Music Video of the Day: Tropical Loveland by ABBA (1976, dir. ???)


It’s back to ABBA. I’ll finish this retrospective if it kills me.

Apparently ABBA not only went to Australia, but were hugely successful there. So much so, that they made this music video specially for them. It may or may not have been part of a larger special they did for Australia. There is of course the movie as well that was released in 1977 about a week-long tour they did in Australia that same year. I don’t recall it being very good when I watched it a few years ago.

In the video below, you can see the band trying to handle animals and Björn explaining that you can fit 15 Swedens into Australia. It does get kind of choppy near the end of the video, so it isn’t just your computer.

As you watch this music video, pay special attention to Agnetha’s butt. I’m not kidding. Agnetha’s butt was a big hit in Australia and the UK. There are numerous videos about it on YouTube. Here’s a couple of them.

Otherwise, this is your typical ABBA-goes-on-vacation music video–similar to the sailboat version of Knowing Me, Knowing You.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

  1. Bald Headed Woman by The Hep Stars (1966, dir. ???)
  2. En Stilla Flirt by Agnetha & ??? (1969, dir. ???) + 8 Hootenanny Singers Videos From 1966
  3. Tangokavaljeren by Björn (1969, dir. ???)
  4. Vårkänslor (ja, de’ ä våren) by Agnetha & Björn (1969, dir. ???)
  5. Titta in i men lilla kajuta by Björn (1969, dir. ???)
  6. Nu Ska Vi Vara Snälla by Björn & Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)
  7. Finns Det Flickor by Björn & Sten Nilsson (1969, dir. ???)
  8. Nu Ska Vi Opp, Opp, Opp by Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)
  9. Det Kommer En Vår by Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)
  10. Beate-Christine by Björn (1969, dir. ???)
  11. En Stilla Flirt by Agnetha & ??? (1969, dir. ???) + 8 Hootenanny Singers Videos From 1966
  12. Att Älska I Vårens Tid by Frida (1970, dir. ???)
  13. Min Soldat by Frida (1970, dir. ???)
  14. Söderhavets Sång by Frida (1970, dir. ???)
  15. Ring, Ring by ABBA (1973, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  16. Ring, Ring by ABBA (1973, dir. ???)
  17. Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) by ABBA (1973, dir. ???)
  18. Waterloo by ABBA (1974, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  19. Hasta Mañana by ABBA (1974, dir. ???)
  20. I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do by ABBA (1975, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  21. I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do by ABBA (1975, dir. ???)
  22. Bang-A-Boomerang by ABBA (1975, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  23. SOS by ABBA (1975, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  24. Mamma Mia by ABBA (1975, dir. Lasse Hallström)
  25. Knowing Me, Knowing You by ABBA (1976, dir. ???)

Music Video of the Day: Movies by Alien Ant Farm (2001, dir. Marc Klasfeld)


We’ve reached the end of February, and the last version of Movies by Alien Ant Farm. This is the one most people know. Unfortunately, I sat down late to write this, so let’s keep it simple.

The music video starts off with lead-singer Dryden Mitchell apparently confused by a hotdog jumping around onscreen next to a bun when his just sits in his hand.

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It must be because that’s not supposed to happen without John Travolta around to sing about Olivia Newton-John.

Grease (1978, dir. Randal Kleiser)

Grease (1978, dir. Randal Kleiser)

He decides to jump into the screen in order to work in a reference to Last Action Hero (1993). The rest of the band decides to follow suit, and are instantly replaced by every alt-rock band from the time-period.

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Once inside, they notice that the movie magic is now dead.

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Now they remind us of how big a fan they are of Michael Jackson–in case we didn’t get that from them covering Smooth Criminal–by referencing Captain EO (1986).

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However, their reference to Captain EO also features the Italian evil-eye thing that ignorant people think has something to do with Satan, and it pisses of the local Sammi Curr.

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Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)

Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)

It doesn’t matter that he now dresses more like Axl Rose. Sammi thinks that he is the only rocker that has the right to reach into or out of a screen. He did it in Trick Or Treat to kill Ozzy Osbourne.

Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)

Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)

Luckily the band turns into the Ghostbusters in order to deal with Sammi Curr. I’m sure it was also a way of taking a shot at critics of their brand of hard rock/heavy metal.

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The band performs as themselves for awhile, and brings more stuff out of the screen to remind us of the early-80s 3D craze before turning into Oompa Loompas.

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Veruca Salt is the audience. She is promptly turned into a giant blue M&M.

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Now the band goes into Karate Kid mode, but Mitchell is down!

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That’s no problem though because Pat Morita shows up to heal him through the power of movie magic.

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This causes them to flash to an Asian guy in the audience before moving on.

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The video decides it’s time to go into the 90s with Edward Scissorhands (1990) .

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Edward spots a guy sporting an afro in the audience and decides to update him for the times by giving him the Coolio.

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It also spells out AAF just in case we forgot what band we were watching. At this point, the audience decides it’s time for them all to jump into the screen.

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That is except for the usher…

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who disappears in the far shot…

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but reappears when the camera cuts back to the front of the theater.

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The music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld who you might know from any number of places, including:

Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) by Katy Perry

Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) by Katy Perry

He’s directed over 100 of them. He also shot around 20 of them.

Emilie Sennebogen produced the video. I can only find two music video credits for Sennebogen.

Scott Free was the stylist on the video. He appears to have done around 10 music videos.

Jeff Judd worked on make-up. I can only find two music video credits for him.

Ben Oswald was the production manager. He’s worked as a producer, production manager, and as an associate producer on music videos.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Movies by Alien Ant Farm (2001, dir. Marcos Siega)


That sure is another version of Movies. It probably looks familiar even if you’ve never seen it before. That’s because a lot of videos by bands like Alien Ant Farm had essentially the same music video at the time.

Used For Glue by Rival Schools

Used For Glue by Rival Schools

Waffle by Sevendust

Waffle by Sevendust

Moment of Weakness by Bif Naked

Moment of Weakness by Bif Naked

Promise by Eve 6

Promise by Eve 6

Last Resort by Papa Roach

Last Resort by Papa Roach

Crawling In The Dark by Hoobastank

Crawling In The Dark by Hoobastank

Chop Suey! by System Of A Down

Chop Suey! by System Of A Down

Satellite by P.O.D.

Satellite by P.O.D.

Fat Lip by Sum 41

Fat Lip by Sum 41

If you’re thinking all those music video were directed by Marcos Siega, then you’d actually be wrong. Fat Lip was directed by Marc Klasfeld who directed the jumping-into-the-theater-screen version of Movies. All the rest of those were directed by Marcos Siega.

I’m of course not bad-mouthing Marcos Siega. Siega also did other tropes of these kinds of videos such as fetishizing the bass player, close-ups of each of the members of the band, cutaways to what people would say are lost youth, and showing the music these bands were raised on. He also did some different stuff like Murder by The Crystal Method and Thorn In My Side by Quicksand. But it’s telling that I could lump Fat Lip in there, and it’s easy to believe that it was done by Siega. I could have also thrown My Friends Over You by New Found Glory in, and it would have fit in as well despite having been directed by the Malloys. Even Kevin Kerslake of Nirvana and Sonic Youth fame would get in on this with the video for Come Original by 311. Point is, I get why they shot another video that while still using a lot of the familiar tropes, such as the big audience, is much more interesting and memorable.

Something tells me that Siega was more than happy to do different things, but was told he had to follow this formula because all late-90s/early-2000s Nu-Metal and Punk-ish music must be shot this way. We’ll get to Klasfeld tomorrow.

Siega has since gone on to direct TV shows, such as Dexter and The Vampire Diaries. However, his main thing now seems to be producing. In particular, all 45 episodes of The Following.

Ramsey Nickell shot this music video. He seems to have shot around 20 music videos. He’s also shot some TV movies, among other things.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Movies by Alien Ant Farm (2001, dir. Tamra Davis)


But I thought that the music video for Movies by Alien Ant Farm had the band jumping into a theater screen? They did. It just took them three videos to get there. Yes, there are three versions of this music video. Why? I know that the third one was shot after the success of Smooth Criminal. That makes sense. Why was this one was replaced? Maybe because it looks like it is in bad taste, cheap, and generic. Just a guess. It could also have had something to do with this part:

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Sure, we get that the point is supposed to be that, like the other girls, there’s something monsterish about her. In her case, she grows male muscles when she is turned on. Still, if mvdbase is to be believed, they shot another one that aired in March of 2001, which would coincide with the release of the album the song is on. Maybe that bit bothered people, so they made a new one. Maybe they wanted a more modern look. I don’t know.

Obviously I’m doing this music video today because of the Oscars. I honestly didn’t know that there were three versions of this video. I guess this will finish out February.

Now I have to sort out a little conflicting information. There seems to be no disagreement between IMVDb, mvdbase, and Wikipedia when it comes to the version we all know where they jump into a theater screen. That one was directed Marc Klasfeld who also did Smooth Criminal, and a few other videos for the band. The disagreement is over whether this version, or the next version, was done by Tamra Davis rather than Marcos Siega.

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That’s from the second version. M. Siega is director Marcos Siega and R. Nickell is cinematographer Ramsey Nickell. You can see the date as well.

Another way I’m sure this is the first version is that this video fits with the origin of the name of the band. According to guitarist Terry Corso in a Reddit AMA:

“Oh that was just my daydream about planet seeding by entities from other dimensions. bored at work stuff”

The women are the aliens who have come to where they are performing and each member of the band daydreams about each of them turning out to be an alien that tries to have sex with them. It makes sense to me that this was the first version unless someone comes along with additional information.

According to mvdbase, this was Tamra Davis’ last music video. It’s funny to note that while Davis didn’t do the jumping-into-the-theater-screen version, that one does feature the character of Veruca Salt, and she did direct a video for the band Veruca Salt.

Jeff Selis edited this music video. He also did Dragula for Rob Zombie. He’s edited well over 100 music videos, so we’ll see plenty more of his work in the future.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Romancing The Stone by Eddy Grant (1984, dir. ???)


Here’s the second version. They shot some footage of a woman who is working as a photographer in order to get money in order to go to St. Lucia where Eddy Grant is singing the song. They filmed new footage to splice it into footage that was shot to splice into the movie footage. Interesting. That’s it!

It’s still a good song. Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Romancing The Stone by Eddy Grant (1984, dir. ???)


Yes, that Romancing The Stone (1984). Apparently, they went all out here. They got an artist who was born in South America. They made this video, which incorporated footage from the film. They even did a short behind-the-scenes thing below where we find out that the mountain in this video was specially constructed, and that Eddy is drinking a non-alcoholic beverage. I doubt it was constructed for Grant, but I could be wrong. It’s not unheard of for countries to bend over backwards to help a film get made in their country such as Jordan did for Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights (1998).

Regardless, they cut the song from the movie. I guess they realized their mistake after the movie did so well, and not only had Billy Ocean do a song for the sequel, but even got Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, and Michael Douglas to be backup singers in the music video.

Update: I made a mistake. Grant’s song isn’t completely cut from the film. When Joan and Jack are taken in by a big fan of hers, you can hear Grant’s guitar solo playing while they are in the courtyard. He’s also given credit for the song in the ending credits.

I love when Kathleen Turner’s suitcase is thrown, hits the ground in front of Grant, and then he looks up to see his machete come back down to him having changed into a guitar. Also, for some reason I like seeing Grant casually walking along carrying a machete. I think it’s a fun video that did a good job of incorporating Grant into footage from the movie.

This one also comes with, what I assume was a TV performance that had set pieces.

Maybe it was the same show that Adam Ant performed Goody Two Shoes on. It looks like it.

Oh, and yes, there are two versions of this music video…and of the Billy Ocean one as well.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: No More Lies by Michel’le (1989, dir. Jane Simpson)


Full confession, I have not seen Surviving Compton: Dre, Suge & Michel’le (2016). I did watch that movie called Britney Ever After (2017) a few days ago. I think it was about Britney Spears, but it was tough to tell. I’m pretty sure that Oops!…I Did It Again didn’t have anything to do with falling out of a car while perving on Brad Pitt.

Anyways, I did hear enough about Surviving Compton to know that this video is more than just a visual representation of an R&B/Soul song about leaving someone who is lying to you. From what I’ve read, this is rather close to what reality was for her at the time this video was made.

There really isn’t much to the video other than it being close to reality, and the song having a nice mix of Michel’le talking over her larynx, and singing from her diaphragm–that’s what creates the difference in her singing and speaking voice. I just thought some people might be curious to see one of her music videos if they haven’t already.

I’m positive there are some cameos in here that I should recognize. The only one that jumped out at me was Eazy-E, but that was because of the sunglasses and the “Compton” hat. I have no doubt that Dre is in here. I am just not familiar enough with how he looked at this time to say where he is in here. It makes sense that they would both be in here. They are both in her video for the song Nicety.

Jane Simpson directed this music video. She seems to have done around 50 of them. A fair number of them for Concrete Blonde. She has done some other work, including Number One Fan (1995) and Little Witches (1996).

Spoiler alert! Little Witches isn’t very good. However, it is kind of fun going into it knowing that it was done by a director who started off in music videos. You can tell at times. In much the same way that you can when you watch Leslie Libman’s Britney Ever After, who also started in music videos.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: We The People…. by A Tribe Called Quest (2016, dir. James Larese)


I figured it was appropriate to follow up Fight The Power by Public Enemy with this music video. I think the music video does an excellent job. I was going to try and interpret the whole video, but I have trouble with lyrics and what I see as the ending, seems to be in direct contradiction with what the director says he intended in the behind-the-scenes video at the end of this post. So, I’ll leave it mostly to you.

I cannot let the post go without mentioning my thoughts on the ending though. The video would appear to have the people following the cords that should lead back to the band. The director even says in the behind-the-scenes video that they do arrive where the band is broadcasting from. But that’s not what you see in the video. It almost gets there with the people running down what should be the tunnels leading to the room, and you can even see a shot in the behind-the-scenes video with them in the room, but it isn’t in the video. I have a feeling that behind-the-scenes video was shot, and then some editing was done to the finished product. The end of the video has Q-Tip alone while a siren plays, then cuts to the protest. I can imagine Q-Tip personally telling Larese that having them show up in the same room as him would defeat the point of the song. It would show the people not rising up for themselves. It would show people rallying to a new king, so to speak. In other words, to borrow from Ozzy Osbourne, since the song does sample Black Sabbath:

“You gotta believe in someone
Asking me who is right
Asking me who to follow
Don’t ask me
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know”
–I Don’t Know by Ozzy Osbourne

I can see them cutting Q-Tip actually seeing them arrive, and instead abruptly cut to the protest. That’s how I read it.

They sample the Black Sabbath song Behind The Wall Of Sleep, which is appropriate since they also did War Pigs and The Mob Rules.

I’ve included War Pigs (live & studio) and The Mob Rules by Black Sabbath below since they are relevant to this song. I’m guessing that the siren at the end is from, or at least a reference to the one from War Pigs, which began the song, rather than ended it.

James Larese directed the video and Cisco Newman produced it. Thanks to BWW Music World we have this quote from Larese:

“I was hugely influenced by Tribe growing up and never imagined I’d be here directing their video. They are just as relevant today as they were 20 years ago. ‘We the People’ touched me on a visceral level. One of the reasons I co-founded Triggr & Bloom, perhaps the main reason, was to position my art to a higher purpose. Working with them was an incredible affirmation for me.”
–James Larese

I can find that Newman has worked on 15-20 music videos in the past few years. He was even nominated for a Grammy for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s music video for Perform This Way.

Here is when A Tribe Called Quest performed We The People…. on SNL:

Finally, here is the behind-the-scenes video that was put out on the video:

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Fight The Power by Public Enemy (1989, dir. Spike Lee)


I had to do this video eventually. It’s one of those that’s so infamous that I’m going to point you to the Wikipedia article. I have no intention of discussing the messy history of Public Enemy. I will also point you to the video the Rap Critic did on the song.

I’m posting this while it’s still relevant to mention that this was the theme song for Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989), which was the movie Barack and Michelle went to see on their first date.

As for the people who worked on the video, I honestly had no idea that Spike Lee directed music videos. According to mvdbase, he has done about 40 of them going back to White Lines by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five in 1983. Oh, and yes, Lee did direct Hip Hop Hooray by Naughty By Nature. I guess that’s where that urban legend came from that Obama was in that music video.

The video was shot by Ernest Dickerson. He seems to have only shot 4 music videos, but there is one that is noteworthy considering he did this one. He shot Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen. Dickerson went on to do a lot of work as both a cinematographer and a director, including episodes of The Walking Dead and the movie Juice (1992).

Hank Blumenthal was the script supervisor for this music video. I’m not sure if I’ve ever come across that credit before on a music video. He appears to have worked on about 10 music videos and has worked as a producer.

If you haven’t seen Do The Right Thing, then do so. If you haven’t heard this song or seen the video, then also do so.

Music Video of the Day: America by Kurtis Blow (1985, dir. Claude Borenzweig)


This is another one where I will let the people involved do the talking. In this case, it’s editor Glenn Lazzaro whose work we have already seen several times on here. You can click his name in the tags section to see the music videos I have done so far that he worked on. Credit goes to 99Tigers for putting up a post up containing the following:

Posted by Glenn Lazzaro for his series “Adventures in Television”

National Video Center, New York City, 1985.

In the early ’80s when hip hop & rap were first noticed by the mainstream, most of the music videos were dance tracks and for the most part, devoid of political messages. Then Kurtis Blow released the single “America” and all that changed. It was a political rant about everything that was happening during the Reaganomics-Cold War-Anti-Russian era in America. Claude Borenzweig, then working at Polygram Records, was editing & directing internal projects when he got the chance to direct the “America” music video. Claude came up with the idea of a classroom filled with kids where Kurtis would teach them the “real” history of America. David Brownstein and Len Epand produced the shoot for Claude on the main stage at National Video. They shot on videotape using the giant, old-school studio cameras that were usually used to shoot “Sexually Speaking with Doctor Ruth.”

Claude did a rough cut using the classroom footage he directed, and a second cut using stock footage that we would combine in the edit. As usual, we went into the edit room over the weekend so we’d have all the time and equipment we needed. We needed time because we had no edit list, no After Effects, no digital storage, no tracking marks. Just an old Ampex ADO and lots of “crossed fingers” that we’d match the motion between the camera moves and the composited footage. Sometimes it matched. Most times it didn’t.

Needless to say, the special effects seem crude compared to what is possible today. But at the time they were considered state-of-art. We also used the then very popular technique of running the footage thru a black & white monitor to distort it.

Claude hadn’t shot any footage for the Pledge Of Allegiance section of the song, so I was enlisted to lie under the title camera and lip-sync the part. Yes, that’s my ’80s mustache you see inserted into the blackboard starting at 18 seconds in.

Shortly after we finished the video, I worked with Frank Zappa on a week’s worth of programming called “Porn Wars” for the music show “Night Flight.” Zappa would appear at the PMRC Senate hearings in Washington during the day, then come to National Video in New York to tape his segments for “Night Flight.” One night I showed him “America.” He was really excited that the rap world was finally getting political and asked for a VHS copy. I was very proud.

Here is also an article written on it for Optic Music Magazine.

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According to mvdbase, Claude Borenzweig only went on to do a handful of music videos. According to IMDb, he is, or was working as a Psychotherapist.

Producer Len Epand appears to have worked on around 20 videos.

I can’t find any information on David Brownstein.

John Kraus shot the video. I can’t find any other credits for him.

Here’s an excerpt from Billboard magazine from November 23rd, 1985 concerning Claude Borenzweig:

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Here’s an excerpt from Billboard magazine from May 24th, 1986 about how the video was nominated for several awards:

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Enjoy!