Category Archives: Music

Music Video of the Day: Drive My Car by Breakfast Club (1988, directed by Bill Fishman)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

When I was doing my research for today’s music video of the day, I was sorry to discover that the 80s pop group Breakfast Club was not named after the famous John Hughes film.

Instead, they were formed in New York City in 1979 and they went through several different lineups before they signed with ZE Records.  At one time, a young Madonna was their dummer but she left the band long before they released their first (and only) album in 1987.

Breakfast Club’s biggest hit was Drive My Car, a cover of a song that had previously been made famous by The Beatles.  The cover appeared on the soundtrack of License to Drive, which is actually one of the better films to co-star Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.  It’s no Lost Boys but it is better than Dream A Little Dream and Heather Graham’s in it.

The video is the usual combination of clips from the film and scenes of the band acting crazy.  Since they were already covering a Beatles song, it made sense to go ahead and put Breakfast Club in a 1980s version of Hard Day’s Night and have them spend most of the video trying to escape their obsessed fans.  While the Beatles had to outrun their fans, Breakfast Club was lucky enough to own an invisible car.  I don’t know who edited it but this video does do a good job of integrating the scenes of the band with the clips from the film.

Things worked out better in the video than they did in real life.  Breakfast Club split up shortly after the release of License to Drive.

Music Video of the Day: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith (1991, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Remember the old chat lines?

I don’t know if they’re even still around but back in the late 80s and the 90s, they were the only thing advertised on TV after midnight.  All you had to do was dial the number and then, for only three dollars a minute, you could get a custom psychic reading or hear Ice Cube’s thought of the day.

The most popular chat lines were the ones that were advertised as being used by “hot singles waiting to talk to you!”  The commercials all featured insanely hot girls in their underwear, usually lying in bed with a landline phone.  Common sense should have told everyone that anyone that hot wasn’t sitting at home on Friday night, waiting to hear from some teenager in Canton.  Still, 1-800 numbers were a big business back in the day.  They were the original chat rooms.

They weren’t cheap, either.  “3.99 for the first minute, 0.99 for each additional minute.”  Those minutes added up fast, especially when the operators had been trained to draw things out.  For some people, it was worth it for the chance to fantasize about the voice at the other end of the line.

The video for Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion centers around that fantasy.  On one end, the teenager from Canton who says he’s an entertainment lawyer.  On the other end, his fantasy.  In the middle of it all is Aerosmith, performing at an old warehouse in the Charleston Navy Yards.

Sweet Emotion is one of Aerosmith’s most enduring songs.  Some fans think that the song was inspired by the band’s mutual dislike of Joe Perry’s then-wife but Steve Tyler has said that it was actually inspired by a feud between the wives of both Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton.  The song was a big hit when it was originally released in 1975 and then it was an even bigger hit when it was re-released in 1991.

Music Video of the Day: I’m Free by The Soup Dragons (1990, directed by ?????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day is for the song I’m Free, which was covered by the Scottish group, The Soup Dragons, in 1990.

That’s right, this is a cover.  I’m Free was originally recorded by The Rolling Stones in 1965 and was the last track on the Out Of Our Heads album.  To quote Rolling Stone Magazine, the original song was a “folk rocker.”  The version by the Soup Dragons was much more psychedelic and featured a verse from Jamaican reggae performer, Junior Reid.  I’m Free became the band’s biggest hit, reaching the number 2 spot on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart.  You may have also heard it in the film, The World’s End.

As for the Soup Dragons, after ten years and five albums, they disbanded in 1995, though all of the members continue to make music to this day.

Music Video of the Day: Sacred Emotion by Donny Osmond (1989, directed by Michael Bay)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I don’t know what amuses me more about this video, the fact that it suggests Donny Osmond can bring rain to the desert or that it was directed by the master of bombast, Michael Bay?

This song was the second single to be released off of Osmond’s 1989 album, Donny Osmond, and it was a part of an attempt to rebrand Osmond as a contemporary rocker.  Despite the popularity of both this song and Soldier of Love, that attempt failed because once an Osmond, always an Osmond.

The video is pure Michael Bay.  Donny, several hot women, and a group of construction workers drive out to the middle of the desert.  While Donny looks over blue prints and gives orders, the models and the day laborers start carrying boards and hammering nails.  Are they building a house or a temple?  No, it turns out that they’re building a stage so that Donny can perform in front of an audience that spontaneously shows up.  Donny does such a good job performing that it starts to rain and the video goes from being in black and white to being in color.  Bay directs with the same style that he would later bring to Armageddon and the Transformers franchise, except that instead of meteors and robots, he’s showcasing Donny Osmond.

It would be easy to mistake this video for being the most wholesome beer commercial ever made.

Music Video of the Day: Sunglasses at Night by Corey Hart (1984, directed by Rob Quartly)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

That synthesizer.

Those lyrics.

And all the sunglasses.

No song epitomizes the 80s quite as much as Corey Hart’s Sunglasses at Night.  Though the song popularized the idea of wearing your sunglasses at night, the video actually portrays sunglasses as being the tools of an authoritarian state.  Hart is thrown in prison because he doesn’t wear his sunglasses at night.  Fortunately, Hart is released by a sympathetic female police officer.  The officer is played by future VJ Laurie Brown and the video was shot at the Don Jon Jail in Toronto, Canada.

This is a song that continues to live on because of its use in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.  There’s nothing like stealing a car in the middle of the night and going on a high-speed police chase while listening to Sunglasses at Night.

Music Video of the Day: All Out of Love by Air Supply (1980, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A few years ago, you couldn’t turn on a television past midnight without coming across the Time-Life Classic Soft Rock infomercial.

It was hosted by the members of the Australian soft rock duo Air Supply, Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell.  While sitting in a very wholesome-looking living room, the Russells talked about how much they loved soft rock and how happy they were that Time-Life was now giving a new generation a chance to get mellow with Elton John, Peter Frampton, REO Speedwagon, and Seals & Croft.  Graham Russell played his guitar and a chirpy co-host said, “I can’t believe that I’m meeting Air Supply!”

The path to infomercial super stardom began in 1975 when Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock were both cast in the Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  They formed Air Supply in 1976 and went on to become superstars in Australia.  They also had eleven hits in the United States, five of which had the word “love” in the title.  Their biggest hit was All Out Of Love.

What do you say, everyone?

Are you ready to soft rock?

The song’s best known lyric, “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you,” was originally “I’m all out of love, I want to arrest you.”  By arrest, Graham Russell meant that he wanted to capture someone’s attention.  No one found the lyric to be strange in Australia but, when it came time to release the song in the United States, Arista Records’s Clive Davis feared that listeners would misinterpret the song’s meaning.  It was Davis who came up with the new lyrics.

Years later, when Songfacts asked Graham Russell whether “I want to arrest you,” is a common Australian saying, he had this to say:

“It really isn’t. I think it was just me using a weird word. But, you know, now I think of it, it’s definitely very weird. There are certain words that you just don’t use when you’re writing songs. And ‘arrest’ is one of them. Words like ‘cabbage’ or ‘cauliflower,’ like that. There are certain words that just aren’t poetic. And ‘arrest’ is one of them. And I really don’t know why I used it. But Clive called me on it, and the rest became history.”

Music Video of the Day: Party All The Time by Eddie Murphy (1985, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year was 1985 and Eddie Murphy was one of the most successful entertainers on the planet.

He was the only star to emerge from the wreckage of Saturday Night Live‘s disastrous sixth season and, by his presence along, he kept the show alive through some tough years.  He had starred in the hit films 48 Hours, Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop.  He had even won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for Eddie Murphy: Comedian.  There was only one world left for Eddie Murphy to conquer, the world of music.

How Could It Be, Eddie Murphy’s first musical album, was released in 1985 and it spawned one hit single, the Rick James-produced Party All The Time, a song in which Murphy laments that his woman would rather party than take care of him.  The critics may have hated it but Party All The Time was a hit, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Of course, there was a video:

The main thing that sticks out about this video is how seriously it wants us to take Eddie Murphy as a singer.  Murphy may flash his trademark grin but the video mostly seems to be about convincing us that Murphy was not just another celebrity with a vanity album to sell.  No, Murphy was a professional and, in case you had any doubts, just watch Rick James get down in the control booth!

Look at how much effort Eddie’s putting into the song!

Towards the end of the song, Rick leaves the control booth to perform with Eddie and to make sure we understand that Eddie Murphy is the real deal.

It’s too bad that Eddie’s being so professional because if any song seemed perfect for Murphy’s sarcastic and uninhibited comedic sensibility, it was Party All The Time.

Though Murphy is still best known as a comedian and actor, he has continued to record music.  He even had another minor hit, a R&B song called Put Your Mouth On Me.  (You read that right.)  Though it’s been 25 years since he released his last album, Murphy did receive his first Oscar nomination in 2007 for playing R&B singer James “Thunder” Early in the musical Dreamgirls.

As for Party All The Time, it has more recently found new life as the unofficial anthem of Scotland’s St. Johnstone F.C.

Music Video of the Day: Is This Love by Whitesnake (1987, directed by ????)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Happy birthday, Tawny Kitaen!

I did some actual research and I discovered that two years ago, on this date, Valerie selected Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again for the music video of the day.  That was a perfect choice because that video is the first thing that most people think of when they hear the name “Tawny Kitaen.”  The song may have been called Here I Go Again and the band may have been Whitesnake but the video will always be known as “The Tawny Kitaen video.”

Today’s music video of the day is the other Tawny Kitaen video.

I like to think of this video as being a direct sequel to Here I Go Again.  David Coverdale has asked Tawny to stop dancing on his car because he’s worried that she’ll dent the hood and Tawny’s finally walking out on him.  Good for her!  She packs up her suitcase and she leaves.  Meanwhile, David Coverdale leans against a wall and thinks about Tawny dancing while wearing the same white dress she was wearing when she walked out on him.

He’s upset to have lost her and, when you see screenshots like this, you can’t blame him:

One of the reasons why the Tawny Kitaen videos were so popular was because they suggested you could come across as being a total douche and still end up with a girlfriend as hot as Tawny Kitaen.  Seeing her walking out at the start of this video should have been a warning to every man watching.  It takes more than just soulful looks at the camera to keep Tawny Kitaen happy.

At the end of the video, Coverdale and Tawny are reunited.  It had been a while since I last watched this video so I had forgotten that Coverdale wins her back by jumping out from around a corner, grabbing her, and throwing her down on the hood of a car.  That wouldn’t play today.

Speaking of coming across as being a total douche, Coverdale fired all of the other members of Whitensake after recording this song so, with the exception of Coverdale, no one that played on the original recording is actually present in the video.  As for Tawny and Coverdale, they separated for real in 1991.

Music Video of the Day: Here We Go by Stakka Bo (1993, directed by Johan Renck)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Today’s music video of the day is for a song that always makes me nostalgic and, for reasons I’ll explain further down, sad.  When I was growing up, I used to regularly spend my summers visiting family in the UK.  For most of the 90s, you couldn’t go anywhere in Europe without coming across Stakka Bo’s Here We Go playing somewhere and whenever I hear it, I’m reminded of those brilliant summers.

Stakka Bo’s real name is Bo Johan Renck.  Music was largely a side project for him.  He is best known as a highly respected director.  Not only has he directed music videos for Madonna, Beyonce, New Order, Lana del Rey, and David Bowie but he’s also directed episodes of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead.  In 2008, Renck directed his first feature film, Downloading Nancy.

He also directed the video for Here We Go.  Undoubtedly a part of the video’s popularity was due to the girl in the video, model Alma Jansson-Eklund.  (Though Alma did a great job lip synching, the vocals were provided by Nana Hedin.)  Tragically, Alma struggled with depression and committed suicide ten years after the release of Away We Go.  While I was doing research for this post, I came across two blog posts written by people who knew Alma: this one and this one.  (The second post is written in Swedish.)  No one can know the exact events that led to her death but it’s impossible to watch this video and not mourn for a talent the left this world far too early.

Music Video of the Day: Pale Shelter by Tears For Fears (1983, directed by Steve Barron)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Back in the day, living it up in Vice City

Today’s music video of the day is for a song that I used to enjoy listening to back when I was living in Vice City.  Believe it or not, I used to steal cars just so I could turn the radio over to Wave 103 and listen to songs like Pale Shelter by Tears For Fears.  I know I’m not alone.  Vice City was a crazy place to live, man.

As for the video, it was directed by Steve Barron (who was responsible for several classic new wave videos) and is about weird things happening in Los Angeles.

It begins with a classic California scene as a woman in a red, one-piece bathing suit dives into a pool.  She’s soon joined by an alligator, which causes her to fly straight into the air.  This followed by a police officer directing traffic, a child raising his hand in school, a woman taking laundry off a line, a soccer team celebrating a goal, a blonde stretching in bed, and an airplane flying over an airport.  When the laundry woman burns a shirt with an iron, it leaves a giant, steaming imprint in the middle of the runway.

Standing in the middle of imprint, Curt Smith drops his guitar which ruins everyone’s day.  The police officer loses his cool.  The blonde realizes she’s overslept.  The laundry woman panics as it starts to rain.  The child in school isn’t called on and retaliates by making a paper airplane that he throws out the window.

Soon, hundreds of paper airplane are raining down on Curt Smith and Roland Orzbal.  Most of them seem to be hitting Curt.

Everyone in the video looks up to the sky and things get better.  The school child is reunited with the laundry woman.  Curt fixes his broken guitar.  The blonde gets out of bed, drives her car, and catches the eye of the policeman.  The soccer players congratulates themselves on a good game.

Curts throw his guitar into the air.  Back in the school, all the students start to throw paper airplanes.  The alligator gets back in the pool.  A paper airplane hits Curt right between the eyes.  The woman in the red bathing suit heads back down to Earth while the alligator eats Curt’s guitar.

And you thought Vice City was a strange place!