Music Video of the Day: Don’t Leave Me This Way, covered by The Communards and Sarah Jane Morris (1986, dir by ????)


I came across this band (and this cover) while watching an episode of an old television show called Night Flight last Friday.

It’s a good cover, one that pays tribute to the original while also establishing its own identity.  The video for this version adds a political element to the song by having the secret police show up to break up the performance.  Despite being named after a group of early communists, the Communards still took a stand against the secret police.  Good for them.  Of course, the secret police are still with us, in countries that are both left-wing and right-wing.  Unfortunately, modern people are a little bit less likely to take a stand against them than they once were.  Authoritarianism is today more popular than its ever been.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The World Is Not Enough by Garbage (1999, dir by Philipp Stölzl)


Today’s music video of the day is the theme song for a James Bond film.  The video features a robot version of Shirley Manson, being built so that it  can replace the real Shirley and blow up a theater in Chicago.  This is a video that, if it were released today, I imagine would be quite controversial and people on twitter would be arguing about whether or not the video was glamorizing terrorism and AI.  However, when viewed in the proper context, this video is actually a clever tribute to the Bond films.  The fact that the video takes place in 1964 only adds to the homage as Sean Connery’s Bond epitomized the coolness of the early 60s.

Enjoy!