Tag Archives: Wayne Isham

Music Video of the Day: Armegeddon It by Def Leppard (1988, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The theme of this video seems to be that Def Leppard is the band that has fun onstage and off!

This footage for this video was shot over the course of two shows at McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado. Originally, the footage was going to be used for a future concert film but, when Armageddon It was released as a single, the band’s record label said that they needed a music video to accompany it and they needed it immediately. Since the band didn’t want to do another “concept video” (and really didn’t have time to come up with a concept in the first place), the Denver footage was hastily edited together.

The end result was that Armageddon It went on to the become the band’s fourth top ten hit in the United States.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Fuel by Metallica (1997, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Sometime, people like to drive too fast.  Sometimes, people like to live too fast.  For those special moments, there’s always Metallica.

This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who has directed the majority of Metallica’s videos, not to mention videos for just about everyone else in the music business as well.  The video was produced by Quentin Tarantino’s production company, A Band Apart and the use of dramatic title cards certainly does fit in with Tarantino’s aesthetic.  The video feels like a tribute to the car chase films of the 60s and 70s.  It’s Death Proof before Death Proof.

Fuel was later covered by Avirl Lavigne.  Be careful bringing that up in certain company.

Enjoy!

Music Video Of The Day: Frantic by Metallica (2003, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Frantic was the 2nd single off of Metallica’s controversial St. Anger.  Like a lot of the songs off of that album, it was inspired by the band’s previous battles with drugs and alcohol.  In this video, a chicken delivery driver has his life flash before his eyes after crashing his truck and he realizes that he wasted most of it.  He’s laughs when he realizes that he’s still alive but then another vehicle crashes into him.

The first time I saw this video, I thought it was an awkward concept for a Metallica video, considering the band’s own history with road accidents.  Over time, I’ve come to better appreciate the video.  The lyrics of the song are influenced by Buddhist thought and I don’t know if there’s better evidence that life is pain than getting a second chance at life that only last for 2 minutes.

Does everyone still hate St. Anger or is it okay to now admit that it wasn’t as bad as everyone said when it first came out?

Music Video of the Day: Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi (1987, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Jon Bon Jovi has said that the inspiration for Wanted Dead or Alive came to him one morning while he struggling to sleep on a tour bus.  It occurred to him that being in a rock band was much like being an old west outlaw.  As Bon Jovi described it, a rock band was “a young band of thieves, riding into town, stealing the money, the girls, and the booze before the sun came up.”  I’m not sure that every rock band would agree with that description but, judging from the deathless success of this song, it worked for Bon Jovi.

(I’m also not sure how many old west outlaws came out of New Jersey.)

The video was directed by Wayne Isham and the black-and-white cinematography is courtesy of Derek M. Allen.  It was shot over the course of Bon Jovi’s 1987 world tour and it features scenes that were shot at venues all over the United States.  The theme of the video is that life on the road is hard and Bon Jovi works really hard.  Looking at other music videos that were released around the same time as this one, I’ve noticed that hard work is a recurring theme in many of them.  Bands, especially ones that were often dismissed as being “hair bands,” really wanted to make sure people knew that a tremendous amount of work into their performances.

You have to give Bon Jovi some credit.  Their music not only epitomized an era but, as a band and with the exception of Richie Sambora, they’re largely stuck together and continued to rock.  That’s more than you can say for Winger.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: The Hardest Thing by 98° (2000, dir. by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

The Hardest Thing is a skeevy boy band song about how the hardest thing is saying goodbye to your mistress.  That’s what the song is about.  That’s the hardest thing.  The hardest thing for some people is to figure out how to put food on the table and to make sure their children make it home safely.  The hardest thing for 98º is having to choose between being loyal to your significant other or hooking up with Becky and Tiffany and Sandy and everyone else on the strip.  Even though the band knows that the hardest thing they’ll ever have to do is say goodbye to the woman that they’re cheating with, they also know that they’ll meet up again someday and maybe the time will be right for them to continue their affair.  What?  How does that make sense?  I can’t cheat with you now but maybe in three months.  OK, guys.

According to the video, Nick Lachey is a boxer so maybe that’s why this song seems to be punch drunk.  His mistress is a showgirl.  I can’t imagine Nick every winning a fight, can you?  Ladies and gentleman, with a record of 1 win and 30 losses by knockout, it’s Nick Lachey!  His mistress can probably do better.  Are the Backstreet Boys in town?

Music Video of the Day: Locked In by Judas Priest (1986, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since we’re all locked in for the time being, it makes sense that today’s music video of the day should be for Judas Priest’s Locked In.

This video makes about as much sense as any heavy metal band from the 80s did.  Rob Halford is being held prisoner in a medieval castle where he is apparently being tortured by a bunch of living skeletons.  The other members of Judas Priest decide to ride their motorcycles over to the castle and then break in so that they can save him.  Heavy metal videos of the 80s often feel like what you would get if the members of Monty Python had decided to follow up The Meaning of Life with Monty Python’s Mad Max.  That certainly seems to be the case here and the members of the band spend so much time mugging to the camera that there is little doubt that they were in on the joke.  David Coverdale would have taken this seriously but not the members of Judas Priest.

This video was one of the many to be directed by Wayne Isham.  According to his entry at IMDb, Wayne’s motto is “No Wayne, no pain!”

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Now You’re Gone by Whitesnake (1990, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I remember shooting the video with Wayne Isham in front of a sold out crowd at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, unfortunately it received minimal airplay as MTV was changing its format… still, I think it’s one of the best videos we’ve done…”

–– David Coverdale on Now You’re Gone

Whitesnake was one of the top bands of the 80s but, by the time they released this video, their popularity was in decline as both rap and grunge eclipsed hair metal.  Now You’re Gone is one of Whitesnake’s best songs but, when it was first released, it barely charted in the United States.  Shortly after this video, Whitesnake broke up.  After a 1994 reunion, the band officially reformed in 2002.  Here I Go Again is now used in motorcycle insurance commercials, proving the circle of life.

The video for Now You’re Gone was filmed in Philadelphia, before and during an afternoon show.  It’s one of Whitesnake’s best videos, though the presence of Tawny Kitaen is missed.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Everybody’s Crazy by Michael Bolton (1985, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“I’ll be honest with you, I love his music, I do, I’m a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don’t know if it gets any better than when he sings “When a Man Loves a Woman”.

— Bob (John C. McGinley) in Office Space (1999)

Yeeeesh!

I guess we can put this one in the “It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time” file.  In 1985, your aunt’s favorite adult contemporary singer, Michael Bolton, tried to change his image by recording a hard rock album.  The end result was Everybody’s Crazy and a title track that attempted to mix easy listening with hard rock.

It also led to this video, which starts with Michael Bolton telling his manager that “normal” is only something that people are until you get to know them.  “Everybody’s crazy,” and I guess Michael Bolton is including himself in that.  It’s not that Bolton doesn’t have an adequate voice as that there’s nothing dangerous about him and hard rock has to be dangerous.  In this video, Bolton comes across as such a goof that he makes Kip Winger look like James Hetfield.

Bolton did at least bring in some talent for the video.  For instance, he got Bruce Kulick, who was then with KISS, to play guitar on the song and he brought in Wayne Isham to direct the video.  Wayne Isham’s one of the busiest music video directors around.  If your favorite singer or band was around in the 80s or 90s, chances are that Wayne Isham directed one of their videos.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video Of The Day: Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe (1989, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

First released in 1989, the album Dr. Feelgood became and remains Mötley Crüe’s best-selling album to date.  It was also their most critically acclaimed, in no doubt due to the band’s newly found sobriety.  After years of drugs, sex, and debauchery, Dr. Feelgood was Mötley Crüe’s announcement that they could still rock even if they were sober.

Ironically, for an album that was recorded sober, the title track was about drugs.  Dr. Feelgood was about a Los Angeles drug dealer.  Nikki Sixx, who wrote the song, later told Rolling Stone that the song was based on several different drug dealers that he had done business with.  Just two years before Dr. Feelgood became a hit, Sixx had been a notorious junkie who, after a heroin overdose, was actually legally dead for two minutes before a paramedic was able to revive him with two shots of adrenaline.

Along with being a slang term for heroin, Dr. Feelgood was also the nickname of several notorious doctors.  Perhaps the most infamous Dr. Feelgood was Max Jacobson, who used to give “miracle tissue regenerator” shots to the rich and famous.  His clients included everyone from JFK to Marilyn Monroe to Humphrey Bogart.  Robert Freyman, the physician who is though to have inspired The Beatles’s Dr. Robert, was also sometimes called Dr. Feelgood.

Dr. Feelgood became Mötley Crüe’s first and, to date, only gold single in the United States.  The video follows the song’s title character as he goes from working the streets to owning a mansion.  In a repeat of what happened to Tony Montana, Dr. Feelgood’s own hubris eventually brings him down.  As for why Mötley Crüe is performing in a revival tent, it probably just looked cool.

The song spent 109 weeks on the charts after its release and it remains Mötley Crüe’s most popular single.

Music Video of the Day: 18 and Life by Skid Row (1989, directed by Wayne Isham)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O317T6Zlno

18 and Life was based on a true story, about an 18 year-old boy who accidentally shot his best friend with a gun that he thought he was unloaded and who was given a life sentence as a result.  Did the video do justice to the real-life tragedy?  Let’s break it down.

0:01 — The video starts in prison, with the usual tracking shot of men smoking behind bars.  Ricky is already serving his sentence, thinking about how his life got so messed up.

0:27 — At the time this song was recorded, Sebastian Bach was Skid Row’s lead singer.  In 1996, Bach was fired from Skid Row when he suggested they accept the opening spot on KISS’s latest tour.

0:34 — Ricky argues with his father, who probably wants him to do something lame like get a haircut.  If Ricky was a Nelson fan, he could have just gone into his room and waited for his poster of Matthew and Gunnar to come to life and give him a magic feather.  Instead, because he’s a Skid Row fan, he gets shoved through a glass door!

0:45 — Ricky ends up on the patio, where his best friend is waiting for him.  Fortunately, Ricky has not been injured by all of that broken glass so, after saluting his father, he and his friend go off to have some fun, 80s style.

1:16 — Secret handshakes, 80s style!.

1:27 — Hanging out, 80s style!

1:31 — Setting shit on fire, 80s style!

1:39 — Breaking and entering, 80s style!

1:46 — Shooting liquor bottles in an alley, 80s style!

1:51 — Not following common sense gun safety rules, 80s style!

2:00 — Wasting your life away in prison, 80s style!

2:09 — Vandalism, 80s style!

2:18 — Ricky is Tipper Gore’s worst nightmare.

2:23 — They’re back to playing with the gun.  Will these youngsters never learn?

2:34 — Is his friend begging or daring Ricky to shoot him?  This part of the video is open to interpretation.  In real life, the shooting happened because the gun was believed to be empty but, in this video, they’ve both been firing gun so they both know it’s loaded.

2:35 — Ricky has obviously read Watchmen, but he probably still doesn’t understand why Richard Nixon was still the president.

2:53 — Ricky shoots his only friend.  But why?  Ricky does not look shocked and we saw him firing the gun earlier so there is no reason to believe that Ricky, unlike the real person who inspired this song, didn’t know it was loaded.  Was Ricky crazy?  Was Ricky angry?  Or was Ricky just stupid?

3:13 — Ricky throws his gun into the fire, which has been raging for at least two days now.

3:26 — In 2017, Sebastian Bach announced that he was having a “singing-related” hernia operation because, in his own words, he literally “sang my guts out.”

3:37 — In prison, Ricky ponders how different his life would have been if he wasn’t an idiot.

3:49 — Did anyone ever put out that fire?  It looked serious.

This video was directed by Wayne Isham, who has been everyone’s go-to video director for decades.  The song was Skid Row’s biggest hit and it was also the most played video on MTV in 1989.