According to my calendar, it’s Ocean Day today in Japan. This was the first time I had ever heard of it. From what I can gather, it’s basically a thanks to the wealth of the ocean that makes their existence as an island nation possible. The first song that seemed to fit was Kind and Generous by Natalie Merchant. The music video is kind of weird. I don’t really have any good explanation beyond their being a song called Carnival on her solo debut album Tigerlily. Perhaps it’s meant to be a follow-up in the same way that Volcano Girls is to Seether for Veruca Salt. Otherwise, I don’t know what it has to do with the song other than that it too is as harmless as the song is itself. At least you’d think that. Would you believe there’s some controversy around this song?
If you go to her actual YouTube channel, then you’ll find the comments disabled on it, and most of her other videos that I clicked on whether they were solo, or with 10,000 Maniacs. I poked around a bit, and the best I could find was that people are upset by the use of nonsense words throughout the song. Sadly, I have seen similar stuff when people talk about Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes. I could go on here, but it’s not my style to get involved with this kind of thing. Instead, I’ll just include a classic song filled with nonsense words as well because I don’t care.
I knew I would get to it eventually, but I honestly didn’t think I would do it this early. Regardless, here’s probably the best known anti-MTV music video at least to come out of their first ten years. First, it’s in all black and white. Second, the group isn’t in the video at all. Finally, almost nothing happens. Sure they would repeat this similar formula for a couple other songs they did, but this is the one people think of. Especially because the song itself defines Generation X very concisely with the line: “you got no war to name us.” A line that would resonant with the MTV audience of the time.
What I like about this video that makes it more than just an anti-MTV music video is that they actually did something interesting with it. They could have just had it start on the speaker and end on the speaker. Nothing else had to happen. They didn’t do that. Instead, they opted for the Michael Snow option. If you look at Michael Snow’s film Wavelength (1967), then you’ll see a lot of similarities. Wavelength is a slow 45 minute zoom across a room to a picture on the opposite wall. Some things do happen in the room during this zoom. However, the film asks you to begin to see the room itself as the character and to treat the other things going on the way you would treat a set. They are just passing around the character of the room. The music video asks you to do the same thing with a slow zoom out and the occasional action of a person in the room. The video asks you to meditate on the song itself along with the room in which someone would sit to listen to the song. The song and a typical environment that someone would listen to it are the characters in this music video. This is in contrast to other music videos that ask you to focus on the artist(s) themselves and a visualization and/or narration of their song.
I love that The Replacements decided to put some thought into this when they really could have just had it stay on that speaker the whole time. I would say it was an under appreciated MTV music video, but I distinctly remember MTV even using a section of the video as a bumper in between videos or commercial breaks.
Enjoy! Even if it’s just for one of the best songs of the 1980s in my opinion.
This another one that speaks for itself. When I was a kid and MTV would do lists of the greatest music videos ever made, this always made the list. Of course it did. It’s a great video even if I’m not sure it has anything to do with the song. It’s very creative. Along with Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and a handful of other music videos from the 80s, you can pretty much count on everyone having seen this one all these years later. If not, then press play. It’s also the song that makes everyone try to hit a high note that very few people can hit.
Speaking of creative. It also happens to be the first music video used for the literal music video meme.
I would have posted the music video for the Ghostbusters song today, but the amazing literal version is missing from YouTube at the moment. It just isn’t worth posting without it right now.
I reviewed Stalked at 17 with Joey Lawrence’s Melissa & Joey co-star Taylor Spreitler yesterday. So, I thought I would remind people that Joey Lawrence having a music career was once a thing. If I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany is so 80s that it hurts, then this is so early-90s that it hurts. Wasn’t alive during this period, or are too young to remember? Well, they certainly put every aspect of the time period in this music video.
I don’t have anything else to say considering what happened. I just hope this early-90s cheese fest at least takes your mind off of it for a couple of minutes.
I did a Tiffany music video yesterday, so of course today had to be Debbie.
I don’t think anyone needs the importance of Debbie Gibson explained to them at this point. At least I hope they don’t. I do love what the host said at MTV’s 20th Anniversary in 2001 after they played a message from Gibson. He said that in about 10 years or so it will be a message from Britney Spears.
Debbie Gibson must have really liked black and white cause this is at least the third one of her videos that used it. It is just one of several ways they capture the isolation the person in the song is going through. We have the disconnection of random stock footage shots of the city. A guy standing on a peer. Her performing at a small nightclub type place. The separation of Gibson in the present from her happy times via partial use of color. The mirror that only reflects your own face and what is behind your eyes. A blood tinted dinner break-up. It all ties the song together visually.
It is one of my favorite Gibson music videos and songs. It isn’t likely a solo female singer could get away with wearing that many clothes today in their music videos. That, and the turquoise hair bow. I’m a sucker for Debbie Gibson, so you’ll likely see every video she ever did on here eventually.
I am also aware that today is Bastille Day. That’s why I have included a bonus performance below of Bastille Day by Rush.
Now for something completely different and not serious at all. Despite it being established several years prior by Rockwell that somebody is indeed watching you, Tiffany went ahead and covered Tommy James & The Shondells to create the definitive 80’s mall music video. Is there much to say about this? It’s so 80s it hurts. I think the only way this could be more 80s is if this were a post for The Go-Go’s Our Lips Are Sealed.
Yes, I do prefer this version to the original one. Mony Mony and Crimson and Clover are good both ways, but I really do like this one better. As for Tiffany and her sparing partner Debbie Gibson, I prefer Debbie Gibson. Something that is funny about this whole Tiffany and Debbie Gibson nonsense is that Mary Lambert who directed Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (2011) with both of them also directed a few music videos you might know such as Material Girl for Madonna. In other words, we’ll see her again. That, and “Baggage” is spelled “Bag”. You don’t need the rest of the letters any more than Tiffany needs a last name.
Now because there is no good reason that I have it, here is Tiffany’s 1990 appearance on a favorite childhood sitcom of mine called Out Of This World.
This is from the same episode where Maureen Flannigan performs Belinda Carlisle’s Leave a Light On, but that’s for a different post.
I wasn’t going to do a video for today since I wasn’t feeling well the night before, but I couldn’t hold off an extra day to follow up a Johnny Cash song with Straight Outta Compton.
There are numerous issues with the film Straight Outta Compton (2015). The biggest one being the whitewashing of their music. However, something that really pissed me off was any time someone gave a member of the group some sorta line about how no one is going to want to hear about real people’s lives, especially if it isn’t pretty. It was one thing when one of their friends who you could argue was insulated from other types of music said it. I mean the very beginning of the film does try to make you think that the music they normally heard at clubs was essentially Lionel Richie and/or The Commodores. That’s fine, but their manager should have known better and the film even gives us a wall of band names behind his desk to tell us he knows better. Every time I heard it, I was waiting for somebody to say: “Really? Sure sounds like what Johnny Cash was singing about back in the 1960s. All they’ve done is changed the window dressing and are singing about the reality around them, so sit down and shut up.” This song sure doesn’t sound a lot different from Folsom Prison Blues to me.
Remember that scene in Straight Outta Compton when they are trying to help Eazy-E find his voice? They teach him how to take words that may not exactly be his, but the power of of his voice lies in singing them as if they are. The second that clicks, it’s him. I hear that when I listen to a song like Folsom Prison Blues.
As for the music video itself, I think they did a good job of taking the Rapper’s Delight formula of a bunch of rappers shooting from one person to another for their bits, but replacing said bits with meaningful lyrics rather than ones that are just for fun. All of this while the police are omnipresent and on their tail to make sure that not only do the lyrics transport us to a place we may not be familiar with, but are visually transported there as well.
I don’t recommend seeing Ron Howard’s concert film Made in America (2013), but there is an interesting interview with Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC in it. He talks about how he was a bit of an anomaly as a kid because of where he grew up. He was just enough in one direction or another that he not only picked up the traditionally black stations, but the white ones too. As a result, he said he was exposed to a lot folk music, which resonated with him. Folk music, that just like country, is also tied heavily to rap when you just strip away the surface to reveal the core. Heck, there are even artists that explicitly fuse rap and country into a genre called Hick Hop.
The point is, I thought I couldn’t let this opportunity to try and pass on the power of musical knowledge.
This is another one where the song and video speak for themselves. A beautiful capstone on Johnny Cash’s career that breaks my heart when I hear it. It makes me want to cry when it is combined with the then relics of his life in the music video.
I remember driving to school many years ago and a DJ at our local San Francisco alternative rock station called Live 105 came on the air. He basically said this: “This is going to be kind of weird, but we don’t care. You have to hear what Johnny Cash did to this Nine Inch Nails song.” Then he played it. It was absolutely incredible to me. I don’t know what else to say.
One interesting thing of note outside of the song and the video itself is the director. You better believe we will see Mark Romanek again. He directed music videos like Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way and Criminal by Fiona Apple. Just to tie this all in together, he also directed both Closer and Perfect Drug for Nine Inch Nails. More recently, he directed Shake it Off for Taylor Swift. He has also done feature films such as One Hour Photo (2002) and Never Let Me Go (2010).
I figured it was appropriate to follow up Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire with this song.
Since I did Pearl Jam’s Do the Evolution yesterday, I thought I’d go back about 10 years to when Billy Joel did something similar. His music video didn’t focus on the worst of humanity, but more like a condensed version of The Wonder Years if it spanned many decades. As the decades fly by, it has Billy Joel in the very fake house looking like he couldn’t care less as he plays with drumsticks or a slinky while the people around him are oblivious to him being there. A very “been there, done that” attitude to what is new to the people in the house. Also, a person waiting for what they know is coming. The titular fire that will leave the house burnt.
I’m sure it was no mistake that they had Joel dressed as the man in black throughout this video. That of course being a reference to Johnny Cash’s song Man in Black. It’s probably why when we get the portions that are devoted to Billy alone at a table with a fire behind him, there is often a disturbing picture behind that fire that stands in contrast to the events inside the house.
I love how at the end, it flashes back over the decades, and the studio that was the house is left exposed just as Mom looks over at Billy for the first time now that she has caught up to his time. We are left with a final shot of the couple from the beginning leaving the house as they entered, just before Joel, sitting at the table, suddenly disappears. Yes, I’m sure the couple is a reference to Brenda and Eddie from Billy Joel’s song Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. In a way, you could call this music video a companion piece to that song.
I’m not sure if the music video is a positive or negative look towards the future. It comes across to me as reminder that a destructive force is always at our backs. It’s not necessarily destroying humanity as a whole, but it does destroy the world as we know it with each passing year as it does the house the people inside thought would never change when they were in the moment. It’s also a force that burns down the walls dividing fantasy from the reality of that room Joel sits inside at a table, or does it?
This is one of those music videos where we not only know the director, but some more people who worked on it. I was kind of hoping to avoid him for a little bit since it’s such a cliche to mention him this early. Unfortunately, he was one of the producers on this music video. That person being prolific music video, feature film, and TV director Russell Mulcahy. You could argue that he invented what we know as the fully-formed music video. He was making them back in the 1970s and even directed Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles that kicked off MTV back in 1981. I’m sure we’ll see him again.
You may or may not remember that for a while there Pearl Jam stopped making music videos. I don’t recall off the top of my head if they refused to be in them, or had a blanket ban on having them made using their music. I have to imagine that they totally stopped. I say that they probably stopped entirely because of a famous band from the 80s and several of their videos that they made, but refused to be in themselves. Luckily, Eddie Vedder came to his senses by at least 2002 and went back to appearing in music videos. I’m guessing he was as sick of all those Vedder sound-a-likes that were commonplace in the late 1990s and early 2000s as I was. Before Pearl Jam returned, we got this gloriously dark animated music video taking us through the worst of human history with some of that late-90s Internet paranoia. It was put together by famous animators Kevin Altieri and Todd McFarlane.
Through the Shattered Lens 