Music Video of the Day: Wild Night by John Mellencamp, featuring Me’shell Ndegeocello (1994, directed by Jonathan Kaplan)


Today’s music video of the day is for John Mellencamp’s cover of Van Morrison’s Wild Night.

In 1994, the opening of this video was the most popular 40 seconds on MTV.  I have traveled in a lot of taxi cabs and Ubers.  I’ve been lucky enough to have some very good drivers but none of them appeared in the 1992 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  The driver, in this video, is played by Shana Zadrick, a model who was often compared to Cindy Crawford.

Back in 1994, if you enjoyed this video, you could go down to your friendly neighborhood Musicland (or Suncoast Motion Picture Company) and, for just $19.98, you could see even more of Shana in this commemorative video:

The other good thing about this video is that bassline, which was provided by Me’shell Ndegeocello.  Wild Night was released at the same time that Ndegeocello had her biggest solo hit, If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night).

This video was directed by Jonathan Kaplan.  A former film school classmate of Martin Scorsese’s, Kaplan got his start directing films like Night Call Nurses and The Student Teachers for Roger Corman.  He eventually became a mainstream film and television director.  His most highly regarded film is probably 1988’s The Accused, for which Jodie Foster won her first Oscar.

Music Video of the Day: Stefan by Hrdza (2018, dir by ????)


Today’s music video of the day comes to us from Hrdza, a band from Slovakia.  It’s an adaptation of an old folk song and it’s a nicely energetic and fun little video.  I have to admit that as I was watching it, I saw a lot that reminded me of my own family.  It’s kind of nice that I can relate a song and a music video from Slovakia to my own big American-Italian-Spanish-Irish family.  Some things are universal!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim (2001, dir by Spike Jonze)


Val wrote about this music video way back in 2016.  I’m sharing it again because today is Christopher Walken’s 83rd birthday!  Walken trained as a dancer before going into acting and he gets to show off more than a few moves in this video.

Walken also trained as a lion tamer before he went into acting.  I guess he’s a little bit old to play a lion tamer now but still, that’s something I would have liked to have seen.

Enjoy!