We all know the story of Icarus. Imprisoned on the island of Crete with his father Daedalus, Icarus fashioned artificial wings so he could fly to freedom. His father warned him not to fly too close to the sun but the cocky Icarus ignored his father. The sun melted his wings and Icarus plummeted to his death. Whenever someone allows their hubris and cockiness to defeat them or they get too ambitious for their own good, we compare them to Icarus.
Iron Maiden wrote a song about the Flight of Icarus, reimaging the story as being about a teenager rebelling against his father. That’s not surprising as every Greek myth inspired at least one heavy metal song. Flight of Icarus was Iron Maiden’s first single to be released in the United States. (At the time, Iron Maiden was better known in the UK than in the US.) It’s also one of their few singles to receive substantial radio airplay at the time that it was released.
The video was shot at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas. The Grim Reaper was played by drummer Nicko McBrain. As for director Jim Yukich, he was one another one of those music video directors who everyone seemed to work with in the 80s and 90s. He did videos with everyone from Iron Maiden to Genesis to Huey Lewis to Debbie Gibson and David Hasselhoff. That’s range!
In this video, George Clinton is an alien who manufactures green cubes that cause who people who swallow them to enter into virtual reality. Thomas Dolby is force fed a cube and soon, he’s making out with Marilyn Monroe, bombing Washington D.C., and imagining himself as Marlon Brando in The Wild One. It proves Dolby with the type of rush that he couldn’t get just from going to the local video shop. Can you say LSD?
This video came out in 1985 but May The Cube Be With You didn’t actually appear on any of Dolby’s albums until 1988. That was when it was included as a bonus track on Dolby’s third studio album, Aliens Ate My Buick. People who bought the album on vinyl didn’t get the bonus track but those who purchased it on either cassette or CD did. Yes, there was a time when people bought cassettes for the extras.
The video shop at the start of this video was located in London. It’s now an internet cafe.
Peter Care co-directed this video with Dolby. Care is also credited with directing videos for R.E.M, New Order, Depeche Mode, and Bonnie Tyler.
Written for the film Beverly Hills Cop II, Shakedown was nearly a Glenn Frey song.
Frey was hired to perform the song but, on the day he was set to record it, he came down with laryngitis. As Frey didn’t really like the song to begin with and wanted to change the lyrics, it was decided to instead hire Bob Seger to do the song. Seger did not object to the lyrics and the end result was another number one hit for him. As Frey and Seger were both from Detroit and close friends, Frey later said that he was happy that they at least keep the payday in Michigan.
The song was also nominated for an Academy Award. It lost the Oscar to I’ve Had The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing. 1987, admittedly, was not a strong year as far as the Best Original Song competition was concerned. Among the other songs nominated were the title song from Cry Freedom, Storybook Love from The Princess Bride, and, from Mannequin, Nothing’s Going To Stop Us Now, a song that was so vacuous that only Starship could have performed it. Shakedown, at least, has some life to it.
The music video is basically a trailer for Beverly Hills Cop II. Shots of Bob Seger performing are mixed with shots of Brigitte Nielsen’s legs and Eddie Murphy doing his thing. I couldn’t find any directorial credits for the video but all of the Beverly Hills Cop II footage was directed by Tony Scott so, even if someone else directed the footage of Seger performing, this is still definitely a Tony Scott music video.
If you did not already know that David FIncher directed the music video for Shattered Dreams, you would guess it as soon as you watched it.
Everything about this video, from the black-and-white cinematography to the disorientating camera angles to its overall melancholy feel, identifies this as being the work of David Fincher. Long before Fincher ever directed his first film (Alien 3 in 1992, though Fincher has subsequently disowned the film due to the amount of studio interference that he had to deal with), he was a director of commercials and music videos. Even at the start of his career, Fincher’s aesthetic vision was so clearly defined that his work stood out. Fincher’s music videos are more than just showcases for musicians. They are also mini-films, each one of which tells its own unique story.
This was the first single to be released by Johnny Hates Jazz and, to this date, it remains their biggest hit. Despite popular belief, there is no one named Johnny in the band. The three members of the band did have a mutual friend named Johnny who apparently hated jazz, which somehow led to the band’s name. When the band was first signed to Virgin Records, they were playing in a jazz club so jazz has actually been good to Johnny Hates Jazz.
Phil Collins takes a lot of abuse. Remember Noel Gallagher telling voters to vote Labour in 2005 because Phil Collins was threatening to return to the UK if the Tories got in? Admittedly, Phil brings some of that abuse on himself by being notoriously thin-skinned and quick to take offense. (I’ve always gotten the impression that one reasons why the Gallagher brothers always picked on Phil was because they knew he’d never have sense enough to just ignore them and would always reply.) But Phil Collins deserves better than he’s often given.
Not only does his music epitomize an era but he’s also one of the better drummers around. Collins famously started out as a Genesis’s drummer, only becoming their ubiquitous lead singer after Peter Gabriel left the band. (Going from Gabriel to Collins was just as extreme as you might think, which is why Peter Gabriel’s Genesis is often considered to be a totally different band from Phil Collins’s Genesis.) In I Don’t Care Anymore, Collins shows off his skills as a drummer and regardless of what you might think about Collins’s overall career, the song definitely rocks.
Like most of Collins’s better songs, I Don’t Care Anymore is a dark and angry song that exists a universe away from the Disney soundtrack material that Collins produced in the 90s. He wrote this song while he was going through his first divorce, a process that left him emotionally exhausted and feeling as if he didn’t care anymore.
The video, which is largely a performance clip, was directed by Stuart Orme, who directed several videos in the 80s. He also did the video for Collins’s In The Air Tonight, a song that’s even darker than this one.
“Lyrically it doesn’t mean much but we had some fun writing it.”
— Chris Difford on Hourglass
In the 80s, Squeeze was one of the most popular bands in the UK but they often struggled to find the same success in the U.S. Some of that was because, much like Madness, Squeeze wrote songs that were undeniably British. Their relatively few U.S. hits were also the relatively few Squeeze songs not to feature any obviously British references in the lyrics.
Hourglass, for instance, was largely a nonsense song that had a strong hook and an unforgettable melody. What does “Take it to the bridge, throw it overboard, see if it can swim” refer to? No one knows and it doesn’t matter. Along with being insanely catch, Hourglass also had a memorable music video. The video was popular on MTV and, in the 80s, that usually led to success on the U.S. Charts. Hourglass became on the few Squeeze songs to break into the U.S. Top 40.
The video features the band performing amongst a series of optical illusions. The video was directed by Adrian Edmondson while the Salvador Dali-inspired concept for the video was credited to Squeeze’s keyboardist Jools Holland. Holland would later go on to host Later …. with Jools Holland on BBC Two and has become a British cultural icon.
Like every Paysage d’Hiver album I’ve heard, Im Wald is a meaty grind that I never fully internalized. At over two hours, this one was especially difficult to soak in. So why include it? I think Wintherr is a very consistent artist. At least, he sets an atmosphere that jives well with me and achieves roughly the same mood from one release to the next, whether he’s plodding out black metal or toying around with ambient noise. I’ve got nearly his entire discography sitting around and have yet to hear something I didn’t enjoy. Das Tor was the closest I came to really appreciating one on an individual track level, but… when in doubt looking for some relatively classic BM sounds to binge in October, Paysage d’Hiver is always a good fallback, and Im Wald sustained that expectation.
I gave this entry a last second bump over Nine Altars by Primeval Mass, which deserves an honorable mention. When it comes to albums I enjoyed a lot in passing but never fully committed to, black metal is going to win me over before thrash most of the time. But my 20th slot was a bit of a toss-up.
An honorary placement perhaps? I’m not sure how deep my bias runs here. I have a lot of respect for what Krallice does, and they have written some of my all time favorite music. Mass Cathexis is a very experimental piece prone to meandering chaos that doesn’t always resolve in a holistically satisfying composition for me, but just seeing them continue to create interesting things gives me a lot of satisfaction. There are a lot of albums I could have put into the low end of my top 20. The positive association I have with the band beyond this particular album gave it the edge over releases in a similar boat of enjoyable but not particularly memorable to me. And the title track featuring Dave Edwardson of Neurosis is pretty sick.
I binged Enslaved pretty hard this year, not just this album but in general. Utgard is definitely one of their least interesting releases to me, but as I slowly approach old fart status, it becomes increasingly more appealing to hear old bands I’ve loved for a very long time continue to release music that doesn’t suck. And this is good, so I enjoyed it, and here we are.
I have no recollection of what lead me to pick this up on bandcamp earlier this year, and it hasn’t made any big waves in the metal universe that I know of. It’s a slightly doomy death metal grinder that has never leapt out at me as bearing any particularly unique qualities, but this sort of sound has an occasional home in my play list, and for whatever imperceptible reason, this is the album I was most inclined to put on when that mood struck.
When you base your sound around one of the most unique bands in metal, I suppose the parallels are unavoidable, but Emyn Muil doesn’t seem to care about any sense of originality. The homage here goes a bit beyond copying a style. Black Shining Crown, for instance, directly lifts its melody from The Glory Disappears off Stronghold, and it borderline qualifies as a cover song. …Giving it a new name rather than acknowledging it as such is at least a bit awkward, but honestly, I don’t really care. Summoning is sitting pretty at my #3 most listened-to band ever, and I’ll gladly indulge a group that goes out of their way to sound exactly like them. I haven’t actually heard their earlier albums yet, but given that my favorite track on this is a reworking of Arise in Gondolin from their 2013 debut, I’m pretty optimistic. Afar Angathfark is fun and highly attuned to my tastes, if entirely unoriginal, and despite a fairly late discovery, I ended up listening to it quite a lot this year.
This is the only album that made my list that I wouldn’t really classify as metal. It’s a smooth, spacey jam that gets a bit heavy at times, a bit rock and roll at others, but definitely aims for chill vibes throughout. I have no idea how I even stumbled onto it, I really never dug in to learn much about it, and the artist seems to be pretty obscure. But it’s a great night mood when I want a pulse without an edge, and it’s kept me company a fair bit in recent months.
I gave Vile Luxury second place in 2018, and I don’t regret it. What made Alphaville a bit harder to process was, well, Imperial Triumphant aren’t a novelty to me anymore. That what the hell am I listening to thrill is numbed, and we’re meandering eclectic through a chaotic scene I’ve seen before. Imperial Triumphant don’t write memorable, catchy riffs. They don’t conjure a contemplative atmosphere to focus my senses and drive me along from the background. This is a barely-hanging-on jumble of harsh contrasts, discordant noise, and patchworked transitions, all quite well suited and effective for capturing their sinister portrayal of urban opulence. If I was still in hobby of writing proper album reviews, I could conjure a pretty gushing one here, but when it comes to just ranking what I’ve enjoyed listening to the most, well, there are only so many undistracted hours I can devote to one album, and that’s what Alphaville demands. In the absence of that initial novelty of their sound I experienced two years ago, I do still love this, just not quite as replayably.
First impressions are misleading, and that’s why this album stands where it does. I only discovered it sorting through other people’s year end lists, and while my initial impression was very positive, it never got the time to grow or fade on me. It was really exciting to hear something fresh within the pagan bm spectrum, and I wanted to bump this up really high, but lack of an opportunity to see how it stands for me over time held it back a bit. And unlike another album I stumbled into in the closing week of December, the growth didn’t force itself on me organically through a compulsion to just keep listening to it over and over again. I suspect this will move up, but this is the spot it’s earned for me so far.
Yep. It’s been seven years, but Finntroll have a new album, and unlike quite a few gimmicky folk metal bands of their era, they’re still pretty damn good. If you’re familiar with anything this band’s released since Visor om slutet, you won’t be in for any surprises. If you like your metal with heavy synth and a side of polka, you won’t be in for any disappointments either.
An energized, driving debut full length out of the black metal powerhouse that is France, Monte Verità offers a hint of viking metal and some pretty catchy riffs. Cénotaphe keep it dark but vibrant, setting a mood that has stood the test of time well for me as a background piece that keeps me energized without getting in the way. I was surprised by just how many times I’d actually listened to this when I was going through my year end options. The numbers don’t lie. This was one of my most listened to BM albums of 2020 and still feels fresh as I’m writing this.
This was my first time hearing Primitive Man. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Caustic, but I came into Immersion with a blank slate, and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a lot. The Lifer is an awesome opening track that just instantly crushes you under the weight of this band’s sound… and then not terribly much happens for the next 36 minutes. I think you either vibe with it or you don’t. These guys drag everything out at such lengths that it sometimes feels more like a very brutalized Sunn O))) album than something in the traditional doom metal sphere. The sheer weight of their sound is unmatched by anything I’ve heard personally, and at just over half an hour, it manages to compress a slow roll into a sufficiently brief package to still have identifiable songs without requiring too attentive of a listen to process. I actually preordered this based on a few samples, and that initial appeal has managed to sustain through to the end of the year. Definitely a band I’ll continue to keep tabs on. I also stumbled into the Sweet Leaf cover of my dreams along the way.
It’s hard to say how much Wayfarer’s open embrace of the American west in theme and imagery preemptively colors my perception of their sound. The acoustic guitar passages certainly carry it deep into the music, but there’s something very compelling in their full package. I often find their drudging mood highly reminiscent of Drudkh from an inattentive distance–a band that similarly captures a specific folk aesthetic with fairly minimal open deference to musical tradition. Much like World’s Blood, which also finished high for me when I first discovered the band in 2018, A Romance with Violence is a difficult album for me to sit down and focus on. It’s a mood piece in which I find few memorable passages but a steady progression that can keep me passively engaged as I go about my work and let its ambience fill the void around me. It’s been one of my go-to defaults to put on when nothing else is immediately drawing me, and in that distanced capacity it has managed to rack up more plays than most this year despite an October release.
It’s rare for a death metal album to sit this well with me in terms of plain old repeatable enjoyment, but this one really hits a sweet spot. Loaded with complex but catchy hooks and outstanding bass runs, it manages to merge brutal intensity and enough oddly timed noodling to keep my brain occupied while still feeling smooth on the edges. As someone who doesn’t listen to much death metal, it’s hard for me to make a direct comparison. The bass here sort of reminds me of Opeth’s Morningrise, not in tone but in the way it tends to flare up into a second lead adding another layer of life to the sound, making otherwise generically harsh passages feel vibrant and alluring.
What a triumph. I’m always hesitant to label anything my unconditional “favorite” in music. These lists are just a silly excuse to double down on exploring and sharing what I’ve enjoyed most throughout the year. But let’s be real. I’ve been doing this for two decades now, and there’s only one name that has never faded out of top ten contention into obscurity through those years. Boris is my favorite band by so many objective measures that there’s really no point in pretending they’re anything less or putting on a facade of unbiased scrutiny towards their eternal onslaught of new releases.
NO leaves its mark in their discography in the form of unrelenting energy, and that’s a pretty unusual statement for a band to make nearly 30 years into their history. It’s a sound that’s been fundamental in their repertoire from the get-go and frequently reared its head for a track or two up through Pink, but it wasn’t what made them great. Ibitsu and Furi felt like filler tracks on Akuma no Uta. There’s a lengthy stretch between Heavy Friends and Kane the Bell Tower of a Sign that I barely remember on Heavy Rocks. Boris were killing it on post-rock and doom metal and bluesy 60s rock anthems in a way that I felt overshadowed their punk inclinations before eventually branching out in every direction imaginable. NO takes it back to the punk roots hard, but with no strings attached. Especially in that post-Flood era of rock cuts, I feel like they were writing songs that built on the ideas of their predecessors. There was a sort of formula to it all, that over-the-top-distorted 60s blues aesthetic cut loose into rock and roll. By 2020, there’s really no point in comparing Boris to anyone but Boris. NO is 40 minutes of doing that thing they do with an intensity they haven’t approached in ages, and their sound has expanded so much in the interim that all of their previous punk inclinations pale in comparison.
I saw Velnias live in 2010 opening for Alcest and was impressed enough by the performance to pick up their then only release, Sovereign Nocturnal, but I dropped the ball on ever giving it a proper listen. When Scion of Aether dropped on Bandcamp this year, something triggered a recommendation ping, and it took 30 seconds of sampling to convince me to grab a copy. They tend to be labeled folk metal of that American sort, and I definitely picked up on vibes reminiscent of Wolves in the Throne Room and Agalloch in their performance a decade ago. But this is something a bit more polished than those bands, with a grooving progressive aesthetic sometimes reminiscent of Russian Circles adorned by earthy organic tones. This album offers immersion in a primitive natural setting through the smooth brain massage of post-metal.
It was interesting finding myself placing this album so close to Wayfarer. I suspect on a superficial level they may feel very similar, but the holistic experience is completely different for me. A Romance with Violence is ideal in the background, setting the mood without getting in the way. Scion of Aether is distracting, frequently gripping my attention. A Romance with Violence is grounded and bleak. Scion of Aether is, well, a bit aethereal.
I am very hesitant to put late discoveries in my top 10. I’ve been there and laughed at myself for it enough before. First impressions can be pretty slanted, and albums with a lot of catchy riffs especially start out higher than they often end up. But this isn’t that kind of album. This is a slow grower that hooked me so fast it has accumulated a month’s worth of plays in the past seven days. I knew I was in for something special the first run through by the way its mood resonated with me. When absolutely nothing specific stands out but I still walk away feeling incredible, an album is destined to hold up well, because the familiarity will establish itself in an already highly positive context. I’ve been listening to this obsessively ever since, and every time I notice more and more detail fleshing out the massive if morbid world of sound they’re presenting. Drawn Into the Next Void’s crushing waltz is the highlight for me so far, but I don’t think I am anywhere near done exploring this album yet, and I won’t be surprised if 5th place feels too low when all is said and done.
What a find. I’ve never heard a single band on Amor Fati and stumbled into this debut demo on a lark clicking through fairly random recommendations. I think the post-black metal tag is beginning to feel dull in an era where bands that don’t take the genre some place unexpected rarely get mentioned. Fifteen years ago, I might have used it here. It’s noteworthy because Morbid Funeral has a lot of the trappings of a conventional black metal album. It’s as brilliantly raw as its French origin promises and definitely sustained by perpetual blast beats, tremolo, and unearthly howls. But it is intensely emotionally evocative in a way that characterization fails to imply. It’s a constant onslaught of gut-wrenching chord progressions paced to feel like absolute desperation which, despite the shortest track clocking at over 12 minutes, rarely breaks into anything that could be perceived as fill. The album descends down a rabbit hole of rapid-fire despair that climaxes 7 minutes into the closing track in reverse form, slamming on the breaks for the first time in half an hour to slow roll out a death knell broken bittersweet melody while B.F.S. coughs and chokes and loses his freaking mind on the microphone. La danse du pendu will inevitably be overlooked in most metal circles in 2020, but to call Lure the most promising new artist I’ve heard in a few years would be a disservice; he offered a masterpiece out the gate.
Where do you even begin with a Liturgy album? A big step up from H.A.Q.Q. for me, which I nevertheless enjoyed, Origin of the Alimonies is yet another unique and inspired installment in a discography that’s been so persistently ahead of its time I think more people will respect this 20 years from now than do today. H.A.Q.Q. was, for all its oddities, at least a slight return to form in reinviting the project’s black metal roots into the framework. Origin of the Alimonies reaches back into the unknown, but not with the bold curiosity I adore on The Ark Work. This is a highly refined album, carried along by a narrative orchestration, the intensity flaring up in fits and starts as movements within Hunter’s esoteric tale. It’s some sort of black metal opera.
I can listen to this all day and never [i”>feel[/i”> like I’m listening to a metal album. For all its intense drumming and screams and tremolo guitar, the mood is almost intellectual. Hunter’s a pretty rare gem impervious to conformity and brilliant at articulating the the unique musical ideas in her mind, and I can easily call this my second favorite album in her discography.
I picked up the new Oranssi Pazuzu almost as a matter of policy. I’ve known about them since their debut and have every full length album. After a certain amount of accumulation, a band just becomes automatic. But honestly, I couldn’t have told you anything about them. I never really [i”>listened[/i”> to them, not even as a passive background piece. I dimly acknowledged that they were doing creative original things within the sphere of my metal interests, and that was good enough for me, but every release to this point was one spin and done. Going back and briefly sampling their older albums, I’m not convinced that I was missing out. Their sound is distinct, but not the sort that instantly compels me to relisten. I don’t think I’ve given their past releases enough of a fair chance to say that Mestarin kynsi is different, but my goodness did it strike me differently from the get-go.
The album kicks off with a seven minute brooding introduction that builds up an eerie mood for things to come and ultimately climaxes into a pretty groovy but still restrained dark jam that’s driven as much by electronic tones as anything conventionally metal. The restraint is key, because each track takes this same approach while growing just a little bit more unhinged. It’s a masterfully planned collective work in terms of persistently evolving through levels of linear progression. Tyhjyyden sakramentti starts off as brooding as Ilmestys, but now a bit jazzed up, with a climax that’s more intense and a further progression out of that mid-track explosion into a warped psychedelic nightmare.
This progression through levels of increasing intensity and weirdness sort of maxes out near the end of Uusi teknokratia, roughly half way through the album, and you get a sort of soft reset with its outro and the subsequent Oikeamielisten sali, which feels entirely tame after where the album had gone before. A bit of a let down at first, but it came to feel like an integral part of the journey as I grew more familiar with the album, because we’re segueing into the two most wild tracks in the mix to close things out. Kuulen ääniä maan alta is a beat-driven electronic trip that takes the album to, if not its most intense moment thus far, certainly its most bizarre and satisfying. And the closer Taivaan portti is one of those grand finales that start at 11 and cram more and more and more into a sound space that was maxed out from the get-go until it finally just collapses into nothing. That’s a whole lot of hype words that don’t really say much of anything. Just go listen to it. I also found this fantastic live performance of the album. Taivaan portti is the sort of track that’s made to be experienced live, and the video does not disappoint.
This is, essentially, my idea of a perfectly crafted album, stringing together six independently grand tracks into a master work with clear flow and vision. It’s the sort of album I can easily give 1st place to and not feel silly about later, because it appeals to me both innately and as a piece of auditory art.
Relegating Spectral Lore’s III to second place on my 2014 list was a pretty boneheaded mistake, and after a great deal of consideration, I’m going to do it again. I’m not sure why Ayloss released this under a different name, but after half a decade of ambient and electronic pieces, this is absolutely the heir to III. Years later, when I’m still listening to it regularly and have long forgotten the winner, I will once again ask myself, why necromoonyeti? Why do you botch the list every single time?
…At least, that’s where my write-up sat for the past month. Relistening to everything one last time as I prepare to post this, I’m going with the switch. I do feel Oranssi Pazuzu delivered the most complete package I heard in 2020–a visionary work that I both enjoyed tremendously and admired for its sustained attention to how each piece weaves into the album as a whole. But if the question boils down to what I loved listening to the most in 2020, there’s just no debate to be had here.
Ayloss has an absolutely unmistakable guitar style that lead me to instantly identify him in this before I realized what I’d clicked on, and the fuzzy ear candy tones he employs lend to endless repeatability. If you can imagine Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal but rounded on the edges, Ayloss’s finished products are something closer to melodic white noise than metal. It’s downright soothing, and I don’t think I’ve ever found an artist with more background play equity for me personally.
Castles Conquered and Reclaimed might be my favorite Ayloss release to date. It’s hard to say. I’ll have to see what I’m queuing first another year from now. But there is a thematic difference going on, at least to my ears, that projects this album into a medieval sphere dominated lately by Obsequiae, where III felt very other-worldly and earlier Spectral Lore albums tended to give me nature vibes. Evoking the spirits of ancient battles and temples in ruin, ghosts echoing their glory across some sunlit plain. That’s how this album translates into my brain. And if I’m getting pretty far afield in fantasy land here, it must be a pretty unique composition to be able to take me there.
Yes, that actually happened. He released four studio albums and a handful of singles and his videos were popular on MTV, back when MTV still played videos. Actually, Shaq wasn’t a bad rapper but he never escaped the impression that his musical career was just a celebrity vanity project. Considering some of the other celebrity rap albums that came out in the 90s, Shaq’s work holds up as listenable if not exactly inspired. (I’ve never heard Brian Austin Green’s rap album and I’m planning on making sure that I never do but I’m still sure that Shaq was better.)
Strait Playin’ is from his third studio album, You Can’t Stop The Reign. It was produced by DJ Quik and featured verses from Quik and Peter Gunz. The song peaked at #33 on the U.S. R&B charts but it was more popular in New Zealand, for some reason. It hits #17 on the New Zealand charts. It was also featured on the soundtrack for Steel, a movie that featured Shaq in the lead role.
As for the video, every 90s rap video cliché is present, from driving around in an open top car while rapping to the house party at the end.
You learn something new every day. Up until Monday, I didn’t even know this song existed but it does and it’s even got some historical importance as this was one of the earliest “rap” singles to chart in the UK. It reached number three on the UK charts.
As for the video, what you have to remember is that it was released shortly after the success of John Boorman’s Excalibur and knight in shining armor were suddenly very popular again. Terry English, who designed the armor in Excalibur, also designed the armor that Adam Ant wears in this video. Why does Adam turn into a football player? Why is the song’s co-writer, Marco Pirroni, dressed up like Liberace? How did they get Lulu to agree to play the princess that Adam rescues from the castle? When did Adam Ant turn into Bruce Lee? When Adam Ant is rapping, anything can happen. In the video’s final moments, we return to Excalibur as Adam loses his sword to a mysterious figure in the moat.
This video was filmed at Bodiam Castle, which has stood since 1385 and has been open to the public since 1921. (It’s currently owned and operated by the National Trust.) The video was co-directed by veteran music video director Mike Mansfield and Adam Ant, himself.
Enjoy!
For those curious, here are the full lyrics to Ant Rap:
Put some wax on the trax and slide on onta here Hane hane hane hane hane Hatchets in the corner ears to the ground Improve to the groove get down to the sound Buttons and bows and bleu blanc rouge All things lively must be used Liberte, egalite, au jour d’hui see’est tres tres tres Voici l’opportunite nous incroyables I got the moves they got the grooves Summoned the gods and they all approved Bad vibes akimbo on the shelf Bit of a rap thing going for myself This gold on the teeth’s no sense at all It only matters when it’s on the wall I’m standing here with my four men Let’s start that rapping thing again: Marco, merrick, terry lee, gary tibbs and yours truly In the naughty north and in the sexy south We’re all singing I have the mouth In the naughty north and in the sexy south We’re all singing I have the mouth I have the mouth So tired of anarchists looking at me Don’t need their credibility “Destroy, ” they say, “defy! Condemn! “ As long as you don’t destroy them With twenty years of drugs and drink I thought the time had come to think About standing up and saying that It’s tragedy and such old hat I’m standing here with my four men Let’s start that rapping thing again: (I got) marco, merrick, terry lee, gary tibbs and yours truly In the naughty north and in the sexy south We’re all singing I have the mouth In the naughty north and in the sexy south We’re all singing I have the mouth I have the mouth These happy feet are all we need Summoned the gods and they all agreed These feet won’t stop they’re in such a hurry I knock it on the head and I go for a curry Staying sober can be neat Get drunk on these here happy feet Keep on trying to pin me down “Why a title for your sound? “ I’m standing here with my four men Let’s do this rapping thing again: I got marco, merrick, terry lee, gary tibbs and yours truly In the naughty north and in the sexy south We’re all singing I have the mouth. .. And I have the mouth And you have the mouth And they got the mouth
On Friday night, I watched Thank God It’s Friday with Lisa Marie and the Friday Night Flix gang and I’ve been in a Terri Nunn mood ever since. Before she joined Berlin and became their lead singer, Nunn was an actress. Along with appearing in a small but important role in Thank God It’s Friday, she was also a finalist for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. According to what I’ve read online (as with all things that I’ve read online, take it with a grain of salt), the casting came down to Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford vs. William Katt, Terri Nunn, and Kurt Russell. Carrie Fisher got to be Leia but Terri Nunn got musical superstardom. I’d say it was a fair trade for both of them, though it is tempting to imagine Terri Nunn singing the Life Day song at the end of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
No More Words is one of Berlin’s most enduring songs. (I know a few people who are still convinced that the song’s title was No More Worlds.) Produced by Giorgio Moroder and Richie Zito, No More Words was the first single off of Berlin’s 1984 album, Love Life. It was also the band’s first Top 40 hit in the States. It was later used in the film Vision Quest and re-released as the B-side of Madonna’s single Crazy For You.
The video pays homage to the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde. Taking place during the Great Depression, it features the band robbing a bank and then fleeing from the cops. Terri Nunn is dressed-up to resemble Faye Dunaway in the role of Bonnie Parker. Despite the fact that they appear to be robbing a small town bank in the South, there are Thomas Dewey campaign posters on the buildings. In the 30s, Dewey was New York’s district attorney so it’s not likely that anyone living in the Dust Bowl would have been campaigning for him. The video goes on to loosely recreate several scenes from Bonnie and Clyde, though Terri Nunn seems far more conflicted about the violent bank robber life style than Faye Dunaway ever was.
This video was directed by Evan English and Paul Goldman. While this is Goldman’s only credit as a video director (according to the imbd), Evan English went on to direct the videos for Elvis Costello’s Veronica and Crowded House’s Nails in My Feet.
Through the Shattered Lens 