Music Video Of The Day: High and Dry by Radiohead (1996, dir by Paul Cunningham)

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Saturday was my sister Melissa’s birthday! This is her favorite Radiohead song and I have to admit that I like it a lot as well. I’m also a huge fan of this video.

But you know who reportedly does not care much for this song or this video? Thom Yorke. The leader singer of Radiohead has called the song “very bad” and apparently, it was only released because the band was being pressured by their label to release something with “commercial appeal.” And I can understand why Yorke would by annoyed by that. Certainly, the song is not as complex or enigmatic as other Radiohead songs. It’s pretty simple by their standards.

But, I still like it. If it’s a guilty pleasure, so be it. It’s a song that you can sing along with and it just puts you into a certain mood and …. okay, I’m kind of starting to understand why Thom doesn’t care for the song. It’s a good song but, outside of the melancholy tone, it doesn’t seem like a song that only could have come from Radiohead. It’s a little bit generic when compared to some of the band’s other songs but it’s still definitely effective. So if I ever meet Thom Yorke, I’ll probably keep my feelings about this song to myself.

(Either that or I’ll blurt out, “My sister loves High and Dry! If I call her, will you sing it to her?!” And then I’ll probably be escorted outside by security.)

I read that he also didn’t care much for this video. Again, I have to disagree. I like all the drama in the diner and I also like the fact that no one seems to notice either the car blowing up or the businessman getting murdered. Instead, of everyone’s too busy in their own little world.

Happy birthday, Melissa Anne!

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Shame by Stabbing Westward (1996, directed by Paul Cunningham)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

“Who was the girl in Stabbing Westward’s video for Shame?”

For those of us who grew up in the 90s, that is question that we’ve been asking ourselves for 22 years. Who played Julie, the leggy brunette who found herself threatened by her ex-boyfriend while the band ate popcorn and watched from the couch?

It only took me a minute of research to discover that Nick was played by an actor named Clint Curtis. If he seems familiar, you may have seen him in movies like Deep Rising, The Mexican, or Splatter: Love, Honor, and Paintball. But no one seems to know who played Julie, though a lot of people still wonder. I’ve seen speculation that she was a model or maybe she was dating a member of the band. On one message board, someone even thought that she may have been played by the actress, Alana Urbach. (She’s wasn’t.)

Even if we don’t know who played Julie, Shame is a smart video from an underrated band. It was directed by Paul Cunningham, who is probably best known for directing the video for Radiohead’s High & Dry.

Music Video of the Day: Freaks by Live (1997, dir. Paul Cunningham)

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

Back in the 1990s, I could recite the standard line-up: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, The Offspring, Green Day, and others. Live would always be the band I would recall after that–despite them being one of my favorites. For me, it’s Ed Kowalczyk’s voice. I’m sure it’s changed by now, but I recall during one of the SNL anniversary shows that they were the only band that received standing ovations during the two times that they played the show. According to Wikipedia, they played I Alone the first time and Lakini’s Juice the second time. There’s just something so powerful and uplifting about his voice.

Also, back in the 1990s, I saw a couple of Live music videos, but the only one I could definitively recall is Lightning Crashes. I had faint memories of something involving a tiny tub. It took me a bit to find out that was the video for Lakini’s Juice. I knew the song. I just never saw the video. Or, if I did, I had no memory of it.

There are several parts of this music video that I like a lot. Peter Guinness–the actor playing the guy who enters the nightclub. The ending is memorable because of its syncing with the music and because that’s when it gets really weird.

Finally, I love this shot below.

That doesn’t look like something Kowalczyk was told to do. That looks like he was smiling at something off-camera or thought the shot was done.

I looked around and couldn’t find anything on this video other than where it was in the playlist for MTV in 1997 according to Billboard magazine. I also still haven’t come across any books that cover music videos after the first ten years of MTV. In fact, it looks like it hasn’t been till the current decade that people have started writing bios and general history of that period of music videos and MTV.

The video was directed by Paul Cunningham.

It was produced by Niki Amos.

It was edited by Scot Crane.

I can find only a handful of music video credits for any of them.

Enjoy!

30 Days Of Surrealism: