The Music Video Thread

[Biff]

 

[Dedpop]

^^^^^^^^^^ You french guys are so deep...

 

[Dedpop]

 

[invitro]

Wrap Her Up - Elton John & George Michael (1986, #20)

You'll come for the wicked groove that Cameo would've killed for in 1986, and the delirious George Michael backup vocal*.

You'll stay for Elton John in a mullet.

* George Michael was quoted at the time in Smash Hits magazine that "it sounded like I had my willy in a garotte" because of the falsetto he sings throughout the song.

 

[Extork]

Oh man, 1986, that was a good year!

 

[invitro]

Oh man, 1986, that was a good year!

So you want more? Alrighty then! Next up, one of the worst videos ever. Everybody in it looks so freakin' angry that they have to spend their Saturday morning whoring themselves for an idiotic song and video. Just look at them. After the shoot, they probably all went right home and beat their wives and husbands.

But damn, is it professional.

Almost forgot: The Fabulous Thunderbirds - "Tuff Enuff" (1986, #10). It was their only top ten single. They're probably still kicking themselves for doing such a lame job with their video that everybody hated them and never wanted to listen to them again.

Luckily for them, the band found a loophole. If they sold this song to movies, then people would be forced to listen to it, even if they hated it, which they did. Don't believe me? Take a look at this blurb from wikipedia:

The song has been used in multiple films. It appeared in the 1986 film Gung Ho, starring Michael Keaton and Gedde Watanabe, the 1986 film The Naked Cage, starring Shari Shattuck and Angel Tompkins, the 1986 film Tough Guys, starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, the 1991 filmRicochet, starring Denzel Washington and John Lithgow and the 2007 film The Game Plan, starring Dwayne Johnson and Madison Pettis. It also appeared on the television show Married With Children. Finally, "Tuff Enuff" and the Fabulous Thunderbirds are mentioned on American Dad! in the Season 5 episode "Family Affair".

Well isn't that special.

 

[Extork]

Oh my lantis. I don't know much about 86 cause that's when I was squeezed out. Well you must like it a little if you posted it lol. They can lift large chunks of metal, they are tuff enough in my book

This is along the same lines... 84

 

[invitro]

This is along the same lines... 84

Damn, that is an awesome video! And I don't remember it at all. I had a friend in high school who worshipped Art of Noise so I do remember them and this song.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds had the worst "Rock VORP" ever according to "famed writer" Chuck Klosterman:
http://grantland.com/features/rock-vorp/

 

[WhiteChocolate]

oiks, don't get me started on the eighties! ;0 "art of noise" is a favorite, but if you get any of them, i highly recommend "in no sense nonsense" first - really polished and doesn't age as much as their other stuff (although one has to sort of ignore their "dragnet" movie theme included on the album)! but along with "close to the edit" you already showed above, they made some of the ginchiest eighties vids... hafta include the max headroom viddy of theirs...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

more eighties...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

heh but don't cry!

 

[WhiteChocolate]

it's getting all like "supplemental donnie darko" soundtrack in here! ;0 now i hafta post some "talk talk" - seems like a band i should have everything of, though most of the kids these days might only know 'em from one of the GTA soundtracks...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

and hafta include "it's my life" from talk talk also... just one of the best songs, and best vids ever (even for being on the cheap! it's brilliant...)

 

[invitro]

and hafta include "it's my life" from talk talk also... just one of the best songs

+1... I'll have to think about the video, looks like stock nature channel so far.

 

[invitro]

"it's my life" from talk talk also

So wikipedia sez: There are two versions of the video for "It's My Life". The first, envisioned by director Tim Pope as a statement against the banality of lip-synching, consists almost entirely of footage from wildlifedocumentaries, interspersed with shots of Talk Talk lead singer Mark Hollis standing in the midst of London Zoo, with his mouth pointedly shut tight and often obscured by hand-drawn animated lines.The second version, recorded at the behest of EMI, consisted of the entirety of the original video projected on a green screen behind Hollis on guitar and vocals as well as his two bandmates as they lip-synched and mimed the song, deliberately poorly and with comic exaggerated gestures.[SUP][3]

...
Well that's a little more interesting. I think the 2nd version is

but it might be Talk Talk - It's My Life (Extended) .

And by the way! It's My Life hit #31 in the US in February 1984, but only #46 in the UK, which is very strange. Anyway, it hit #13 in the UK in a 1990 re-release. It also hit #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart!

 

[invitro]

Level 42 - Something About You (1986, #7)

Let's get back to 1986. Well enough snark, here's one of the ten best songs from 1986. Resist THIS, buddies!

This was a big hit, making #7 in the US, and #6 in the UK.

Obligatory weirdo learn-something-every-day wikipedia quote: "In 1993, Paul Shaffer and the Party Boys of Rock 'n' Roll recorded an instrumental version for their album The World's Most Dangerous Party."

 

[WhiteChocolate]

(re: the "go **** yourself with the atom bomb" recording) lol! that is pretty awesome! i am a fugs-illiterate, though i know of how well respected they are in the music scene (like they know anything! ;0) - i should tune into them soon when i go diving back into dk-era stuff...

(re: van morrison + them) - i love eric burdon + animals; i should try to collect more of them - awesome stuff they did; really standout sixties stuff...

re: talk talk "it's my life" - yah, from what i'd read previous on wiki too about 'em, it was the thing at the time especially - don't want to appear in a music video; i don't blame them. these days it seems more acceptible...

well this is where i express an opinion of what the video's "about, man!" ;0 something i think is very much more ingrained in the youngers/millens than we have, being older (i presume! ... to wit: he's singing the song as if he's every animal in nature; he's singing for the earth... "it's my life -too;- so stop screwing up the planet!!" ;0 if that makes sense, then the idea of getting by on the cheap with a zoo, a camera crane, some nicely done bits of ani done over the footage (over many of the animal bits as much as over his maked-over mouth), along with whatever fee for a stock animal library (at the time) made a lot of sense! the track always stuck with me as a "timeless" one; i kinda hated a bit on the "gwen" version of it - kinda ruined it, i thought! ;0

that remix video-version is a bit 'eh' with me then... maybe a little too much of a good thing in the first place, but then it remixed bits kinda "wrong/obvious" along the way... and it just got to show off how much they hated doing vids anyways! the co's shoulda just stuck to the original vision they worked out...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

and that level 42 vid - heh you're dredging deep into some old memories there! i didn't remember that one till the vid played the first thirty secs or so, then thought "oh yeah, i know i saw this one back around then"...

sorry for the evil vevo again, but here's one i love from that era (87-88 - maybe too late for what you wanted the thread to stay with ;0)...

 

[WhiteChocolate]

one more, re: the fab thunderbirds vid earlier - i remember that one from back then; lol they didn't look -that- angry! probably enough extras and girlfriends dancing around to keep them happy (the redhead in the pink shortshorts musta been a gf, lol - BON-us points for her! ... they weren't bad for the time, being in that "romantics" and "stray cats" vibe mid-eighties; they were trying to keep some kind of old sound alive in the middle of the crazy "huey louis" and "solo david lee roth" era... but regardless it reminded me of the "kids in the hall" bit for "terriers" - check out the bit esp. at 1:25 lol.

breaking it down, yah maybe the song's about "ain't i tough enough for a girl," but that means the subject of the tune is the guy! so why does the video have scantily clad women in it? it does beg the question, lol!

 

[Johni3w6]

Love and still love watching this,