Music Video of the Day: Heart Of Stone by Dwight Yoakam (1996, dir. Dwight Yoakam)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

A lot of the time somebody famous, who isn’t associated with music, passes away, I can find one or maybe two music videos they helmed or were in. Harry Dean Stanton did more than just one or two music videos. I can find a record of 7 of them. I can find 5 of them. Let’s do them all. They’re all worth spotlighting.

Edit: I found 2 more for a total of 9 that I know of, and 7 of them that I can find.

The earliest I can find is one he did for Dwight Yoakam’s song Heart Of Stone. He did another one for Yoakam the same year.

I must admit that the extent of my knowledge about Dwight Yoakam is that their is a country musician named Dwight Yoakam. He helmed up to possibly 13 music videos. There are a couple where he was a co-director, but the majority of them have him listed as being the solo director. He even directed a movie called South Of Heaven, West Of Hell in 2000.

There are two interesting things about this video for me–aside from Stanton

The look. I love the grainy footage and the lighting.

The fact that it takes one minute and fifty seconds to even get to the song.

Otherwise, I like the other one Stanton did with Yoakam better. Particularly because you get to hear Stanton sing. However, you do need to watch them both since this one leads into the other. I’ll do that one tomorrow. Think of this as the introduction to the set and character that will be followed up on in the next video.

Music Video of the Day: The Winner Takes It All by ABBA (1980, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

If Lasse Hallström’s intent was to make Agnetha look the opposite of the way she did in the music video for The Name Of The Game, then he succeeded.

The Name Of The Game by ABBA (1977)

Come to think of it, I bet that was his intention. If The Name Of The Game is the start of a relationship, then The Winner Takes It All is when it falls apart. We even get a reverse of the table scene.

Together

The Name Of The Game by ABBA (1977)

Agnetha together, but alone.

This was the same year that Agnetha and Björn got divorced. There’s been talk of whether the song was written specifically about their divorce. Wikipedia says that Björn claims that the song wasn’t written about their divorce. Songfacts says it was 90% or entirely about it. They can’t seem to make up their mind. I also question the accuracy of their “facts”.

Like Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,” this evokes some very Behind The Music moments as the male band member wrote deeply personal lyrics about a female bandmate. At least Stevie Nicks didn’t have to sing lead on Lindsey Buckingham’s lyrics like Agnetha did with Bjorn’s.

I don’t think it was written specifically about their divorce. The reason being that this is hardly the first song Benny and Björn wrote that covered this area: SOS; Knowing Me, Knowing You; Thank You For The Music; and their career kicked off with that little song called Waterloo. Relationships, defeat, and ends were a thing for ABBA in general. I believe that this one was born out of Björn’s personal experience that hit very close to home–not a musical document of their actual divorce.

At the start of the video, we are greeted with still shots of the band looking happy and glamorous before we cut to Agnetha looking like she was just run through a dryer. Those shots are the centerpiece of the video. Sometimes she is shown on her own, and other times we see her shot through Benny’s out of focus hands playing the piano.

In between, we get some flashback shots and others that were filmed on the island of Marstrand along the coast of Sweden.

While you watch, keep looking for Björn in the present part of the video. He barely shows up. Neither does the rest of the band, but considering the material of the song, and Agnetha being the one singing it, you notice.

Also, notice that Agnetha is wearing the same outfit whether she is laughing at the bar…

or sad at the bar.

Maybe that was done because those were the outfits they had on at the time, and they simply used them in the video. I don’t think so seeing as ABBA is well-known for their costumes. Regardless of whether it was done on purpose or not, it draws our attention away from everything else in the frame, and puts the focus solely on her face, since it’s the only thing that has noticeably changed.

Finally, you’ll see that the last photo at the beginning of the video is of Björn, before they go to Agnetha.

The last photo at the end before cutting to the final shot of Agnetha is of the group all-together.

A split from Björn, but not from the group–yet. I find it interesting that Hallström chose a shot of the band where only Agnetha looks happy before going to the solitary, sad shot at the end of this post.

I mentioned before that I don’t think Björn intended this to be a biographical song of his and Agnetha’s divorce. Lyrics from Knowing Me, Knowing You are “walking through an empty house/tears in my eyes/here is where the story ends/this is goodbye.” That was back in 1976. Take that however you want.

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: I Have A Dream by ABBA (1980, dir. Urban Lasson)

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s official. I’ve reached the really confusing part of ABBA’s career in music videos–the last couple years before they broke up in 1982.

If I went by mvdbase, then the next video is a television appearance ABBA did to perform Hovas Vittne for Stig Anderson’s 50th birthday. However, that birthday would have been in 1981, not 1980.

The next video that is listed is one for I Have A Dream. You can find a listing for this video on both mvdbase and IMDb. It looks like someone may have just copied it over from mvdbase without actually looking into it. I say that because I can’t find one that stands out as an obvious music video. Also, the release dates match exactly: February 1980.

What I can find are two different live performances ABBA gave of I Have A Dream. In 1979, ABBA was on tour, and it was released the next year as ABBA In Concert. One of the places they performed was at Wembley Arena in London. That is the one I have included above. That seems to be what these listings are referring to since the description on the video says it is on the DVD collection of ABBA music videos. It would appear they took that segment of the concert and released it as a music video. There is an edited one. This is one that is complete. The edited version is the one on the DVD. It looks like this one aired on VH1 at some point.

The other performance I can find is also from 1979. It is from the Spanish TV show, 300 millones. I have no reason to believe this is the one. Regardless, I thought I would stick it here anyways.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches (2000, dir. Geoff McFetridge)

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Like so many music videos, Frontier Psychiatrist has multiple versions. There’s the well-known one that’s been talked about so much that I no longer feel special for noticing the use of the song from a Silvana Mangano movie–she’s best-known for the film, Bitter Rice (1949). And then there’s this version. If for some reason, it is no longer up, then you can follow this link to see it.

It’s a more realistic interpretation since we are seeing events from the outside. You could argue that the other video takes place in this kid’s head. This one is what is happening in the real world. Or at least as real as a world can be that has a mother holding up a book with this cover…

and pages like these in it:

While this video did help me to understand a storyline for the song, it has a problem I can’t get past.

One of the things that makes the well-known video so great, is the tight connection between the audio samples and their visual recreations. It’s a visualization of the way everything from a John Waters film to instructional tapes were combined by having those things performed on one big stage. The storyline is the journey through the components of the song.

Here, the audio and visuals do sync-up on occasion, but there is still such a disconnect that it’s off-putting. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the only version I knew of before I sat down to write this post. I keep expecting movement and cuts at each audio sample, and it doesn’t happen.

I wouldn’t say it’s a bad version though. The parts with the kid who plays Dexter are good.

The kid makes this video. He turns something fun, into something disturbing. On the other hand, I’m not sure I like thinking of Jeremy by Pearl Jam while I’m listening to Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches.

I’m up in the air about this one. Watch it, and make up your own mind about it. Rorschach tests or Turtle-Man? You decide. Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: (No More) Love At Your Convenience by Alice Cooper (1977, dir. ???)

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Oh. Apparently this isn’t the most well-liked Alice Cooper song out there with comments on YouTube saying things like “Pure crap!!!” and “Didn’t Alice claim he was too drunk to even recall recording this song?” I wouldn’t be surprised about the second one seeing as, according to Wikipedia, he hospitalized himself for alcoholism himself after the album tour.

I guess for a short period in the late-70s, Alice Cooper decided to take a break from the usual persona, and try out a character named Maurice Escargot–a drinking PI you can see at the start of the video.

The song may not be good, but I like that it exists. It’s a reminder to me that behind the band named Alice Cooper is a guy who also goes by the name Alice Cooper who plays a persona while in real life he is a golfer and was friends with Glen Campbell. About a month ago, after Campbell passed away, Alice gave a short interview about his relationship with him.

The video is a different matter. I love it.

While two totally different songs, it has that same grainy 1970s looking insanity that makes the video for Elected so good.

Talking about the video in detail would be like talking about the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band–yes, he was in that movie. I’m just gonna show a few thing that caught my eye.

You’ve got The Man Who Laughs (1928).

A very judgmental James Cagney.

Little Red Riding Hood.

Alice Cooper getting flashed.

I have no idea what to make of this guy.

Ah, honey. You didn’t have to bring home a Funkadelic music video with you.

Cosmic Slop by Funkadelic (1973)

I wonder how many more of these every-thing-and-the-kitchen-sink-pre-MTV music videos are out there? I ask since those were popular at the start of MTV. Yet, most of the videos from the 1960s and 1970s that I’ve spotlighted so far, aren’t that type of video.

If you’re interested in the album this song is from, Lace And Whiskey, then there’s an article over on Ultimate Classic Rock.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: I Only Want To Be With You by The Tourists (1979, dir. Brian Grant)

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Did you ever want to see what Annie Lennox would look like if she wanted to join Jem and the Holograms? You can, and it’s in this video.

The Tourists was the group that both Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox were in prior to becoming Eurythmics.

I love Stewart’s mustache, and I’m so glad he grew out a full beard for Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These) instead of keeping it.

Despite only being around for a couple of years, they released three albums and a bunch singles. This cover of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Be With You being one of them.

According to Wikipedia, they broke up one year after this in 1980 after getting signed to RCA Records the same year. Apparently guitarist and bassist Peet Coombes and Eddie Chin, respectively, went off to do their own thing which fizzled out. Stewart and Lennox decided to keep their contract with RCA, and Eurythmics was born.

Aside from Stewart’s mustache and Annie looking like rainbow sherbet, my favorite part of this video is that it is directed by Brian Grant. If mvdbase is to be believed, then 9 years later he directed Samantha Fox’s cover of the same song.

I can believe it. The person who would randomly insert Eddie Chin with what looks like a whip…

seems like the kind of person who would have somebody popup out of a trash can to pull Samantha Fox in.

I Only Wanna Be With You by Samantha Fox

I’ll have to do that crazy video at some point. After playing her sexuality straight for so many videos, they decided to still put that at the forefront, but do it comically.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Let There Be Rock by AC/DC (1977, dir. ???)

Posted on September 9, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

How did I let it happen? I went through 421 of these posts, and it took till now to do one for a song on Jeff’s hit list.

You remember Jeff from Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982), right? He’s the kid who had decent taste in music, but was then red-pilled by reading The Big Beat: A Rock Blast by Frank Garlock, which turned him into a raving homophobic bigot with a persecution complex who treated his friends like trash and gave an insane sermon condemning rock music. During that sermon he finally named names of what songs and groups were evil. Of course AC/DC was specially mentioned with a list of some of their hits. This was one of them.

While I’m sure Jeff never saw this video, I like to pair the following images and think that he was just envious that he couldn’t pull this off as well as Scott did.

Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982, dir. John Taylor)

The video features Bon Scott as a preacher who delivers the lyrics like a sermon. We get occasional cutaways to members of the group who are choirboys, because what else would you expect members of AC/DC to be dressed like. Eventually, Scott decides to take off clerical clothing after a video effect.

Then Scott takes a flying leap that according to the Young Brothers, injured Scott.

I didn’t need Wikipedia to tell me that something went wrong. You can see that he missed the mark and fell offstage. Credit to Scott and the band for not only leaving that in, but not appearing to react to it happening.

I really like this video. If I had one complaint, it’s that it appears that Scott is screwing up his lip-syncing. You can see the difference when you watch him perform the song live. I noticed the same issue when I watched the officially posted version of Highway To Hell. I refuse to believe that Scott was this bad at lip-syncing. I think I know what happened. It’s the only explanation that I have.

The song is supposed to introduce light before sound in the pre-chorus. That is the way it was done on both the album and in the video. They fixed that in live performances, like the one below:

I have a feeling they overlayed a slightly different studio recording onto the video in order to make it sound better. You see this done on unofficially posted music videos all the time. I can see this throwing off Scott’s timing just enough that it’s noticeable. You can still see that he is reacting and making the right lip movements. They just seems to miss the mark.

This video is a perfect example of why I put AC/DC right alongside the other 1970s music-video pioneers like ABBA, Sweet, Golden Earring, Kate Bush, Hall & Oates, Funkadelic, Alice Cooper, and other musicians from that period that I haven’t covered.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Conociéndome, Conociéndote by ABBA (1980, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on September 8, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Every time I miss even a day, it feels like a lifetime. Since the last post I’ve seen Anna Paquin wander through what felt like an abandoned retread of The Shining (Darkness). Mark Wahlberg traveled through a desert so he could nearly get everyone killed were it not for a Deus Ex Ape showing up to save the day (Planet Of The Apes). I watched what someone on iCheckMovies termed “Moist Max” (Waterworld). Ben Affleck practiced to play Batman (Daredevil). I saw Renny Harlin’s version of Die Hard: With A Vengeance (12 Rounds). And finally, I got to see what would have happened if Data saved Picard from the Borg by playing Sabotage by Beastie Boys into the Borg Hive Mind (Star Trek Beyond).

If you go to mvdbase and IMDb, then you’ll find some videos that show up in one, but are absent from the other. This video is one that isn’t in mvdbase. However, it is in IMDb, and that’s good enough for me.

We’ve had the sailboat version.

We’ve had the snow version, which is a video to keep in mind when we get to the notorious one for Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), seeing as they repeat the shot below as well as other elements from ABBA music videos.

Finally, we have the Spanish-language version of Knowing Me, Knowing You.

I wasn’t even aware this was an actual video till I came across it on IMDb. I originally chalked it up to one of the several Spanish version’s of their songs that are available through their VEVO channel.

While I do like the other two versions, Knowing Me, Knowing You is one of those songs that lends itself well to a simple performance that draws all of your attention to the song.

There are a couple of video effects thrown in, but otherwise it’s just them and the audience (you). Still, there seems to have been some direction given that you would expect from an ABBA video, where they don’t just look at the camera.

I like that they included both guitars from the song, the acoustic one as well as the electric one.

That’s all I have for this one. There better not be any more versions of Knowing Me, Knowing You out there.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: The Rat by Blanck Mass (2017, dir by John Marsden)

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi! Lisa here, with today’s music video of the day. The Rat is the latest video from Blanck Mass, the solo project of Fuck Buttons’s Benjamin John Power.

In this video, Benjamin John Power stares straight at the camera while riding through the It’s A Small World ride in Disneyland. He never blinks. He never betrays any emotion whatsoever. Around the 3:24 mark, there’s suddenly a brief shot of a bunch of maggots. All in all, it’s rather disconcerting but I really wouldn’t expect anything less from Blanck Mass.

I want to quote two possible interpretations that I’ve come across for this video. The first comes from Power himself. In a press release, Power stated:

“The video itself is a bit of fun and was filmed on a family vacation, but somehow I feel it represents discontent within a capitalist regime and a world full of sugar-coated shit.”

Meanwhile, on YouTube, Crimewaveddd offered up this reading of the video:

“we get it you’re attractive”

Personally, I think they both sound good!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Amber by 311 (2002, dir. The Malloys)

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

i like blood recently told me to put on Amber by 311 because it would make me vomit. How could I not take that challenge?

I didn’t vomit. It is a song I can honestly say that I forgot existed. I’m not sure what memories this conjures up. I wanna say, sitting in a car in a parking lot outside of Togo’s. That’s all I’ve got.

The video, I’m almost 100% certain, I didn’t see it until I sat down to write this post.

What can I say about it?
You can say it’s not very good and you’ll forget it the instant it’s over.
We’re doing a question and answer post again?
Yes.
Fine.

Q: Why doesn’t the camera just go through the beads at the start?
A: Because the video is obsessed with fade transitions. It probably saved them money as well.

Q: Why is he lifting his hand in the air? He does it several times during the video.
A: It’s because melismas were popular at the time. There were a lot of artists who moved their hands around like that.

Q: Why is his face out of focus?
A: They probably screwed up.

Q: Did you notice the 311 St. sign?
A: In between the annoying jump cuts? Yes, I did.

Q: I guess that’s a street known for streaking, right?
A: Congratulations. You looked up that 311 is the police code for indecent exposure. Anything else?

Q: Umm…he has a hole in his T-Shirt.
A: He sure does. Also, we should be listening to Bad Brains instead of this.

Q: Aren’t you going to show some screenshots of stuff that happens outside that room?
A: Nothing happens out there.

Q: Very true, but there is one person people might recognize.
A: Fine. If you look at the scenes where lead-singer Nick Hexum is in the water, then you’ll notice that the woman he is with is Nicole Scherzinger. She was his fiancee at the time, a member of Eden’s Crush, and would go on to do things such as The Pussycat Dolls. The song is about her.

Q: I think that’s it. That is unless you want to make a joke about the campfire bit by trying to tie it to Cabin Fever (2002) and Doctor Dog.
A: I’ll pass. The rest of the video, campfire included, is just a group of people doing things at the beach. It’s as calming as watching other people have fun at the beach. That is to say, it’s really boring.

Q: Wait a second. I forgot to ask who made this thing?
A: The Malloys directed it. They are actually Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy who have somewhere between 40-50 music video credits to their names. The video’s first assistant director was John Downer. He has worked as such on around 83 music videos. They’ve all done other work.

Q: Gonna end this with your stupid catchphrase?
A: No. I’ll just end it with their drummer apparently having discovering the language from Arrival (2016) seeing as I only enjoyed that film a little more than this video.