Sara Carlson | Through the Shattered Lens

I think I’ve only spotlighted one other supergroup before. That group being Temple Of The Dog. The Power Station was made up of Robert Palmer, John Taylor & Andy Taylor from Duran Duran, and Tony Thompson & Bernard Edwards from Chic. The song is a cover of T-Rex’s song Get It On (Bang A Gong).

I don’t really know what director Peter Heath was going for here. Perhaps he foresaw that four years later he would make the music video for Roxette’s The Look. They have similar sets, and there’s even a toilet like Marie Fredriksson would sing on near the end of the music video for The Look. It does has the appearance of a collage that you would see in other 80’s music videos. The bright colors evoke Duran Duran videos.

I do know what the music video for Some Like It Hot was going for. That becomes clear when somebody tells you that the model in the video is Caroline Cossey who is intersex and identifies as a woman. To my knowledge, this is isn’t her in this music video. However, it was obviously shot around the same time, so perhaps that was what they were shooting for along with the apocalypse of the nuclear family thing. I’m pretty sure that’s even Palmer in the beauty-parlor/barber seat at the end.

I love how Palmer is barely shown, has little to no interaction with anyone else, and is either screened in or only shown in cutaways. That’s something to always keep in mind when watching music videos with Robert Palmer. He did not like making them, and it shows–even in Addicted To Love.

Sara Carlson is the dancer in this music video. She was also one of the dancers in Love Is A Battlefield by Pat Benatar.

Fred Potter produced the music video.

That’s it! I just wanted to remind people this group was a thing because I only remember hearing about them once when I was a kid.

Enjoy!

This is one of those music videos like Take On Me by a-ha where I ask myself what the heck am I going to add. Regardless, I’ll try.

The three big things in this music video are narrative, spoken dialogue, and many sets.

This short film could have been released back in the 1910s and it would have fit structurally as an early example of short form narrative filmmaking. The film takes us from Pat being kicked out of her home, working at a seedy nightclub, and then heading back on the road after she leads a dancing revolt against a nasty boss. It’s noteworthy that she never goes home. Go ahead and put aside the girl power part of it that we will see again in a much better form later on, and focus on that this was sent into people’s homes many times a day. Instead of screams of “leave me alone” turning into something violent, the music video offers a non-violent solution to its’ audience.

The second thing is the spoken dialogue. We take that for granted now. I mean we looked at Weezer’s Buddy Holly a ways back, and it’s loaded with it. However, back then, it was brand spanking new with this music video. Before Love Is A Battlefield, that simply did not exist in music videos.

The third thing is very simple. Going along perfect with the 5+ minute length music video, it also used numerous sets, and cut back and forth between them. It’s not something to be overlooked when watching this music video.

I’m sure I will find plenty of innovation as I move into more recent music videos, but just like early cinema, it’s always fascinating to see early music videos as they tried all sorts of different things. Especially when the song that is playing is merely a recent incarnation of an ancient art form. An ancient art form simply mixed with an art form that by 1983 had been around for about 95 years. The first 30 or so of those devoted to making films like this. Sometimes they were even focused around a performance of a song such as several films that Alice Guy made.

At the end of the day, they didn’t call it music television for no special reason. I’ve seen TV stations that play nothing but music. MTV took what was largely used as a replacement for a live performance on a music show, and did what early cinema did when they moved from Queen Elizabeth in 1912 where you can literally see the dust coming off of Sarah Bernhardt’s costume cause it was seen as just canned theater to something that in 2016 isn’t even seen as separate from the songs. Ask any parents with kids, and they’ll tell you they don’t buy music. They simple AirPlay music from their computer or other device to the TV. I do this myself, and I was born the year this music video came out.