Category Archives: Music

Music Video of the Day: Just Can’t Get Enough by Depeche Mode (1981, directed by Clive Richardson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Just Can’t Get Enough is about as upbeat of a song as you are ever going to get from Depeche Mode.  That has a lot to do with the fact that it was written by Vince Clarke, who was a founding member of the band and who was considered to be the band’s leader until he left in November of 1981.  While Clarke went on to become best known as a member of Erasure, Depeche Mode went in a harder, less pop-orientated direction, with Martin Gore eventually taking over Clarke’s role as the band’s main songwriter.

Just Can’t Get Enough was the third single from Depeche Mood’s debut album, Speak & Spell.  The song was written as the punk scene was winding down and London club kids were looking for new music that wasn’t quite as aggressive and self-destructive.  Just Can’t Get Enough was the first Depeche Mode song to become a top ten hit in the UK.

The video, which was directed by Clive Richardson, was the band’s first and it remains the only Depeche Mode video to feature Vince Clarke.  The outdoor scenes were filmed at the Southbank Centre in London.  Though the video did occasionally air on MTV, it wasn’t placed in the station’s regular rotation.  In fact, MTV didn’t really embrace Depeche Mode’s videos until the release of Personal Jesus in 1989.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: If You Leave by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1986, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year was 1986 and director John Hughes had a problem.

Test screenings for his latest film, Pretty in Pink, indicated that his target teen audience loved the film up until the final scene, which featured Molly Ringwald going to prom with her geeky best friend, Jon Cryer.  Audiences booed when they saw Ringwald dancing with Cryer instead of with Andrew McCarthy.  Realizing that he would have to refilm that entire final scene in order to give the audience what they wanted, Hughes also realized that he would need a new song to fit the mood.

As OMD’s Andy McCluskey later told Songfacts:

“We were delighted to be asked by John, and went to the set where Molly and John Cryer were shooting. Unfortunately, the original song that we wrote didn’t fit after they changed the whole ending. We had 2 days to write a new track at Larabee Studios in L.A. We worked until 4 a.m. writing a rough version and sent a motorbike to Paramount. John heard it, liked it, and our manager phoned us at 8 a.m. and told us to go back in and mix it. That’s how ‘If You Leave’ Happened! The song had to be 120 BPM cos that’s the tempo of ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me),‘ which is the track they actually shot the prom scene to. Unfortunately, the editor obviously had no sense of rhythm because they are all dancing out of time in the final film.”

The popularity of Pretty in Pink led to If You Leave becoming OMD’s biggest hit in the United States.  As a band, OMD was always more popular in the UK than in the US.  Interestingly enough, just as none of OMD’s UK hits were big in the U.S., If You Leave was not a hit in the UK.

The video is typically 80s, made up of footage of the band performing intercut with a few scenes from Pretty In Pink.  About halfway through the video, the lead singer starts to knock out pieces of a pink wall, as if they’re showing Roger Walters that tearing down a wall isn’t anywhere near as difficult as he made it sound.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Counting Blue Cars by Dishwalla (1996, directed by Chris Applebaum)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“It was a conversation between myself and the child within myself, but it was sparked by having a conversation with someone who was really young and around that time thought about God and those kinds of things, and just being really curious about it but hadn’t been taught to think a specific way. I just loved the innocence and honesty of having that conversation with someone who didn’t care either way how you would describe this or that – they were just curious.”

— Dishwalla’s JR Richards on Counting Blue Cars

If you were, for some reason, challenged to come up with the epitome of a generic 90s alternative band, that band would probably look a lot like Dishwalla and the song that they sang would probably sound a lot like Counting Blue Cars.  That doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily bad song.  It just means that both the band and the song definitely belong to a very specific era.

Counting Blue Cars may have been their only big hit but, for a period of time, it was inescapable.  You could not turn on the radio without hearing that familiar chorus of Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God.  The song also received attention because it described God as being female.  According to Wikipedia and Songfacts, that made the song controversial.  I can’t remember any controversy about it at all.

The video also feels like the epitome of a generic 90s alternative video.  You would think that the video would at least feature a child asking questions or maybe a blue car but instead, it’s the band playing in some sort of new age trailer park.  New age trailer parks were very popular in the 90s music videos.

What kind of weird child asks for all your thoughts on God?

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Cool by Gwen Stefani (2005, dir. by Sophie Muller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I ain’t no hollaback girl …. I ain’t no hollaback girl ….

Oh wait, wrong Gwen Stafani song.  This one’s Cool too, though.  In fact, that’s the name of the song!  It’s all about how Gwen used to date this guy but they broke up but they’re still cool, as in they’re still friends.  In this video, Gwen proves just how cool she is by inviting her ex and his now lover to her Italian villa.

This video was filmed at Lake Como, Italy and the main reason I like it is because I like Italy and watching a video like this reminds me of how much I want to go back and visit Italy.  That was kind of the plan for the second half of this year but then the COVID-19 panic hit and upended everything.

By the way, are we still doing the quarantine thing?  It’s hard to keep track.  I know that two weeks ago, people were threatening to throw me up against the wall for wanting to go outside.  Now, they want to do the same thing because I don’t want to go out.  Personally, I just want to know that I can safely travel to Italy.

Anyway, enjoy this video and hopefully, we’ll all get to travel again at some point in the near future!

Music Video of the Day: REALiTi by Grimes (2015, dir by Grimes)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It occurred to me that I have yet to congratulate Elon Musk and Grimes on the birth of little X Æ A-Xii.  It’s interesting to note that Elon and Grimes first discovered each other on twitter, where they independently came up with the same pun.  Personally, my favorite pun has always been, “If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it.”

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Dangerous by Olivia Krash (2016, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This video features Olivia Krash covering one of my favorite songs, Big Data’s Dangerous!

Covers are always interesting.  I like covers when they bring something new to the song and I think that Olivia Krash definitely does that with her version of Dangerous.  Her version is a bit less paranoid than the original version that was performed by Big Data and Joywave.  It takes an anthem to suspicion and turns it into a party song and there’s nothing wrong with that.  In the future, all parties will be paranoid.  Really, they already should be.  I remember there was a Brinks Home Security commercial that featured a woman throwing a house warming party and discovering, to her surprise, that she didn’t know one of the guests.  His name was AJ and later, he broke into her house.  If she had been properly paranoid, she would have said, “Hey, what’s the stranger doing at my party!?”  Instead, she was just like, “Who’s that?  I don’t know him!  Ha ha!”  It’s not so funny once you’ve got a broken window that you’re going to have to pay to get repaired, is it?

My least favorite covers, by the way, are the ones that sound like duplicates of the original.  I mean, what’s the point?  I’m also not a fan of extremely overdramatic cover versions.  For instance, there used to be a WGU commercial that featured the most over-the-top version of The Times They Are A Changing that I had ever heard and it was so terrible that I always had to hit mute whenever I came across that commercial.  I’m also not a huge fan of the song Amazing Grace, largely because everyone who sings it always seems like they’re on the verge of tears and that’s just not fun to watch.  Plus, I just take issue with any song that requires me to describe myself as being a wretch.  I mean, I like songs that make me feel confident, y’know?  Calling myself a wretch would be the exact opposite of that.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace (2003, dir by Steve Gainer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back when we were both in college, my friend Evelyn and I would often greet each other by loudly exclaiming, “I hate everything about you!”  That always got us a few weird looks but you have to understand that, at the time, we were both making a point about avoiding easy sentiment and …. well, we also liked getting weird looks because we felt like that was a sign that we were bringing down the establishment in some sort of way.  That may sound silly now and, to be honest, it sounded silly back then.  But still, we had fun and that’s the important thing.

Anyway, I Hate Everything About You is one of those songs that’s really appealing when you’re trying to be a rebel and you want the world to know how pissed off and disillusioned you are.  At the same time, it’s also a song that lends itself to all sorts of parody.  (Who knows how many people sang, “I.  Ate.  Everything.  About.  You!” back in the day?)  It’s a catchy song.  You can kind of dance to it.  You can play it really loud when you’re trying to freak out your mom.  The lyrics are fun to write inside your diary whenever you’ve had a bad day.

The music video features three people who hate everything about someone else.  One guy is being cheated upon by his girlfriend.  One girl is going out with the type of smirkey douchebag who has been killed in countless Lifetime films.  Another teenager has to deal with an abusive father.  They all go to a hill where they destroy stuff.  It’s kind of like how you’re supposed to set your lover’s pictures on fire if you break up.  Personally, I say keep the pictures and get a voodoo doll.  Just a few pokes from a sharp pin and you’ll have all the revenge you want!  And you won’t have to go to some ugly old hill either.  Voodoo is a revenge that you can practice from the safety of your own bedroom.  Voodo?  You do!

The music video was directed by Scott Winig.  The cinematography was done by Steve Gainer, who was also one of the credited cinematographers on Movie 43.  I mean, goddamn, you want to talk about hate.

Anyway, I hope that you’re not hating anyone right now.  I used to hate my neighbor because his dogs were always barking but then I remembered that karma is harsh and unforgiving.  This is indeed a disturbing universe, one that is perhaps ruled by the blind and dumb Azathoth.

Just a reminder: In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

Enjoy!