Music Video of the Day: Eagle by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

The 1980s are coming for ABBA. You can tell because Frida is beginning to transform into her Pat Benatar look.

At the same time, this video is ahead of the 1980s. It’s playing with the kind of effects I wouldn’t expect to see in music videos till the late-80s with Kevin Kerslake directed music videos, such as the one for Shadow Of A Doubt by Sonic Youth.

According to Wikipedia, the version above is the official music video for the song. However, assuming it is still up, there is another music video for the song that is within ABBA: The Movie (1977), which I have included below.

I prefer the one done for the single because it is more primitive.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Going Down To Liverpool by The Bangles (1984, dir. Tamar Hoffs)

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Today would have been Leonard Nimoy’s birthday. I thought it would be fun to spotlight that other music video he did a little over 25 years prior to the one for Bruno Mars. The big question is why he did it. It’s simple. He was friends with the Hoffs. Susanna’s mom directed the video. It was produced by Matthew Hintlian.

That’s it. It’s a very simple video that is worth watching because you have The Bangles confusing and annoying Leonard Nimoy. I never thought I would be writing that sentence.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Take A Chance On Me by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

When I started out doing this retrospective, I wanted to get at least as far as this music video. Unfortunately, after 37 ABBA, and ABBA related music videos, I don’t have anything grand to say about it. Still, I can talk about some of the interesting aspects of it.

When you start it up, you are immediately greeted with The Brady Bunch split screen.

Note the crazy eyes on Frida. She does this several times during the video. Why? I don’t know. Why does she jump around at one point?

Maybe that’s jumping for joy.

Take another look at the screenshot of the beginning of the video. Do you see how Agnetha and Frida aren’t doing the same thing? It’s a small detail, but an apt way to describe this music video is that it is all about details. You’ll notice that throughout the video, they are usually doing their own thing instead of carefully moving into certain positions. You still get some of that with shots like this one below.

But you get a lot of shots like this one below where they are doing different things.

While I’m bringing that up, take a look at this shot.

The mark to tell Agnetha and Frida where to stop is visible at Agnetha’s foot. Mistake? Maybe it is since you can also see that the far left has visible black area where the backdrop didn’t reach. You don’t see the mark again in the video. I like to think of it as something left in intentionally by Hallström.

The video is made up of a lot of elements from previous music videos, but there are little changes. The jump cuts are the most obvious. In general, the editing in this video is much more like what you would expect from music videos that would arrive with the birth of MTV.

Another interesting one is changing up the singing head-shot of Agnetha. We get the standard one early on that we are familiar with from videos like SOS. Then it is followed with one where we get Agnetha sweeping upwards from the lower right-hand corner of the screen to do her bit before swinging her head backwards to reveal that spotlight we saw in Money, Money, Money.

One of my favorite things is when Benny springs up from his seat to chase after Frida.

Another thing about the video is that we get a little cutaway to a part where Frida is listening to music while Benny reads a magazine.

Its inclusion ties together a lot of the elements the audience would be familiar with from other ABBA music videos.

Something that isn’t familiar are the the camera movements. You can see the camera move in quickly to follow Frida to Benny sitting on a chair.

You also get shots where the camera moves upwards, and visa versa. It’s interesting how it will come down to, and move towards either Agnetha or Frida. This also happens the other way around as it returns to a shot of both of them.

The last thing I want to bring up is that you’ll notice that there are numerous times Agnetha turns around, or comes close to doing so. The video ends with the back of her head. I love it.

I think that’s it. Enjoy this landmark music video!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Since You’ve Been Gone by Rainbow (1979, dir. Ken Walz)

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

What is with some music videos not letting the thumbnail go through to an embed? You can see a less complete, but better looking version below that does display its thumbnail. They are both here at the time I am writing this, which is the day before this post goes live.

Okay, I think I can make this have to do with my current ABBA retrospective and tie in with Power Rangers (2017).

The first is obvious. I know next to nothing about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers except that they are multi-colored. Thus, Rainbow. Much like Power Rangers, the group has gone through so many different people that someone on Wikipedia put this chart together.

Second, this song was originally written by Argent guitarist Russ Ballard. You can hear his version below.

Russ Ballard would go on to write I Know There’s Something Going On for Frida and Can’t Shake Loose for Agnetha. That’s the ABBA connection.

The director of Power Rangers is Dean Israelite who was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. After the Russ Ballard version, Since You’ve Been Gone was covered by South African band Clout. You can hear two versions from them below. One appears to be the original, and the other for a more recent album.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that lead-singer Cindy Alter was also born in Johannesburg.

There are my connections to ABBA and the new Power Rangers movie. But there’s other interesting information about the song and music video.

The song would also go on to be covered by Cherie and Marie Currie.

I like this version because they turned it into a duet. It’s tough to beat Graham Bonnet’s vocals on Rainbow’s version, so I like their different take on it. Brian May of Queen would also cover it later with his own band.

The director of the video is Ken Walz. He did most of his work in music videos as a producer. Notably, he produced Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. Both of them were directed by Edd Griles who also directed several music videos for Rainbow. Ken Walz also directed I Know What Boys Like by The Waitresses, along with a few others.

I love connections.

My favorite connection via the song is that you can tie Black Sabbath to The Righteous Brothers via Rainbow covering it. Ronnie James Dio fronted Black Sabbath after Ozzy Osbourne. Rainbow’s original vocalist was Ronnie James Dio. The original version of this song was produced by Roger Glover. Clout covered Substitute by The Righteous Brothers and this song. Roger Glover was the bassist for Rainbow during this period.

My favorite connection via the music video is that you can tie Rainbow to Pierce Brosnan’s wife Keely Shaye Brosnan. This music video was directed by Ken Walz. Ken Walz produced The Heart Of Rock And Roll by Huey Lewis & The News. The music video for Stuck With You by Huey Lewis & The News starred Keely Shaye Brosnan.

Add the two together with TV, and you can even bring Black Sabbath together with the short-lived sitcom My Two Dads, since Cyndi Lauper had a reoccurring role on Mad About You and Paul Reiser was on both shows (Black Sabbath->Ronnie James Dio->Rainbow->Edd Griles->Cyndi Lauper->Mad About You->Paul Reiser->My Two Dads).

Enjoy the song and music video.

Music Video of the Day: Born To Rock by Buck Dharma (1982, dir. Richard Casey)

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I brought it up the other day, so let’s do Born To Rock by Buck Dharma, aka that guy you probably know from Blue Öyster Cult.

Oh, so YouTube comment sections exist in this music video.

No Rock Music?!? This is worse than when Hell froze over in 2005 and…

One Way Ticket by The Darkness

The Darkness had to run from a metaphor for cocaine to thaw it out.

One Way Ticket by The Darkness

What’s this?

Buck Dharma. Born To Rock. Wanted Dead or Alive. Contact U.S. Marshall S. Pearlman out of Oyster Bay, NY? Harsh! Buck does one solo album, and Blue Öyster Cult manager Sandy Pearlman is fine if he is brought in dead? He was tough back then. Also yes, Buck was born on Long Island, NY where Oyster Bay is located.

There’s only one man who can possibly bring him down. I dub him Blue Öyster Max.

Even his car says he is “2BADD”.

Now we get Buck delivering himself. My best guess is that this shot…

is a reference to Buck having given up getting a degree in Chemical Engineering to go into music. Then for some reason, None Dare Call It Treason by John A. Stormer has to do with Buck’s birth.

I haven’t read the book, but the summary on Amazon makes it sound like it would have been right up Ronald Reagan and Estus Pirkle’s alley. Pirkle also being a Protestant pastor who wrote a book concerning alleged Communist infiltration of America. Except Pirkle went on to adapt his book into a religious exploitation film called If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (1971).

I don’t know for sure who that is a picture of in the background while his parents are getting it on. It looks like Eisenhower, but I’m not 100% sure.

There’s other interesting stuff in here that fits with the theme of the music video, but let’s not kid ourselves. You’re watching this music video for the ending showdown between Buck and Blue Öyster Max.

Buck wins, and they rush Blue Öyster Max’s guitar to the hospital. Of course it’s red.

Blue Öyster Max is way dead. Killed by Rock.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: One Man, One Woman by ABBA (1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I think Hallström might be Swedish. It’s so hard to tell with this music video.

This one looks like they combined a little footage from a TV performance with shots of their faces. They either fade from one to another or pull a Persona (1966) by dividing the face into two halves made up of two members of the group. It’s a nice and simple video. You’d really have to try hard to convince me that Hallström didn’t have Bergman’s film in mind when he made this video.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Fantasy by Aldo Nova (1982, dir. Richard Casey)

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

My Internet connection appears to be back up for the time being. It went down on the 13th of this month. We had some people come over to start installing new floors in the house that day. Somehow, the instant they walked in the door, the power cutout for all of about 10 seconds. However, that was enough to kick the my Internet connection out, and it didn’t want to come back up. After talking with endless people on the phone and going through three technicians over the past week, they finally were able to find the issue that was keeping the connection down. It was a splitter that breaks up a line coming into the house so that it can go to the modem and a cable box. The splitter had gone bad. After replacing it, I can connect to the Internet again. I would have written a post for yesterday, but the first two technicians also got the modem working again only to have it go down a few hours after they left. I wanted to make sure it would stay up.

I originally thought that I would do The Karate Rap, or one of the two music videos for covers of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode. I’ll save The Karate Rap, and get to Judas Priest and Peter Tosh later. Instead, I present you Fantasy by Canadian artist Aldo Nova. Let’s see how Wikipedia describes it:

“The video shows Aldo performing with his band at a concert. It is best remembered by fans for its intro, which starts out with a man holding an electric guitar and two bodyguards holding machine guns, waiting for someone. Then comes a helicopter, landing from the sky, and Aldo comes out in a very contoured leopard-print suit, being escorted to the stage. When they encounter a locked door, which the bodyguards can’t open, Aldo grabs his guitar and fires a laser into the door and it opens.”

True. There is the gunfire over the title card implying that Aldo needs to be protected on his way to the stage performance. He does show up in a leopard-print suit. One of the bodyguards tries to knock down the door and fails. Aldo shoots his phaser guitar at the door to open it up. You could take that description, modify it slightly to talk about product placement for Paper Mate mechanical pencils, and you’d have a description of Turn Up The Radio by Autograph. It fails to mention the creative element of the video that pulls it all together.

From the start, it begins to periodically flash quickly to something else, then return to the video. Over the title card, it’s a test pattern. It continues throughout the video until you reach the end where Aldo proceeds to cut in and out of existence till everything else glitches out, and ultimately Aldo does too. In the end, you are left with darkness. The “Fantasy” is over.

The music video was directed by Richard Casey. It looks like he only directed a handful of music videos. They are all pretty trippy. My personal favorite is the post-apocalyptic video for Born To Rock by Buck Dharma. After that, his work is on feature films such as Horror House On Highway Five (1985).

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Basketball by Kurtis Blow (1985, dir. Michael Oblowitz)

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

March Madness starts today, so here is Basketball by Kurtis Blow.

That’s all I have for you. The floors are being torn up at my house and I am typing this on my phone because my Internet connection decided to go down at the same time. The next couple of days might be like this. Sorry.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Thank You For The Music/Gracias Por La Música by ABBA (1977/1978, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

There’s no way I can exclude this song from a retrospective of ABBA music videos. Sadly, it’s not because one really exists. It’s just that not spotlighting this would be like excluding Waterloo even though that’s what won them Eurovision, and kicked off their career.

The video above is what is on ABBAs official YouTube channel. The video below is an excerpt from ABBA: The Movie (1977).

I might as well throw them all together here. Here is the Spanish version called Gracias Por La Música. I have no idea when or where it was recorded. It is on ABBAs official channel.

I hope you understand me cheating here. I will also have to fudge Spanish versions of their other songs since some of them include videos like this, others include totally different videos like the one for Fernando, and then there’s Happy New Year and Felicidad that are proper videos, but have minor differences–those videos get a little weird. You’re also going to get a third version of Knowing Me, Knowing You since I have found a Spanish version available through ABBA’s official channel. However, that one doesn’t seem to have been released till 1979. Gracias Por La Música has a copyright date of 2012, but there’s no way the video above was done in 2012. I have nowhere else to stick it, so it goes here.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Jump by Van Halen (1983, dir. Pete Angelus)

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

If you live in a place that celebrates Daylight Savings Time, then remember to set your clocks forward an hour.

This is one of those videos where the people involved can tell the story behind the video.

Pete Angelus was the director of the video. He had a relationship with the band that went back to the 1970s.

Robert Lombard was the producer.

Ann Carli was the senior vice president of artist development at Jive Records.

Here’s the backstory from the book I Want My MTV:

Robert Lombard: “Jump” is where the drama really started. Dave wanted the performance video intercut with him doing crazy shit, like driving his chopped Merc hot rod and hanging out with midgets and girls in maids’ outfits. So we shot hours of footage.

Pete Angelus: Rather than doing something bigger than life, which is how Van Halen was perceived, we wanted something very personal. Let’s see if we can get Edward to smile. Of course, we also had to appease Dave, who wanted to throw his karate tricks into the equation.

Michael Anthony: There was getting to be a little bit of tension between us three and Dave.

Robert Lombard: I told the band, “I’m gonna shoot in sections.” Alex would show up, we’d do some drum segments, then bass with Michael Anthony, then guitar, then David. I didn’t shoot them together until the end of the day. I was trying to keep peace, because I felt tension amongst them. David thought he was bigger than the rest of them.

I was in post-production with a rough cut of the video. I knew that if they kept it as a straight-on performance video, they would have a number one single. So I took the rough cut to Eddie’s house up in Coldwater Canyon and played it for him and his brother Alex. I said, “Guys, I’m taking a stand here. If you put in this crazy footage”–which later surfaced in “Panama,” after I was gone–“the video isn’t gonna have the impact it should have.” Eddie and Alex said, “We agree with you, one hundred percent. We’re not gonna release this video unless it’s done this way.”

Two days later, I got fired. Noel Monk, their manager, said, “You don’t do that–you don’t go behind Dave’s back. Here’s your check, never want to see you again.” That video won the award for best performance video at the first VMAs. And I still don’t have my award.

Pete Angelus: I think we spent less money making “Jump” than we did on having pizzas delivered to the set of “Hot for Teacher.”

Ann Carli: The legend was that “Jump” was a $5,000 video. David Lee Roth’s swinging on a rope, but he’s also playing right to camera. Nobody did that. That was a groundbreaking video, and it had an impact on how everybody looked at making videos.