Take This Job And Shove It by Dead Kennedys (1984, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

If this song isn’t the unofficial anthem on Labor Day, it should be.

Of course, Take This Job And Shove It is best known as a country song.  The most popular version of the song was performed by Johnny Paycheck and it spoke to the frustrations of everyone who was stuck in a bad job and who dreamed of just telling the foreman or the shift manager to go to Hell.  The song was Paycheck’s biggest hit and it was subsequently performed by many artists, some country and some not.  Dead Kennedys covered the song and, as seen in this 1984 performance at Olympics Auditorium, they added their own spin to the song.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bois Lie by Avril Lavigne, feat. Machine Gun Kelly (2022, dir by Nathan James)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yay!  Avril’s back!  The song is called Bois Lie and it’s about how boys lie.  But Machine Gun Kelly says that girls lie too.  One good thing about being a star is that you can still get away with singing songs like this even when you’re nearly 40.

As for this video, it was shot during Machine Gun Kelly’s Mainstream Sellout Tour.  This is one of those “look how much fun we have on tour” videos.  To be honest, both the song and the video have kind of a Degrassi feel to it.  So, if you ever wondered what it was like when Ashley and Craig went on tour together, this video is probably a good indication.  Of course, I imagine Ashley and Craig would end the performance by having a massive fight onstage and breaking up every night.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Hero of the Day by Metallica (1996, directed by Anton Corbijn)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

This video was directed by Anton Corbijn.  If you were a rock star in the 90s, Anton Corbijn probably directed a music video for you.

In this video, a young man discovers that Metallica is inescapable.  Even on television, every channel features either a show or a commercial that features the members of the band.  For someone who has access to 24-hour Metallica television, the young man doesn’t seem to care about much.  Not even his girlfriend can get much of a response from him.  He would rather just fantasize about monsters fighting.  The young man in the video is played by George Clements.  He also appeared in a music video that appeared on Queen’s Made In Heaven compilation.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: A Farewell to Kings by Rush (1977, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

To quote Neil Peart, this song “seems to encapsulate everything that we want Rush to represent.”  The song is about dealing with the hypocrisy and finding your own truth, away from the demands of the establishment and the so-called “kings” who think that it is their place to tell others how to live their lives and what to believe.

Both the song and the music video are filled with imagery that harkens back to the Middle Ages, a reminder that hypocrites have always been there and they always will be but that the people will always find a way to be free.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Another Rainy Night Without You By Queensryche (1991, directed by Matt Mahurin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“Sometimes rockers have to pretend to be all sensitive like that to get chicks.”

When Butt-Head uttered those words of wisdom, he was talking about the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s Under the Bridge but he could have just as well been talking about Queensryche and Another Rainy Night Without You.  Of course, Queensryche was always more given to emotion than some of the other prominent metal groups of the era.

The most interesting thing about this black-and-white video is that it was directed by Mary Lambert, who also directed both the original Pet Semetary and it’s sequel.  Lambert also directed the music video for Queensryche’s Empire.

Update (9/9/22) — Actually, there are two videos of this version.  One of them was directed by Mary Lambert.  However, the video at the top of this post was directed by Matt Mahurin, who has been directing music videos since the late 80s and who has also worked with everyone from Peter Gabriel to R.E.M. to Metallica.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me by Weird Al Yankovic (2011, directed by Koos Decker)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In honor of the coming release of his biopic, today’s music video of the day is from Weird Al Yankovic.  Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me is one of his more underrated song but, as anyone who has ever had to clean out their email inbox knows, it’s also one of his most important.  Thanks to the rise of Facebook and Twitter, it’s not as much of a problem as it used to be but there was a time when I dreaded sharing my email address with anyone because I knew I would soon be forced to deal with anything that made them laugh, cry, or think.  Anyone who says that they’ve never wanted to say, “Stop forwarding that crap to me!” is lying.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Cage by Billy Idol (2022, directed by SRS)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After all this time, Billy Idol is still out there, making music and making videos.  Cage is his latest and it features Billy singing about dealing with his own demons while breaking free of a straight-jacket.  Harry Houdini has nothing on Billy!

The video was directed by SRS, which I assume is a pseudonym.  Remember when music videos used to be directed by guys with names like Nigel and Spike?  Now every music video appears to have been directed by a computer program.

Right now, this video only has 419,000 views on YouTube.  Times are forever changing and musical tastes change with them but that’s still no way to treat Billy Idol!

Enjoy!

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

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!

Enjoy!