Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
^ I think we can close the thread now.
I wouldn't close it just yet...
"The Bill of Rights says nothing about the freedom of hearing. This, of course, takes a lot of the fun out of the freedom of speech." - Pat Paulsen
My Art- http://www.facebook.com/williamallenrenfro -My Life
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
Didn't Billy Squier claim he was sending himself up, or was it music videos in general? In either case, I suspect his trousers are well and truly ablaze; and if you believe him, I've got a bridge you might be interested in buying.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
I always thought this one was pretty bad:
^^^ That Kiss video is pretty horrid, but with Vinnie Vincent, could it be anything but? And what the hell is going on, anyway, where are they supposed to be? Some bizarre post-apocalyptic society where women wash their clothes on sewer lids, apparently. 80s videos were so terrible when they tried to be about anything other than the song.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
*** Join me in the Garden of Delights for 3 hours of tune-spinning... every Saturday at 5pm EST on Deep Nuggets radio! www.deepnuggets.com ***
Most pop promo videos are nothing much. David Bowie's were always my favourites, followed by Peter Gabriel.
The main thing I know about Squire (he wasn't big in the UK, AFAIK) is that video and the effect it had on his career. Which speaks volumes! The song isn't terrible (standard issue AOR/commercial rock) but the video is. There's one of those 'shreds' videos for it and that further highlights how bad it is.
I always thought Asia's 'Don't Cry' was an awful video as well. I never thought the song was anything special either, really...the singles on the debut were far better IMHO.
I wish I could un-see some of these.
You guys are really knowledgeable !!
Men Without Hats' Safety Dance is what immediately comes to mind. Worst bideo, and worst song strong contenders.
https://youtu.be/AsParaGUs
The problem was someone decided just having the band miming the song on a stage (usually the best videos were like that) wasn't enough, what with the advent of MTV and other services, you had to do something to stand out. So there had to be something besides the band just pretending to play the song on a soundstage. And then you had these directors who I think were trying to get someone to say "Would you like to direct a movie?" and they were kinda using their work in this medium as sort of "demo reels", if you will.
I know Pat Benatar said she got tired of doing those kind of videos, after stuff like Shadows In The Night and Love Is A Battlefield, where the video has NOTHING to do with the song lyrics, she decided she was never going to do another one like that. I mean, I get the plotline in both cases, but, tell me what does Rosie The Riveter daydreaming about leading a commando raid on a Nazi base have to do with what lyrics to the song? NOTHING!
Paul Stanley once said it got to where a lot of videos looked like they were trying to remake Raiders Of The Lost Ark in under 4 minutes.
Steve Kilbey said he hated most of The Church's videos, because most of the time, the director would be saying, "Trust me, trust me" while they were shooting them, and then when you saw the final result, it was like "WTF?!". Kilbey sarcastically suggested The Church's videos should be mentioned in the same breath as Disney, Bergman and Fellini, to which Marty Wilson-Piper chimed in with "Some of the greatest videos ever made, except for the bad ones". Marty also suggested they should call their video compilation "We'll Fix It In The Cut".
On the Queen's Greatest Video Hits II DVD, Brian May and Roger Taylor went to town totally trashing most of their 80's era videos. Taylor, in particular, comments about how ridiculous the Calling All Girls video was, probably because it was his song and he felt it was badly represented by the video (which was basically a homage to THX-1138, George Lucas' first feature film), and I can't remember if it's him or Dr. May who comment that they got "dangerously close to acting" in some bits.
But it quickly got to the point where I don't know how many videos there were that satirized that the whole thing. And often times, those were the best ones, because they were totally taking the piss out of the situation. There was Phil Collins' Billy Don't Lose My Number, and I'm sure there were others, though I'm drawing a blank on what they were at the moment. Deep Purple had that ridiculous video for Call Of The Wild, where the band summarily refuses to show up for the video shoot, forcing the director to "drag people off the street" (actually, they came from central casting) to do the video.
And it got to where you started seeing singles come out that didn't have videos. I remember Van Halen didn't do one for Why Can't This Be Love, and Journey didn't do one for Be Good To Yourself, either. At the time, I wasn't really listening to the radio anymore, so it was ages before I actually heard either of those songs because of that.
Bowie had a lot of cool videos, things like Ashes To Ashes, Fashion, Let's Dance, China Girl, those were all good videos. His short film, Jazzin' For Blue Jean was pretty good too.David Bowie's were always my favourites
That falls under the "remaking Raiders Of The Lost Ark in under 4 minutes" clause. And none of it makes any sense.I always thought Asia's 'Don't Cry' was an awful video as well.
One I never understood was In A Big Country by Big Country. OK, the band has some mysterious box, what's inside? We never find out. The box gets stolen by a biker chick. When the band comes looking for their box, the biker chick somehow manages to subdue all four band members, that's one chick against four guys! Not very masculine, guys! Anyway, so then they go scuba diving. Why? Who knows, maybe they think she's thrown the box over the side of a ferry or something. Anyway, the dive trip doesn't pan out, so we then find the girl on an island somewhere, she sets a distress beacon fire, the band repels down the side of a cliff face, onto the beach, and the girl runs up to Stuart Adamson and throws her arms around him. Wait, what?! Then we see the two of them going up the side of the mountain while Mark Something-Unspellable finds the box, but it's like "Who cares?" by this time. What the frell was that supposed to be about?! Well, at least the lads got to show off how good they look in wetsuits, if nothing else.
But when I think bad videos, one that always comes to mind is what I think might be Al DiMeola's only entry in the "Let's spend a lot of money on something almost nobody will see, since MTV isn't going to play it" sweepstakes:
Bookmarks