Talk Talk | Through the Shattered Lens

Today’s music video of the day is for another song that I discovered while driving around Vice City in a stolen car.

(Several stolen cars, actually.)

Talk Talk’s Life’s What You Make It is one of the most popular songs on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘s FLASH FM. It’s the perfect song to listen to when you’re heading out to take down some drug dealers or if you just want to drive along the beach and wonder why Tommy Vercetti never learned how to swim.

The song was a hit both when it was originally released in 1985 and when it re-released in 1990. The video was filmed in Wimbledon Common, London, during the early hours of the day. The video was directed by Tim Pope, who directed videos for almost everyone in the 80s and 90s but is probably best-regarded for his work with The Cure.

Pope also directed the film, The Crow” City of Angels and was the original director for The Last King of Scotland. Though Pope eventually left and was replaced on that project, he was responsible for casting Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, the role that would eventually win Whitaker an Oscar.

Even by 1984, artists and the directors of their videos were rebelling against lip-syncing in them. That’s why you don’t see the lead singer doing that here. Sometimes even black bars go over his mouth to emphasize this fact while the video is primarily made up of nature footage. This discontinuity of image and sound was another example of early experimentation in music videos. There is another version of this video as well that apparently has them lip-synched, but doing other things to still make fun of the process. People of my generation learned of this song obviously because of tomorrow’s Music Video of the Day. Also, some may know it from the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories soundtrack. Although, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City used their song Life’s What You Make It instead. Their hit songs seem to be rather positive and empowering. No doubt that’s why tomorrow’s post exists.