Music Video of the Day: Love House by Samantha Fox (1988, directed by ????)

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Ah, the Page 3 Girls.

The Page 3 Girls were a long-stranding tradition in the UK. In the often cut-throat world of British journalism, certain publishers realized that the best way to beat the competition was to not only offer important news, brilliant editorials, and attention-grabbing headlines but also to offer up naked models. Starting with the Sun in 1970, most British tabloids would include a topless centerfold on the third page of their newspaper. That way, men could discreetly buy the Sun at the newsstand (and perhaps chuckle at headlines like, “”If Neil Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights,”) and then turn to page 3 as soon as they were in the back of a taxi. As a teenager visiting family the UK in the 90s, I always made sure to pick up the new edition of the Sun, The Mirror, and News of the World. Today, of course, the Page 3 Girls are largely a thing of the past and it’s acknowledged that it was all a bit misogynistic. But, back in the day, it was just a part of daily life in the UK.

In the early and mid-80s, Samantha Fox was one of the top Page 3 Girls. She went from modeling to acting and singing. Love House was a single off of her third album. Today, it’s usually listed as being one of the first acid house single to appear on mainstream charts. As with many of Fox’s hits, the songs popularity was aided by a music video that made good use of Fox’s assets. The video for Love House contrasts Fox’s sex appeal with several images that appear to have been lifted from popular horror films.

The song is pretty good too. Because of her background, Samantha Fox was underrated as a singer and she’s never quite gotten the credit that she deserves. However, she is still a cultural icon in the UK, where she’s appeared on editions of Celebrity Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, along with remaining an activist for LGBT rights.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Naughty Girls Need Love Too by Samantha Fox & Full Force (1988, dir. Scott Kalvert)

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

No, I was not looking to specifically feature this video just to share the story below. This is my favorite Fox music video, and that is the only story about her in the entire book. It’s one of the odder behind-the-scenes stories I’ve heard about the production of a music video. I feel I’d be remiss not mentioning it. The first part gives some insight about how they were planning on selling her, while the second paragraph is the odd part, which you can skip if you wish.

According to The Baltimore Sun on December 30th, 1988, this song “was not so much a song as a T-shirt with a rhythm section.”

Ann Carli, then senior vice president of artist development at Jive Records, said the following about the video in the book, I Want My MTV:

We signed Samantha Fox–she was one of the biggest Page Three Girls in England. Page Three Girls pose topless in the Sun. She was fairly young, and extremely buxom. RCA wanted to do pinup calendars and take a real skanky approach. I wanted her to be more of a girl next door, so that was a big fight.

Samantha would drink early in the day. She wanted champagne right from the beginning of the day. I made sure her drinks got watered down. At one video shoot, she was constipated. She was bloated and wearing a midriff costume. I had to get a doctor. This is kind of a disgusting story. I don’t want to know what the doctor did, but the problem was solved.

This must be the video Carli was speaking about because I can’t find another video where she was wearing a midriff.

I’m glad it appears that Carli only partially won that fight. Debbie Gibson and Tiffany had already cornered the girl-next-door market. Fox is a nice middle-ground between the way Carli described they wanted to sell her, and the actual way I’ve seen her presented in music videos.

I can’t imagine anyone else at the time being able to pull off wearing a Debbie Gibson hat…

Out Of The Blue (1988)

with a Tiffany-style dress…

I Think We’re Alone Now (1987)

while holding a man’s head next to her breasts…

before pushing his head downward.

I think she did this kind of material well without looking “skanky.”

Cut to 30 years later, and now Gibson, Tiffany, and Fox have all been in SyFy movies. There’s something I’m sure none of them would have expected to happen in their future.

Fox played Ms. Moore in Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017).

Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017, dir. Anthony C. Ferrante)

Below, I’ve embedded an interesting little interview she gave last year on Loose Women concerning her sexuality. It puts this video in a different light.

The people accompanying Fox are the group, Full Force. They have worked with numerous artists, such as Bob Dylan. Some, or all, of their members wrote the song.

Scott Kalvert directed the video. He’s done close to 100 music videos. The few that I have seen have this kind of late-80s/early-90s-street look to them. Outside of music videos, he is probably best known for directing The Basketball Diaries (1995).

Donyale McRae did makeup for the video. He seems to have worked on around 35 music videos. He’s worked on a lot of things from Doctor Who to The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)–which means that both him and Kalvert went on to work with DiCaprio.

Enjoy!

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!