Music Video of the Day: King Of The Mountain by Kate Bush (2005, dir. Jimmy Murakami)

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I know I say it a lot, but it is all in the video. Is Elvis still alive? The pressures of being that famous. The fact that we didn’t know Elvis that well. We certainly know that outfit, but it told us about as much about Elvis as Rosebud did Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941). I particularly love how they copy the ending of Citizen Kane. In that movie, we are dropped outside the gate the movie started on because we never got to know the person, but just visited a place that houses a collection of stories. Here, we also never got to know the person, and in the aftermath of his death, we only have memories, records, memorabilia, and theories that he isn’t just an influence on every musician out there, but literally out there somewhere. I also love how the articles about him go from dignified goodbyes to a mix of hope and outright exploitation of his legendary status. You get the same transition as the music video visually goes from a museum to wide-open spaces before we are tossed back to the museum, and finally the sled.

Jimmy Murakami of Heavy Metal (1981) fame directed it.

The only other person I found who had a notable credit was producer Michael Algar who produced some episodes of the 1987 TMNT TV Show.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Moments Of Pleasure by Kate Bush (1993, dir. Kate Bush)

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

The song is about Bush remembering friends and family who have died. She spells that out for you visually at the end of the video as we see other people dance past her that she calls out to. From what I can find, Smurf is Alan Murphy who played on some of her albums and Bill is Bill Duffield, a lighting engineer, who died during a concert tour of hers in 1979. There are some others including her mother who died right around the time of making the album this song is on–The Red Shoes.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush (1985, dir. David Garfath)

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Diane Grey choreographed the video and Michael Hervieu is the other dancer. It’s pretty self-explanatory. It has do with relationships, exchanging places with your lover, etc. There are other blog entries out there that do good jobs talking about it–even in Kate’s own words. I will make special mention that it is not about exchanging places with God regardless of the crucifixion bit. Hopefully this blog entry is still up because it does a good job summarizing it.

I love it because it is simple, beautiful, and does a nice Twilight Zone type thing to have the lovers pulled apart near the end. Also, it stands out among other videos of the time. I’m not saying that it makes it any better, but sometimes it is nice to do something different, and I think that fits very well with Kate Bush.

The blog I linked to above says that MTV didn’t want to air this back then. That kind of surprises me. I get that it’s no Babooshka or Army Dreamers. However, Kate Bush is the first artist I’ve come across where when I recently bought two of her albums, I felt like I was only getting half the picture. The song Cloudbusting isn’t the same on its own. I would think that from MTV’s perspective, they would want something that people would come back to see rather than simply watch, buy the record, and move on. I know there are other circumstances, but I find it a little difficult to wrap my head around the idea that a lack of lip-syncing would be so much of an issue that they preferred to air a live performance of this song.

Director David Garfath has done camerawork on some notable films such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), An American Werewolf In London (1981), and Brazil (1985).

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Them Heavy People by Kate Bush (1978, dir. Keith MacMillan)

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

I was originally planning on doing five political music videos this week. Then I decided I’d feature some beautiful things rather than things that remind people of fear and uncertainty. They’ll be plenty of other days to spotlight things like America by Kurtis Blow and the obscure Schizophrenic Breakdown by Chainmale. With that in mind, I am doing a video from each decade of Kate Bush’s career from the 1970s to the 2010s.

I know that Wow and Wuthering Heights are more well-known early Kate Bush videos, but I thought this one was appropriate for MLK Jr. Day that also happens to be Religious Freedom Day since the song is about having a desire to learn as much as possible. Also, it’s a pretty good introduction to what you can expect from Kate Bush: beautiful music videos, meaningful/heavy lyrics, interpretive dance/dancing, and being goofy at times.

She’s also known for her live performances, which makes sense considering videos like this one. There’s a video for Wow that is made up of a compilation of live performances, and you can see the two dancers from this video all over it. I remember reading someone’s comment somewhere that she worked with the same dancers for decades. Don’t quote me on that. However, it wouldn’t surprise me.

A little Easter Egg to look for is that Kate didn’t have her armpits shaved in this video. I only bring that up since a few years later Nena would get written up in British tabloids when she didn’t have them shaved during a tour in the UK.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Titta in i men lilla kajuta by Björn (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Another early music video with Björn. I’m quite sure the blonde is Agnetha, but she doesn’t sing in this one.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Vårkänslor (ja, de’ ä våren) by Agnetha & Björn (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 14, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

This is from that same Jules Sylvain special as before. Many of these will be for a while.

We get to see an early version of the ABBA music video for Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) with both Agnetha and Björn.

Make sure to stop the video at about the thirty-seven second mark because it goes into another video. I’ll do that one later. Unfortunately, many of these videos aren’t posted solely. You can keep watching, but I will be doing them separately.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Tangokavaljeren by Björn (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Björn tangos to a Jules Sylvain song. This was part of a TV special that had a string of music videos including both Björn and Agnetha where they perform Jules Sylvain songs. This one is just Björn.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Bald Headed Woman by The Hep Stars (1966, dir. ???)

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Of course there are! This is turning into the ABBA hole.

Since I do plan on including Frida’s and Agnetha’s post-ABBA music videos leading up to, and following 2004’s The Last Video (ABBA), it means I need to do any pre-ABBA music videos as well. Go figure that a band that would become well-known for their videos would have members that made music videos prior to its creation.

In the 1960s, Benny was in a band called The Hep Stars. That’s him on keyboards. You can read about them on Wikipedia.

The only thing that has me a little worried is that many of the videos after this for the members of ABBA, before ABBA, were part of TV specials as opposed to standing on their own. However, they seem to just be music videos that were shot and aired in a row for varying reasons. They aren’t A Hard Days Night (1964). Besides, there’s no way I’m not including the one where Björn does the tango.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Knowing Me, Knowing You by ABBA (1976, dir. ???)

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

No, this is not the good version of Knowing Me, Knowing You that I have mentioned on numerous occasions. Frequently there is a clash between the dates on the YouTube posts and when the video was actually released. They often put a copyright date in the description for the video. I’ve found that date refers to the release of the song. This song did come out in 1976, which the copyright date indicates, but mvdbase says the “snow” version came out in 1977, while this “sailboat” version came out in 1976. I’m going with mvdbase on this one.

This is the eleventh ABBA music video I have done so far. I would call this one of their vacation/casual music videos like the one for Love Isn’t Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) or Bang-A-Boomerang. The thing that makes this video standout is that it puts the spotlight on Frida. Here’s an easy way to tell.

Snow Version

Sailboat Version

Those are at the same point in the song. One has Frida in the background, and the other solely onscreen. Agnetha and the rest of the band are just kinda there. I’m not saying that wouldn’t become common place in music videos later on. Look at any video from one of your favorite bands, not a solo artist. You’ll notice that the main focus is frequently placed on the lead singer. However, it feels odd for an ensemble group like ABBA. That’s even if the group did kind of frame Agnetha like Hall, to Frida’s Oates.

Oh, and there’s this.

Rio by Duran Duran

I have no doubt that Russell Mulcahy was at least aware of this video. How am I so sure? ABBA did another video like this in Australia, which is where he is from. In fact, if IMVDb is to be believed, then Mulcahy directed the live performance AC/DC did for Baby, Please Don’t Go the same year as this, and the other video.

Baby, Please Don’t Go by AC/DC

I wonder if that was meant to parody ABBA. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective:

Music Video of the Day: Mamma Mia by ABBA (1975, dir. Lasse Hallström)

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

It’s funny that the song probably most closely identified with ABBA has such an unremarkable video. I only have two things to add that we haven’t already seen in previous videos.

This time around we get super close-up shots that are just the lips and nose. The guys get the same shots. Usually it is just Agnetha and Frida. In general, there seems to be an increase in the presence of the guys and Frida.

Also, take notice that there is a strict division between the girls and the guys. They never interact in any way. The quick cuts to match the quick parts of the song make them face themselves, not each other. With the exception of a couple of far shots, they even play and sing in their own section of the white dimension that could have been recorded on completely different days.

That’s it! The rest is stuff we have seen before in earlier videos. I am going to make a judgement call here and go ahead and add the following as a live performance of this song. They did it for the show, Made In Sweden For Export.

Unlike Hasta Mañana, there are no cuts. This may have been filmed prior to airing as the YouTube video suggests, but it looks enough like a live performance for me–unlike the one they did for I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do that also aired on the same show. Note that for the majority of the performance, the guys aren’t playing even though the music is. I also love that while Agnetha and Frida are in standard ABBA performance mode, you have Benny and Björn trying to get to their instruments through red tape. It’s all a nice joke about the title of the show and why exactly we have so many ABBA music videos from a period when that wasn’t exactly standard practice. It wasn’t unheard of, but there is pretty much a canned ABBA music video for all of their major hits.

This also means I can include the version of So Long that they did for the same show.