Wow. That was a pretty terrible music video. Again, I thought I was done with Ministry, but I apparently had The Cranberries’ Zombie picked out to spotlight after 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Up. If you don’t know, The Cranberries were very much a college rock band with their album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? before moving on to the album with Zombie on it. The first album has the songs you have most likely heard such as Dreams and Linger. Good stuff, but nothing like the go for the jugular songs such as Zombie or Salvation. Too bad this video doesn’t go for the jugular. I started watching it, and just wanted to take Dolores O’Riordan away and wash that gold stuff off of her.

Let’s talk about the director of this music video for a moment because he is the one behind some of the best known music videos of the era. Samuel Bayer directed Smells Like Teen Spirit, No Rain, and Bullet With Butterfly Wings to name a few of the more than 70 music videos he has done. He is also the director of the 2010 version of Nightmare On Elm Street. According to IMVDb, he made a music video as recent as this year for the group Jesse & Joy. What happened here?

It’s a simple song about the IRA. Why is it getting Heart-Shaped Box in my Cranberries? The kids around her look like those creatures from the music video for Schism by Tool. The best parts are when it is simply the band performing while intercut with black and white footage of the streets with soldiers on them. Simple! But no, we need O’Riordan panted gold and kids on the street who look like they are laughing at times. Not because that’s what they are supposed to be doing, but I believe because of what they were being asked to do. That’s great considering I would imagine the group intended this song to be taken quite seriously. Heck, this came out only a year after In The Name Of The Father (1993).

I guess this is what the music video for Steve Perry’s Oh Sherrie might have looked like if they had stuck with the one they were filming at the start of the actual video. It’s ridiculous and unnecessarily artsy just to be artsy. If this were a feature film, then I would say skip it, but this is only about five minutes. So behold, one of the worst music videos I have done a post on.