When I first watched this video, it took me a while to figure what it was reminding me of. I finally realized that the film was making me think of an 80s zombie film called The Dead Pit, in which an amnesia victim finds herself locked up in a mental hospital that is so overrun by zombies.
Visually, the video really does have a retro feel to it. With the grainy cinematography and the relatively small group of patients, it’s easy to imagine that this video could be an old Italian or French horror film from the early 80s. One could easily imagine bits and pieces of the video appearing in one of Lucio Fulci’s post-Zombi, pre-Manhattan Baby films or perhaps one of the films that Jean Rollin did around the time that he directed The Night of the Hunted. For a while there, psych wards were a very popular film setting. I imagine that had something to do with the success of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
Well, maybe not everything. This video, for instance, suggests that some things have changed but that it might not have been as easy a change as the lyrics suggest. The thing I like about this video is that, even though the subject matter is change, it still has this weird retro feel. So, it’s like, “Everything’s changed …. back!”
I do have to say, though, things have certainly changed for me over the past few years. I was just thinking about it earlier today. Way back in 2010, when I first started writing for this site, I was a neurotic and self-destructive and maybe just a little bit insecure. I was one of those people who would specifically start arguments and fights with people just so I could revel in the drama. It was my way of acting out at the world, largely because I was just in a really angry place at the time.
But the years have passed and the times have changed and I’m in a much better place today. A lot of it, I know, had to do with just growing up and discovering that being an immature brat wasn’t as fulfilling (or as cute) as I had been led to believe. A lot of it had to do with writing for this site and discovering that I didn’t have to act out to get attention. I could just state my opinions and make my arguments and people would actually respond. That was a big lesson for me and it played a big role in me gaining the confidence necessary to become a …. well, I wouldn’t say a grown-up. I still don’t consider myself to be a grown-up. I’ve still got a lot of maturing to do. But I’m definitely a much happier person today than I was in 2009.
So remember! Be supportive of the writers and film reviewers in your life because, in a way, you’re helping them become better people.
Today’s music video of the day is for Robert Palmer’s cover of I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On, a song that was originally recorded by Cherelle in 1984. Palmer, whose songs epitomized the 80s, would have been 71 years old today.
If this video looks familiar, that may be because it shares the same concept behind Palmer’s videos for Addicted To Loveand Simply Irresistible, both of which were also directed by photographer Terence Donavon. Once again, Palmer, looking like he should be trading commodities on Wall Street, performed while a group of statuesque models “played” his band behind him. The video, however, added another group of models, dressed in white, who danced to the music and who had better rhythm than the models who made up Palmer’s band.
“The object was to close down the streets. If there’s one thing people in LA hate, it’s streets closing down, and we’ve always felt bands should shake things up. We achieved it because the police stopped us filming. Were we worried about being arrested? Not at the time…”
— Adam Clayton on the video for Where The Streets Have No Name
How close did the members of U2 come to getting arrested for performing on the rooftop of a liquor store in the middle of downtown Los Angeles? It depends on who you ask.
The video’s director, Meiert Avis, claimed that everything in the video is a hundred percent authentic and that the events show in the video happen in “almost real time.” When the police showed up, U2 was in the process of giving a live concert in downtown Los Angeles. Before being shut down by the police, the band performed an 8-song set. (Of course, four of those songs were performances of Where The Streets Have No Name.) The video’s producer, Michael Hamlyn, came close to being arrested while he was arguing with the police after they ordered the band to descend from the roof.
However, U2’s then-manager, Paul McGuinness, said in 2007 interview that the video deliberately exaggerated the extent of the band’s conflict with the police. According to McGuinness, the band was actually hoping that the police would give them some free publicity by forcefully shutting down the performance. Instead, the police apparently kept giving the band extensions so that they could finish up the video. In this telling, Bono claiming that the police were shutting them down was less about what was actually happening and more just Bono being Bono.
Let us all come together now to wish a happy 72nd birthday to John Carpenter!
John Carpenter is not only one of the greatest horror and sci-fi directors of all time, he’s also an acclaimed composer. We all know, of course, that he was responsible for the iconic theme song of Halloween. However, he’s also released two albums of his own original, non-soundtrack music, Lost Themes and Lost Themes II.Utopian Facade, today’s music video of the day, is the last track on Lost Themes II.
This video features a running android. As you might be able to guess, utopia isn’t quite as utopian as it has perhaps been advertised to have been. The android is played by Erika Angel while Stuart Morales is credited as playing “Avatar.”
It’s a very atmospheric piece of music and proof that John Carpenter is as brilliant a musician as he is a filmmaker.
Tuesday was a very, very long day and you’ll have to excuse me if my brain is a little bit flat right now.
Instead of my usual explanation about why I like the apocalyptic tone of this video, I’m just going to share it and wish a happy birthday to the one and only Skrillex. Sonny John Moore, the music genius who is also known as Skrillex and whose music has been a consistent soundtrack to every worthwhile event of the past 16 years, is 32 years old today!
I’m also going to point out that this song features the amazing Alvin Risk. Love you, Alvin!
I’m also going to wish all of you a good and happy Wednesday! I’m about to pass out here but hopefully, I will wake up in a few hours and I’ll be prepared to basically conquer Wednesday and use it as a base camp for the rest of the week. Sorry if my metaphors are lacking in coherence. I haven’t had much sleep.
And, finally, I’m going to invite all of you to …. enjoy!
In just a few hours, the Oscar nominations will be announced. Is that in any way connected to the fact that today’s music video of the day is for a song called Paid For The Award?
Gee, Lisa Marie — what are you saying about our beloved Oscars!?
Calm down. I’m not saying anything. Though I may not often agree with the Academy, I don’t think they’ve been bribed or anything like that. To be honest, this song — or at least the title of this song — is probably more applicable to the Golden Globes than to the Oscars. Seriously, everyone knows that you can, at the very least, buy a Golden Globe nomination. Remember when The Tourist picked up all those nominations a few years ago? And seriously, when was the last time you even remembered that movie existed?
(I’m not really sure what the going rate for a Golden Globe nomination would be. I imagine that it’s at least somewhat expensive. I mean, I guess if I sold all of Dazzling Erin’s antique cameras and maybe some of the old Madame Alexandra dolls that we have lying around here, I might be able to afford one but it would probably be for one of the minor ones, like Best Comedy or Musical Film. But, unfortunately, I already missed my chance to bribe the Hollywood Foreign Press into nominating Cats. I missed that opportunity and let that be a lesson to you all. You miss all of the shots that you don’t pay for. Or something. I don’t know. It’s a sports metaphor and sports is a metaphor for life or something like that.)
But anyway, I like this song. You can dance to it. The video’s pretty simple but that’s okay. Not every video needs to be a huge production. Sometimes, the only thing that I video needs to do is get you in the right mood and this video does that.
It’s Rob Zombie’s birthday so happy birthday, Rob and let’s all enjoy Living Dead Girl!
Myself, I’ve always assumed that this song was named after the classic Jean Rollin film, The Living Dead Girl. Admittedly, I haven’t been able to find any specific proof of that but I’m still going to choose to believe it. The song, after all, is full of references to films like Lady Frankenstein, Daughters of the Darkness, Last House On The Left, and at least one of the Dr. Goldfoot films. So why not borrow the title from Jean Rollin?
Living Dead Girl was the 2nd single to released off of Hellbilly Deluxe, which was Rob Zombie’s first solo album after originally coming to fame as the co-founder of White Zombie. White Zombie broke up around the same time that Living Dead Girl came out. Why did White Zombie break up? Nobody’s saying.
As for the video, it’s an homage to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with Rob Zombie playing the Doctor and Sheri Moon Zombie playing the Living Dead Girl. The video does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of Caligari, which is one of the most effective of the old silent films. (I actually had a nightmare after I watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for the first time. I dreamt that the doctor was trying to break into the house.)
Both Rob Zombie and Joseph Kahn are credited with co-directing this video. Kahn is an amazingly prolific video director who has done videos for just about everyone, including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, The Chemical Brothers, and …. just about everyone!
Rob Zombie, of course, has gone on to direct several horror films. There’s a tendency among a certain snobbish type of horror fans to be dismissive of Zombie’s films but I’ve always felt that his film was undeniably effective and, if nothing else, they stayed true to his own vision. I mean yes, Halloween IIwas disappointing but 31 was better than many give it credit for being.
Four years ago, at the age of 69, David Bowie died of liver cancer. Just as how there was no way that we couldn’t highlight a Bowie video on his birthday, there’s also no way that, on this day, we can’t share another video from him.
Golden Years was one of Bowie’s signature tunes. Angela Bowie claimed that the song was written for her but David never denied or confirmed that claim. David Bowie did say that he originally tried to give the song to Elvis Presley but Elvis turned it down. At that time, Elvis probably did not want to be reminded that he was in his “golden years.”
In 1975, in the days before MTV, music videos were often simply performance clips. The video for Golden Years was taken from Bowie’s performance on Soul Train. Bowie appeared on the show on November 4th, 1975 and he performed both Golden Years and Fame. Bowie was only the 2nd white artist to ever appear on Soul Train. (The first was Elton John.) A lifelong fan of American R&B, Bowie was a huge Soul Train fan and was reportedly so nervous about appearing on the show that he actually got a little drunk before his performance.
“It’s not about being unable to dance. It’s about guys that look good but can’t string a sentence together. Each verse is a piss-take at the scenario of a jeans commercial. It was good fun, but the audience thought, ‘What does he mean that he can’t dance?’ They didn’t see the humor, and it killed the fun.”
— Phil Collins on I Can’t Dance
Ok, Phil. Whatever you say.
Tony Banks, Genesis’s keyboardist, has said that the song actually came about because he and Mike Rutherford were fooling around with various sounds in the recording studio and Phil, hearing what they were doing, suddenly sang out, “I can’t dance!” The song started out as an improvised joke but then went on to become one of the band’s biggest hits. It was also nominated for a Grammy.
The end of the video is meant to be a parody of the original ending of Michael Jackson’s video for Black or White. Black or White originally ended with Michael Jackson’s dancing erratically and destroying a car. I Can’t Dance ends with Tony and Mike dragging Phil away before can do too much damage.
Through the Shattered Lens 