Music Video of the Day: Touch Me (I Want Your Body) by Samantha Fox (1986, dir. ???)

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

After doing those six music videos from 2016, I thought I would get one point across that I really couldn’t when I was only talking about Starving by Hailee Steinfeld. I do know that Steinfeld has done at least a couple of other music videos where she did a thinly disguised child version of Cyndi Lauper’s She Bop, a couple of MTV Unplugged looking music videos, and one for Rock Bottom that was more appropriate for her talents. My point below stands regardless.

Hailee Steinfeld:
-19 years old
-A song that is of a sexual nature.
-A music video that asked her to express her sexuality onscreen.
-A low-budget looking music video.

Samantha Fox:
-19 years old
-A song that is of a sexual nature.
-A music video that asked her to express her sexuality onscreen.
-A low-budget looking music video.

There is one big difference though.

As much as Steinfeld tried to look sexy in Starving, it still felt like a 19 year-old acting. That made it an uncomfortable experience to watch compared to something like Rock Bottom. Samantha Fox on the other hand was fully capable of expressing her sexuality. There’s a very good reason for this difference.

When Steinfeld was 16, she was just coming off a hiatus after True Grit (2010) to make an appearance in a few movies. When Fox was 16, she was posing topless for the British tabloid The Sun. She continued doing that until 1986 when she started a career in music with this song. That makes a big difference when you are asking a 19 year-old to get in front of a camera as themselves in a sexual manner.

I would have picked out Naughty Girls Need Love Too, but that was made two years later–even if it is a better song with a better music video. It has Fox appearing in a more revealing version of an outfit Tiffany wore in I Think We’re Alone Now. It also had her pushing a man’s head downward toward her crotch while saying “we can get busy my way” after putting his head against her breasts while wearing a Debbie Gibson hat. There’s plenty more in there including her being nude that implies she is in the middle of sex near the end of the music video.

However, it’s not like this music video doesn’t have its fair share of sexual stuff going on. The song is about searching for a man. The title comes right out and says she is looking for a guy, not for love, but to feel his body. There’s the moaning. There’s the drum that has white stuff springing off of it. There’s the guitar that is played like it is a penis. There’s the crowd of people all trying to get a piece of her. There’s the photographs as a reference to her modeling career. There’s the line: “Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you, to treat my body like you wanted to.” The water flung by the fan into the body of one of the band members to cool him off that she does by accident. There’s the guy she pulls from the audience.

The point is that throughout the music video I believe this is all in Fox’s wheelhouse. It wasn’t fair to Steinfeld to ask her to try to do this stuff in Starving. If you must take her in this direction, then have Steinfeld cut her teeth doing sex-lite music videos along the lines of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is A Place On Earth before dumping her into Samantha Fox territory.

Fox hopes to re-release this song soon and return to modeling by posing in Playboy according to The Mirror. I don’t watch reality television, but she was on the British show Celebrity Big Brother this year.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: What If I Go? by Mura Masa (2016, dir. Yoni Lappin)

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Mura Masa is only 20 years old. I’m 33, and I already feel ancient.

Anyways, Mura Masa is a guy named Alex Crossan who was born in Castel, Guernsey. While it doesn’t say anywhere on Wikipedia, I’m sure he got the name from the Japanese swordsmith Muramasa Sengo.

He makes Trap Music. That’s a new genre for me. Wikipedia defines it as follows:

“Trap music is defined by its ominous, bleak and gritty lyrical content which varies widely according to artist. Typical lyrical themes portrayed include observations of hardship in the “trap”, street life, poverty, violence and harsh experiences in urban inner city surroundings.”

That’s funny seeing as Guernsey is an island that is physically stuck in-between the UK and France. Wikipedia says that Alex played in Punk, Hardcore, Deathcore, and Gospel bands as a teenager before settling on Trap Music. I highly doubt that he picked out the genre because it fit perfectly with the location he was born. Still, it is something that makes for a fun bit of trivia.

The music video is a visual representation of that definition filmed with cellphones–making heavy use of Live Photos–since that would be what people would be carrying around with them that easily captures “street life, poverty, violence and harsh experiences in urban inner city surroundings.” They even went as far as rounding the edges since we like playing with borders in things like Instagram where shots like those you see in this music video frequently end up on.

Alex makes two cameo appearances in the music video. If you want to see them:

1. 1:16, https://youtu.be/pLuQ0MGLBXU?t=1m16s
2. 2:38 – 2:39, https://youtu.be/pLuQ0MGLBXU?t=2m38s

Don’t blink, or you’ll miss him. They really are that short.

Out of the six music videos I looked at from this year, I would say this is the best. I liked Brodka’s song Up In The Hill the most, but I like this music video better. I can’t think of anything it does wrong. You can even look at it as an instructional video on how and when to use this song. It’s low-key and good for when you need to wind down, like the guy riding the bus. If you need a little song for a love montage, then this video shows you it will work great for that. If you need a song to break up two high-energy songs that can give couples a nice intimate moment, then this music video also shows you that it will work for that.

I don’t know if this will be memorable down the line for people in general. This is the kind of song and music video that will firmly attach itself to moments in some people’s lives. Just like the video is largely comprised of moments captured with photographs and short bits of video.

Enjoy!

6 from 2016:

Music Video of the Day: Up In The Hill by Brodka (2016, dir. Brodka)

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I’ve only seen a handful of music videos from the current decade. This one goes right alongside some of the best I’ve seen. Brodka knows her decades in music all the way back to the 1960s.

2000s – The set looks like the futuristic space set from the glorious throwback lunacy that is the music video for The Darkness’ I Believe In A Thing Called Love.
1990s – Brodka herself starts off the music video looking like I would expect Björk to in one of her 90s music videos. The guitar solo sounds like it would be right at home in a Lenny Kravitz song.
1980s – I can imagine the organist playing with Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive. The eye of course reminds me of The Alan Parsons Project cover for Eye In The Sky.
1970s – They actually redo the famous bit from Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
1960s – The whole thing ties back to the 1960s. The band looks and sounds like they could be playing with Tommy James & The Shondells on Crystal Blue Persuasion or Iron Butterfly on In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. They also throw plenty of psychedelic effects on the screen.

Yet, it all comes together to look like it is a music video from the 2010s that you could watch as a double feature with Problem by Ariana Grande. Most importantly, I like the song. My only complaint is that it feels like it cuts itself short. Its main focus is psychedelic rock. When the guitar solo kicks in, I expect it to carry on longer. But it stops very quickly, which is disappointing. Otherwise, I liked it.

Enjoy!

6 from 2016:

Music Video of the Day: Shout Out To My Ex by Little Mix (2016, dir. Sarah Chatfield)

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Finally one of these 2016 music videos that I can get behind. This is the fourth of the six 2016 music videos I have looked at. It’s the only one that made me watch more from the same artist as a result. I looked it up, and they don’t appear to have worked with the same director more than twice. However, all the music videos I watched all knew what they were doing in the same way. They didn’t come across as simply existing to sell their music with sex, like Fifth Harmony’s Work From Home. They don’t rely on something they think will be shocking, that isn’t, like Ariana Grande’s Side To Side. They look like they are in command of their sexuality, unlike Hailee Steinfeld’s Starving.

The bit that makes me really like this music video is that I noticed they draw on elements from famous music videos to visually express their song. It starts right from the beginning. A desert where a woman is singing about her ex with suitcases involved. Of course they are going to reference You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette with a song like this. However, the song isn’t angry. It’s a song of hopeful and happy liberation. That’s why it isn’t a carbon copy, but reworked to fit the song.

Here I Go Again may be an 80’s hair metal video, but it evokes the same feeling of driving off into a wide new world after a lonely and heartbreaking experience. Don’t let the divide between music styles stop you. Hop in that car that I have no doubt Tawney Kitaen could have christened with a hood dance and drive off into an Instagram photo.

We are already in the beautiful location of the Spanish Tabernas Desert, groups like this frequently have a lot of bright colors, so of course lets toss Duran Duran’s Rio into the mix. It was also filmed at a beautiful location and used exaggerated colors like the ones we are throwing in anyways to contrast with those in You Oughta Know.

We need a way to end it, but the ending of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence is a little too depressing even though the song is in the ballpark and has bright colors. No matter. Coldplay remade it–Viva La Vida–with their lead-singer joined by his bandmates at the end instead of being alone, which turned it into a song about friends helping someone else through an otherwise solitary, but “long live life” experience. That’ll work for an ending! Have their arms in the air too like Dave Gahan in Personal Jesus.

Throw it together with some shots next to a pool to juxtapose with the outside shots since the song is all about taking a transitory period in a person’s life, and collapsing into a single future. It doesn’t have to be as explicit a division as most of Bonnie Tyler’s videos have. It can be one of the more subtle ones like the cuts between the claustrophobic cabin in the dark of night and the Grand Canyon in Holding Out For A Hero.

Top it off with some playfulness you saw in late-90s/early-2000s girl-bands like Dream and Dixie Chicks’ Ready To Run, and call it good.

I am of course not saying that is exactly what went through Little Mix and Sarah Chatfield’s minds. But it’s telling that I could break this music video into an amalgamation of things that worked from earlier music videos in such a way that you could believe that was the thought process behind it. Plus, you can see them make explicit references to things in their other music videos, such as the one to Risky Business (1983) in Hair. I’m pretty sure that one also referenced the four way split screen from ABBA’s Take A Chance On Me and had the girls posing for the cover of The Donnas’ album Spend The Night.

Regardless of the music video I watched, I saw all kinds of things that evoked memories of previous music videos that were brought together to express their own song in a playful manner without sacrificing a chance to do more serious material down the road. I go back to ABBA once again. I can see Little Mix having the range to do something playful like Waterloo, something more serious like Knowing Me, Knowing You, and something catchy, yet bittersweet, like Dancing Queen.

I know that’s a lot of great artists to pull out in talking about this music video, but that’s how much I enjoyed seeing this come out in 2016. Kudos, Little Mix & director Sarah Chatfield.

6 from 2016:

Music Video of the Day: Starving by Hailee Steinfeld, Grey ft. Zedd (2016, dir. Darren Craig)

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I first have to address two things about the title of this post. I guess when they put up collaborations, then they simply insert a comma. That isn’t confusing at all. It is made worse by the fact that this is another one of these songs “featuring” another artist. It would make so much more sense to the viewer if they just put the artists involved in a list separated by ampersands with the primary one listed first. I know it has to do with stuff going on in the background between the record companies, but it doesn’t help the person watching the music video.

This is the third music video I’ve looked at so far from 2016. I’m already sensing a pattern when it comes to recent female artists. It’s nice to know that the influence of Bonnie Tyler’s music videos is still alive 30+ years later even if it has been filtered and diluted through so many other artists. At least it’s her music videos that I think of when I see a female artist singing about sexuality in a video like this one.

I know nothing about any of the three artists involved, but regardless, was it too much to ask to have this be a remake of Faster Than The Speed Of Night? I wanna see the members of Grey in armor on motorcycles while dueling with javelins, Zedd in a speedo whipping a guitar around himself, and cutaways to Steinfeld singing. Just a group of topless male dancers in a warehouse showing up while I wonder if I really should be watching a 19 year-old doing and singing those things just doesn’t cut it. At the very least they could have had supernatural cowboys in black with neon fire-whips come after her till this person she once tasted shows up to rescue her from blending into the background. I miss 80’s music videos already.

I can’t say I am happy that trying to look sexy is being equated with maturity in this and Side By Side by Ariana Grande. I understand that they are both at that age and that it’s nothing really new, but it undercuts the music, which is unfortunate. Then again, there isn’t much music here to undercut. I may not like Grande’s music now, but she seems like she has untapped potential.

I hate to say it, but the Music Video Sins episode on this one pretty much nailed it. I’m glad I watched it. I had no idea those random cutaways to the guys waiting to give Hailee a ride home were the members of Grey. I was also unaware that there were five writers on this song, yet this is what they came up with for Steinfeld to sing. Also, if you didn’t know you were starving till you “tasted” someone, then why are they showing you blending into the background? That kind of clashes with the coming-of-age message.

At the end of the day, this is harmless and instantly forgettable. If you told me this was a number done on Dancing With The Stars that was adapted into a music video shot on a shoestring budget, then I would believe you.

Darren Craig appears to be a relatively new director whereas Director X and Hannah Lux Davis have been doing this for awhile.

I have three more to go. I hope they get better.

6 from 2016:

Music Video of the Day: Side To Side by Ariana Grande ft. Nicki Minaj (2016, dir. Hannah Lux Davis)

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Let’s see what things I have already talked about in the area of sex when it comes to music videos:

-Laura Branigan brought us an orgy and being seduced with Self Control.
-Cyndi Lauper brought us masturbation with She Bop.
-Fiona Apple brought us the uncomfortably erotic Criminal that looks like it was shot on the set of a 70’s porno.
-Fifth Harmony loaded Work From Home with sexual references.

I think that’s it.

I didn’t think I would get to a music video in the area of anal sex, or rough sex, depending on how you interpret “getting railed”, till I did Dog Police.

I love that this music video about anal/rough sex is sponsored by Guess. It even premiered on their website.

There isn’t much to say if you’re my age–I thought. I take one look at this and think: Let’s get physical! Physical! I wanna get physical! Except can we do it in a way that comes across as somebody trying to be shocking instead of making something clever?

Director Hannah Lux Davis clearly had that music video in mind when she made this. The look of this gym is based on the one from Physical.

According to Grande in an interview with Ryan Seacrest, she thinks the album Dangerous Woman will move her away from her Nickelodeon image:

“It still sounds like me, but it feels like a more mature, evolved version. There’s a nice blend of the R&B vibes and a nice blend of pop vibes. The whole body of work is a little darker and sexier and more mature…”

Maybe she pulled that logic from Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball. The difference is that the music video for Wrecking Ball referenced Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O’Connor, True Colors by Cyndi Lauper, and being her real-self instead of an image assigned to her by others via a reference to the wig from Hannah Montana which represented disguising who you are to please others. That was well-done. The song also had meat and punch to it.

This has Grande wearing a hat that says she is an “Icon” as a stand-in for a mostly shaved head. It has her dressed in an allegedly sexy manner that I guess represents maturity and being herself as a sexual being who isn’t ashamed to talk about anal/rough sex. It also has men turned into Ken dolls that I’m assuming are supposed to be a replacement for the newly buff guys pairing off and leaving the gym together in Physical. Otherwise, I’m not sure why they are around at all. It comes across as similar, but it doesn’t have the same impact when I watch it. I don’t feel anything when I hear the song.

I have never watched her Nickelodeon show, so I am not familiar with what her image was there. However, I can speak about Disney, which is along the same lines. This doesn’t break from that image at all. There’s sex all over their shows in one form or another.

That’s really it. It’s a more explicitly sexed-up version of a late-90s pop-princess music video based on Olivia Newton-John’s Physical, trying to do the same kind of thing as what that video and Wrecking Ball did for Newton-John and Cyrus, respectively. I hope that if she wants to move away from her Nickelodeon image, that she doesn’t let herself get trapped in this image. She has plenty of time. She’s only 23.

6 from 2016:

Music Video of the Day: Work From Home by Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dolla $ign (2016, dir. Director X)

Music Video of the Day: Work From Home by Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dolla $ign (2016, dir. Director X)

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I thought it would be fun to get out of my comfort-zone for a bit. That’s why I have picked out six music videos to feature over the next six days that are from 2016. That’s it. I just went with whatever music video YouTube recommended after picking out this one.

First things first, despite anything else I say about this music video, I am grateful for the beginning that tells me who the director is, along with the song title and artists. I think this “featuring” thing is as stupid as when they used to list people as “guest stars” in a movie.

I basically stopped listening to new music around 2005 or so. I came across this by accident. However, bands like this are nothing new. They go back at least as far as barbershop quartets. Let’s be fair, and compare them to similar 90s bands. Comparing this to Lollipop by Chordettes wouldn’t be right.

Based solely on this music video, do they hold up to a comparison with TLC or En Vogue? No, they most certainly don’t. Those are apt comparisons. I hear this song and My Lovin (You’re Never Gonna Get It) by En Vogue pops into my head. So does No Scrubs by TLC.

As for the music video…*shrugs*. I’m assuming the intended message is that you don’t have to go out there cheating because your woman at home (???) is horny and needs your attention if you intend to stay together. Hence the chorus about you not having to go to work, but still having to work, and letting their bodies do the work. Work away from home being a metaphor for cheating and working from home being about maintaining a relationship. I’m also assuming that Dolla $ign carrying around a sledgehammer is a reference to their song Sledgehammer, and I have no doubt that Director X was also referencing the Peter Gabriel song of the same title.

According to Wikipedia, the music video was well-received by at least two critics who praised it for the usual things having to do with men and them coming into their own with this video.

I can say that the first is superficial, but if it makes any women feel empowered, then great. I don’t see it acting as a gateway to better groups in that area such as Girlschool, The Donnas, Bikini Kill, and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

The second I really can’t speak to seeing as this is my first exposure to them. Taking a quick glance at their other music videos doesn’t help. I watch them, and a group like Dream, with their song He Love U Not, comes to mind. Just add more sex and clearly more success.

There isn’t much more unless I want to get snarky about the references to penis size and doggie-style.

Will this go into my collection of pop songs that I like? No. I will remember how the lyrics say the one lady is submissive, but the music video has her pulling out a tape measurer. I will also remember that people are still getting worked up over repetitious lyrics for reasons beyond me.

Director X seems to have been making music videos since the late-90s with around 200 credits to his name.

Since I brought them up, I’ll end this on a song by Girlschool. I don’t like to include other music videos in these posts, so here is just the song Don’t Call It Love by Girlschool.

Music Video of the Day: The Killing Moon by Echo & The Bunnymen (1984, dir. Brian Griffin)

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Today in the US, we are supposed to get an incredible Supermoon. I thought I would take the opportunity to spotlight The Killing Moon by Echo & The Bunnymen.

Depending on your age, you might remember this song from different places. Older audiences were there when it was released, but younger audiences remember it from Donnie Darko (2001). Or you could be like me, and be somewhere in the middle. I caught it on the radio at some point between its release and Donnie Darko.

There’s an article over at The Guardian where they had Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant talk about the song.

I don’t have anything really to say. It’s your typical artsy Echo & The Bunnymen music video except with what is arguably their best song. When I watch it I see fate/God personified as someone in black and red standing on what I assume is supposed to be the RMS Titanic. There are what I imagine are baptismal waters. I also see cards that tie back in with fate.

I am sure both the song and the music video have other Biblical references as well, but McCulloch himself told Uncut magazine–about the song–that you don’t need to have read the Bible to “get as much out of it.”

Brian Griffin directed this music video. He’s made a few music videos over the years. He seems to be best known as a photographer, which isn’t much of a surprise. Echo & The Bunnymen were best known for the music videos they made with Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn. This just wasn’t one of them. Corbijn would go on to direct a music video for Depeche Mode, which is funny because that’s the other group that hired Corbijn to direct most of their music videos. It all connects. By that I mean that even God in the song comes round to the director. The director’s name is the same as Brian Griffin from Family Guy, who is a dog, and dog spelled backwards is God. There’s a weird connection I didn’t expect to come across. He appears to still be working in photography today. You can find a short article about his “best shot” over at The Guardian. You can also see pictures/album covers he took with the band on his website.

One last thing to mention is that you might notice the chords are derived from the ones used in David Bowie’s Space Oddity. The lyrics for Europe’s song The Final Countdown were inspired by the same Bowie song. I didn’t think these two music videos I have featured in the past few days would connect to each other, but there you go.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Mexican Radio by Wall Of Voodoo (1983, dir. Francis Delia)

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I’d like to commemorate suddenly finding my TV on a Spanish-language station a few days ago that I didn’t know existed where a guy was cutting an apple in his mouth using a chainsaw. That’s a thing that happened when I was simply trying to switch between movies on my DVR.

Ah, good old Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo. This is right up there with songs like Safety Dance and Come On Eileen as the stereotypical 80s one-hit wonder. It’s fun, catchy, and a genuinely good song. There’s one problem though. Just like many SNL sketches, I don’t see how this was supposed to translate into a career. Of course I thought of that, and then I had to look into what happened to them.

After this song, they basically broke up the band. I say basically because some of the members continued under that name even though lead singer Stan Ridgway had left the band and went solo. They would even go on to do at least one other music video for a song called Far Side of Crazy. It’s pretty good. I’ll have to do that one someday. I also found out that Westerns were a theme with them beyond just this one song and the video for it that they shot in Tijuana. You can find them doing a cover of Ring of Fire. However, at the end of the day, it’s not really something I see as sustainable. It’s more of a novelty than anything else. Ridgway on the other hand, is sustainable. I hope the video is still up. Here is Ridgway performing his song Camouflage in 2015.

This stuff works for a solo artist. I get why it flopped for an entire group. I could probably go into more detail about what happened to the group, but I don’t need to do that because there is an interview with Ridgway over on Songfacts where he explains it.

The music video is timeless. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s another one made by Francis Delia. I have done two other music videos of his so far. He has brought us a dead shark in Shooting Shark, a cooked pig for Somebody’s Watching Me, and now an iguana being barbecued. I can’t wait to see more of his music videos to see if this is a recurring thing like rocking chairs are in Anton Corbijn videos.

Oh, and that is Carel Struycken near the end as the director.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: In My Darkest Hour by Megadeth (1988, dir. Penelope Spheeris)

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I sound like a broken record every time I say this, but there isn’t much to talk about here beyond it being a good song.

Even if somebody didn’t know anything about Megadeth or director Penelope Spheeris, it would make perfect sense for someone to look at this music video and think it was extracted from a documentary. I haven’t seen The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988) yet. According to Songfacts, the music video was either shot before the documentary, then integrated into it, or it was part of the documentary, then extracted to be released as a music video. Either way, you’d be right to look at this and think it was from a documentary.

I like what Spheeris did here. She made a stripped down concert video that lets the band shine on their own merits rather than her work as a director. It isn’t devoid of her touch though. She clearly tried to capture them as people performing for other people rather than creating a stylish representation of the material like you would see in their music videos for Peace Sells and Sweating Bullets. The thing that subtly jumps out at me when I watch this over and over is that Mustaine is largely invisible due to the limited amount of time he is shown on stage, the sunglasses, and his face being partially darkened during parts of it. I would imagine this was done not only to visually show the darkness of the lyrics, but to keep your focus on the lyrics and how they are resonating with the crowd.

Speaking of the lyrics, this is one of those music videos that was banned from MTV. According to Wikipedia, it was due to alleged references to suicide.

According to mvdbase, the husband and wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris produced this music video. They would go on to do a lot of other famous music videos together as well as the movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006). They were also producers on The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years.

Enjoy!