Category Archives: Music

Music Video of the Day: Blue by Hannah Grace (2020, dir by Johnny Marchetta)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The thing I like about this video is that it features a disco ball.

Seriously, every room should come with a disco ball.  During my first semester away at college, I had a disco ball hanging in my dorm room.  (Unfortunately, my roommate took it with her when the semester ended.)  And I’ve currently got a disco ball in my bedroom that I occasionally hang from the ceiling.  It just really livens up the house and, even more importantly, it keeps the spirit of disco alive.  Plus, you don’t have to worry about a disco ball exploding or transforming into a carnivorous goo, like you do with a lava lamp.

Anyway, this is a simple video but I like it.  It’s got a nice and calming atmosphere to it.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Off My Mind by Hazel English (2020, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Now seems like as good a time as any to take a trip back to the 60s or the 70s and here to help us do just that is today’s music video of the day!

Myself, I always love these retro videos.  My personal theory is that it’s because I was born a few decades too late.  I love to dance and I love to have a good time and I used to love a few other things that were popular back in the 70s but I won’t go too much into too much of that here.  It’s hard for me not to feel that I should have been born earlier so that I could have hit the discos or the go-go clubs or whatever else there was to hit back then.  Hell, I probably would have even tried the whole punk thing.  Sure, why not?

For the record, if I had been born like in the 50s or the 40s (or even the 30s, who knows), I probably would have voted for Kennedy in 1960 because he was Catholic and then I would have had to vote for LBJ in ’64 because he was a Texan.  And I probably would have voted for Nixon twice and Ford once because why not?  After the election of 1976, I probably would have said, “Forget voting, let’s dance!”

(Of course, if I had been born back then, I’d be like really old and bitter today so I guess I should just be happy that I was born when I was.)

Anyway, I like this video and I like this song.  Good work all around!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Physical by Dua Lipa (2020, dir by ????)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So this video starts out with a good beat and two people getting close and really, that’s what we need in the world.  There’s so many angry and bitter and angst-filled people out there that sometimes, we need a video to remind us that love is the best thing that there is and that there’s nothing wrong with getting close to one another and that….

OH MY GOD, DID SHE JUST RIP OUT HIS HEART!?

Well, maybe.  She definitely removed something from his chest but he doesn’t look like he minds.  I kind of think of this video gives us an opportunity to see what Grease would have been like it had been directed by David Cronenberg.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: If I Only Had A Brain by MC 900 Ft Jesus (1994, directed by Spike Jonze)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Once upon a time, there was a televangelist named Oral Roberts.  Oral was very successful and he even had his own university in Oklahoma.  One day, Oral said that he had a vision of someone telling him that he needed to build a hospital on the campus of his university and that, of course, he would need people to send him money to help him do that.  That someone was Jesus and, according to Oral, Jesus was 900 feet tall.

Mark Griffin, a classically trained musician who had recently graduated from the University of North Texas, happened to hear what Oral said.  Griffin, who had played in several local Dallas bands, was on the verge of launching a new career as a rapper.  Griffin took the name MC 900 ft Jesus and the rest is history.

As MC 900 ft Jesus, Mark Griffin developed a strong cult following.  He still has one, even though he retired from the business in 2001.  (He had performed a few times post-retirement and there are annual rumors that he’s on the verge of making a comeback.)  If I Only Had A Brain was one of his more popular songs, thanks to this music video from Spike Jonze.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: I Got You Babe by Sonny and Cher (1965, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Happy Groundhog Day!

This performance of the song that would haunt Bill Murray over the course of his own endless Groundhog Day is taken from Top of the Pops.

Cher would famously go on to do another version of this song with Beavis and Butthead.  As for Sonny Bono, he had to settle for a career in Congress.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Grey Day by Madness (1981, directed by Chris Gabrin)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“‘Grey Day’ was a definite step on for Madness. I remember going to a club with a copy of it and Joe Strummer was DJing. I asked him to put this on, because I thought I’d finally done something that he could dig, not just jumping up and down – but he wouldn’t play it.”

— Madness lead singer Suggs on Grey Day

Grey Day may not have been good enough for Joe Strummer but I definitely appreciate it.

The first version of Grey Day was first performed by Madness when they were still known as The North London Invaders.  Three years later, they revisited the song and recorded it in the Bahamas “for tax purposes.”

The video was directed by Chris Gabrin, who was active in the 80s.  He also did videos for The Cure, Culture Club, John Mellencamp, and Pat Benatar.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Anarchy in the U.K. by The Sex Pistols (1976, directed by Julien Temple)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today is John Lydon’s 64th birthday so today’s music video of the day features him at his best.

For the record, John Lydon (or Johnny Rotten, as he was known when he was the Sex Pistols’s lead singer) is not an anarchist.  The famous lyrics that start off Anarchy in the U.K, came about because “I am an anarchiste” was the best rhyme that Lydon could come up with for “I am an Antichrist.”  Lydon has described anarchism as being “mind games for the middle class.”  Lydon’s right, of course.

Remarkable, John Lydon has gone from being regarded as a symbol of everything that was wrong with British youth (a representation of what the Daily Mail famously called “The Filth and the Fury” after drummer Paul Cook called Simon Grundy a “fucking rotter” on national television) to being a national treasure. Songs that once scandalized Britain are now unofficial anthems and, remarkably, Lydon’s gone from hated to beloved without changing a thing about his outlook or even his attitude.   Listening to an interview with Lydon from the Sex Pistols-era is not that much different from listening to an interview that Lydon may have given last month. He may now be doing butter commercials and appearing on I’m A Celebrity!  Get Me Out Of Here! but he remains that same Johnny Rotten who once scared the Hell out of anyone with a pension.

Enjoy!