23 years before she made history as the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow directed this video for New Order.
The video features the members of New Order as you’ve never seen them before. With the band’s long hair and the codpieces and the explosions going off in the background, you might think that an aging glam metal band is trying to rip off the British new wave sound. Instead, it’s the members of New Order, wearing wigs and poking deserved fun at the bands like Poison, Cinderella, and Great White.
While New Order performs, Bill Paxton runs through traffic and makes out with Femi Gardiner. Bill Paxton was everywhere in 1987.
Even if you did not already know it, you could probably guess who directed this video. Everything from the back lighting to the color filters to the fog machine to the leather jackets and the gang of shirtless body builders identifies this video as being the work of Joel Schumacher.
This video, which was filmed in Balboa, California, was made during Schumacher’s Lost Boys/Flatliners phase. His infamous Batman films were still several years away. INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly has gone on record as disliking this video because he felt that, unlike the other videos that INXS was doing at the time, it was “too American.” He was probably right. The video’s mix of strippers, bikers, yuppies, and rent boys feels more appropriate for a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis short story than an INXS song. Even if it isn’t an ideal INXS video, Devil Inside is still probably one of the better entries in Joel Schumacher’s filmography. If I have to choose, I will always pick this video over watching Batman and Robin.
With the video’s help, Devil Inside was one of INXS’s most popular songs in America, reaching the number two spot on the Billboard Hot 100. By comparison, it peaked at #6 in the band’s native Australia and only reached #47 in the UK.
What And She Was is about depends on which member of the Talking Heads you ask.
In an interview with WCNX, drummer Chris Frantz interpreted the song literally, explaining that “It’s a story about a woman who has the power to levitate above the ground and to check out all her neighbors from a kind of bird’s eye view. And the guy who’s writing the song is in love with her and he kinda wishes she would just be more normal and, like, come on back down to the ground, but she doesn’t. She goes floating over the backyard and past the buildings and the schools and stuff and is absolutely superior to him in every way.”
David Byrne, on the other hand, said that it was a song about a “blissed-out hippie chick” that he knew in Baltimore who once told him about an acid trip that she had while lying in a field next to a Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory. Byrne explained, “Flying out of her body, etc etc. It seemed like such a tacky kind of transcendence… but it was real! A new kind of religion being born out of heaps of rusted cars and fast food joints. And this girl was flying above it all, but in it too.”
As for the video, it was created by experimental filmmaker, Jim Blashfield. Blashfield previously pioneered collage-animation style with his short film, Suspicious Circumstances. The members of Talking Heads were fans of the film and asked Blashfield to create a similar video for their song. Blashfield, who cited Terry Gilliam as being his number one influence, went on to direct similar videos for Peter Gabriel, Michael Jackson, Tears For Fears, and Weird Al Yankovic.
This is a fun video and a fun song, which is why I picked it for today. I always think it’s a good idea to start the day after any election with something positive.
(Of course, not everyone agrees. I made the mistake of selecting Everything Is Awesome for my song of the day for November 9th, 2016 and there are people who still refuse to talk to me as a result. Even though I like picked and scheduled the song way back in October and I had absolutely no way of knowing that it was going to be the first thing those people would see the morning after Donald Trump was elected president. Anyway….)
(Seriously, I always tell people not to read too much into the songs and the music videos that I pick.)
The plot here is that Taylor is never ever getting back together with her ex, who is played by Noah Mills. Personally, I always thought that was wishful thinking on her part. You always get back together at least a handful of time before a breakup really becomes official.
This video has kind of a Purge feel to it. It also has a Mad Max: Fury Road feel to it, as well.
Watching this video, I thought about all of the times that I’ve been tempted to tap the bumper of someone in front of me. That may sound like an extreme overreaction to the stress of driving but anyone who has ever been on North Central Expressway will know what I’m talking about.
When I wasn’t thinking about road rage, I found myself thinking about those terrible Liberty Mutual commercials. Those are the commercials where people stand in front of the Statue of Liberty and talk about how its unfair that they should be penalized just because they can’t drive. Right now, there’s one that features a woman talking about how she was in an accident but the other car got a scratch so minor, it could be fixed with a pen. Because, seriously, who doesn’t want to mark up their car after some moron runs into it?
Even worse is the guy who says that if your insurance won’t pay the full value of your car, you’re better off just throwing your wallet right into the harbor. And then he does just that and mutters, “I’m going to regret that.” No shit, idiot! Why am I listening to you about car insurance when you don’t even have the impulse control not to throw your wallet in the harbor!?
For today’s music video of the day, we have more from Adi Ulmansky.
The video switches between shots Adi defiantly performing and shots of Adi defiantly walking down the streets of Tel Aviv. The important thing to remember here is defiance. This song, which features the American rapped KDC, was produced by Austin’s own Eric Dingus.
My BFF Evelyn and I absolutely love Adi Ulmansky so I figured what better way to start a new month than with one of her videos?
What’s going on this video? I’m not really sure. Obviously, Adi’s in an arcade but what’s going on with the dancing bear? It’s probably best not to question too much. The important thing is that everyone appears to be having a good time and that this song appears on an album called Shit Just Got Real.
Through the Shattered Lens