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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 22, 2009 17:36:03 GMT -5
87. Peter Gabriel—“Shock The Monkey” www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oaSZxd9jOYAlbum: Security Label: Geffen Records Director: Brian Grant Peter Gabriel is weird. At least, that’s what anybody who only saw him in his videos and on stage with Genesis would say. When he was the frontman of Genesis, Gabriel began wearing outlandish costumes, like a dress with a fox head or an outfit covered in either warts or penises, in the 1970s in order to create some buzz and attention for the band. Hell, these outfits were so surreal that the other members of Genesis would look at Gabriel like he was crazy. Then, when he went solo in the late 1970s, it happened to correspond with the advent of the music video. Most of them at the time mainly consisted of a band playing the song. Wanting to be as different with music videos as he was on stage, Gabriel went the surreal rout again. “Shock the Monkey” is a perfect example of his surrealness. A gaunt, intense Gabriel, dressed like a low-level administrator, pounds his fists on a desk. Cut to Gabriel, now decked out in a white suit like John Huston in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”…plus wearing monkey paint. The song’s minor key hysteria finds its ideal correlative in shots of Gabriel running through the woods pursued by his simian doppelganger. What it all means only the art school graduate and ex-lead singer of Genesis could explain. (Due to the song title and the content of the video, the song and video are frequently assumed to be either an animal rights song or a reference to the famous experiments by Stanley Milgram described in his book Obedience to Authority, but Gabriel himself has described "Shock the Monkey" as "a love song" that examines how jealousy can release one's baser instincts; the monkey is not a literal monkey, but a metaphor for one's feelings of jealousy.) But ultimately, “Shock the Monkey” is, like “Sledgehammer,” an excuse for Gabriel to disfigure his body and grimace in extreme close-up while all manner of madness unfolds around him. I haven’t even mentioned the evil dwarfs. Or that last freeze-frame.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 22, 2009 18:19:15 GMT -5
86. The Killers—“All These Things That I’ve Done” www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ERe23kSBMAlbum: Hot Fuss Label: The Island Def Jam Group Director: Anton Corbijn There are actually two versions of this video. The earlier version features The Killers singing while walking down Brick Lane in London accompanied by a crowd and shots of the audience who attended The Killers concert at the London Astoria on July 8, 2004. However, it’s this version that is more memorable. Why? Because it’s a tribute to that legendary auteur filmmaker of low budget sexploitation films Russ Meyer! Directed by Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn, the video features a surreal, dream-like sequence where The Killers, dressed as cowboys, are attacked by scantily-clad female warriors armed with boomerangs. It is obviously inspired by Meyer’s legendary magnus opus “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” and continues his theme of women that are stronger and more physically intimidating than men. Not only does the video pay tribute to Meyer’s obsession with large breasted women but also his inadvertent feminist filmmaking. Another thing that makes the video stand out is that the story is told out of order, but can be put in its order by the numbers displayed in the video. It could have easily been edited in order, but by making it out of synch adds to the surreal, Twilight Zone feel to the video. And, by not going in order goes against conventions, much like Meyer did with his aggressive female characters. It’s just a great homage to a wonderful filmmaker who gave the world many wonderful mammaries…I mean, memories. Though, the former does apply.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 22, 2009 18:24:33 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 85-81, plus, a recap of the last 20 videos. Here are the hints:
A darkening of a vital human organ, a famous mouse, what you do if something's free, a question asked by a group of homo sapiens, and a road with no signs.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 17:16:09 GMT -5
It's countdown time once again. Here's number 85:
85. Bonnie Tyler—“Total Eclipse Of The Heart”
Album: Faster Than The Speed Of Night Label: Columbia Records Director: Russell Mulcahy
Before “Highlander,” Russell Mulcahy helped launch a network as director of the first music video to play on MTV, "Video Killed The Radio Star" by The Buggles. His profile rose as he directed a number Duran Duran’s memorable videos, like “Rio” and “Hungry Like The Wolf.” More threatening than the canons-cum-cocks of Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time," Mulcahy's cinematic clip for Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" reimagined Wolf Rilla's horror classic The Village of the Damned as gay fantasia. The witchy headmistress played by Tyler must defy the pink curtains and unexplained doves that shoot out at her from the vaginal hallways of her all-boys school. Tortured by her pent-up sexual energy, she discovers release in fantasy, imagining her pupils as dancing ninjas, greasers, football players, and scantily clad Tarzans. Morning call seemingly restores her faith in prudence though a child's bright eyes portend yet another vaginal flow. Though the openly gay Mulcahy would channel some of the leftover homoeroticism into the first three episodes of the Brit version of "Queer as Folk," the video's stateside legacy is a sad one. In the 90s, the video was updated for two other Jim Steinman produced tracks: Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love" and Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back To Me Now." But, this one still stands out as superior to those two, mainly because its cheesy grandeur isn’t as cheesy as the other two.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 17:43:12 GMT -5
84. Toni Basil—“Mickey” Album: Word Of Mouth Label: Chrysalis Director: Toni Basil This is another one I was afraid to put on the list due to the song’s catchiness. However, much like that song playing in your head forever, this video can’t be ignored. It was one of the most popular early MTV videos, which isn’t that hard to figure out. In the video, Basil wore the head cheerleader uniform of Las Vegas High School, from which she graduated (The year on the uniform, 1981, was two decades after her actual graduation, and her actual uniform from that period was not as elaborate as the uniform she wore in the video.) and dances around with some other cheerleaders. That’s all it is: a white room with cheerleaders. Yes, it’s for purely hedonistic reasons. Practically every single male in the world has a thing for cheerleaders. But, there is a little more to it than that. Directed and expertly choreographed by Toni Basil herself, "Mickey" was a supreme "fuck you" to the Mickey of her dreams. (By the way, that “Mickey” is Monkee Micky Dolenz; Basil's crush on the actor during her work as a choreographer/dancer on the set of the Monkees 1968 movie “Head” prompted her to change the lyrics of the song, which was originally called “Kitty” to "Mickey" to better suit her real-life experience, and the gender from female to male.) Basil's cheerleader is a far cry from the typical airhead who'll shed a tear or two when the captain of the football team forsakes her for another girl. For whom the cheerleader cheers; she cheers for herself. And, she’s still cheering. Basil subsequently developed a special fondness for the song and its enduring popularity and has said on more than one occasion that, if she was asked to, she would gladly resume the cheerleader uniform she wore in the video. And, she could pull it off. Seriously, the woman has barely aged since that video. I mean just look at this photo: It’s like she’s been frozen in ice since 1981!
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 18:05:33 GMT -5
83. Red Hot Chili Peppers—“Give It Away”
Album: Blood Sugar Sex Magik Label: Warner Bros. Records Director: Stéphane Sednaoui
When it came time to make a video for the lead single off of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album Blood Sugar Sex Magik, lead singer Anthony Kiedis wanted the video to be visually distinct and readily identifiable but disliked much of the material Warner Bros. sent for him to choose from: "I started viewing reels and reels and reels of video directors but nothing looked good to me. Everything was the same, boring, homogenized, contrived shit." Upon finding French fashion photographer and director Stéphane Sednaoui's reel, however, Kiedis noticed it was "like nothing else. It was slower and poetic, shot in black and white. It seemed like authentic art, not something shot for MTV." He and Flea met with Sednaoui to talk about the video, for which the director proposed a "very desolated [and] very graphic landscape," while heavily focusing on the band members with little to no outside influence. It was decided that the video would be filmed in black and white while Sednaoui took the idea of painting the band members with silver acrylic from previous photo shoots he had done. Sednaoui recalls that he was "amazed by what [the band] gave me because they went far, far, far beyond what I was expecting and I think that's one of my best experiences in that regard". The band’s look in the video wasn’t the only thing that made it stand out. There was also John Frusciante waving an large aluminum ribbon in reverse, a wide-angle shot of Flea in a desert setting wearing pants with several gold colored horns protruding from each leg and standing in a meditative stance and brings his arms together above his head when the music begins to play and later getting dowsed in water, the four band members standing with their eyes closed; the band dancing around in a dimly lit setting, a ground view of Frusciante playing a reflective silver Fender Stratocaster in between his legs while wearing pants made up entire of small pieces of mirror, the band members dancing frenziedly with full makeup on; Kiedis began to move his tongue flamboyantly to dramatically accentuate the lyrics, and Kiedis' crotch-hugging shorts. After seeing the finished product, Warner Bros. executives were worried that the content would be "too weird" or "too artsy" for the general public and favored a more traditional premise in contrast to the experimental approach Sednaoui took. Luckily, the video was ultimately released without being edited by the record label. Since then it has been widely credited as being a considerable factor in the Red Hot Chili Peppers' success and greatly increased their international popularity, and it still stands out today.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 18:23:12 GMT -5
82. Human League—“Don’t You Want Me?” www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0Album: Dare Label: Virgin Records Director: Steve Barron A brunette being pursued by a gun-toting thug rides a sleek automobile along a twisty highway and ends up inside a hillside mansion. This isn't “Mulholland Drive” but rather Steve Barron's film-within-a-film-within-a-video for Human League's "Don't You Want Me," the band's classic ode to love gone bad. We watch a detective film being made, the behind the scenes romantic tensions of the leads, and the obsessive editing that will lead to a finished product. It was an archetypal New Pop move, simultaneously strong narrative pop and a fictionalizing of how the Human League got the girls in to sing and thus became popular. Superior to No Doubt's similarly themed "Don't Speak," this heady video explores the band's sticky on-set romances and pent-up hostilities with nary a hint of self-indulgence. Barron's camera constantly unravels a new layer beneath the collection of stone-faced glances and suggests that nothing can ever be taken at face value. Nothing is spelt out, the emotion happens in hidden stares and unmet glances. Shots are repeated and rewound and replayed; it’s easier for the characters to watch each other on a screen than to face each other in real life. The viewer is the only person to be looked in the eye. It ends, of course, with the camera dollying away from the set and filming itself in the bright lights of a dressing room mirror. This is Jean-Luc Godard’s “Le Mépris” with a dash of “A Star Is Born” thrown in and made for Saturday morning TV kids.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 20:28:51 GMT -5
81. U2—“Where The Streets Have No Name” www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpvdaIJ1TuQAlbum: The Joshua Tree Label: Island Records Director: Meiert Avis On March 27, 1987, U2, director Meiert Avis, and a film crew went to the rooftop of the Republic Liquor Store at East 7th Street and South Main Street in Los Angeles to film the video for their song “Where The Streets Have No Name.” Unfortunately, radio stations around the city leaked out that they were going to be shooting a video and the location. A large group of fans showed up to see it, so many that the LAPD were concerned they would congest traffic. So, they shut the shoot down. However, U2 played the song anyway! Or so it seemed. I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but this video ain’t 100% kosher. The scenes including the police shutting the video down due to traffic concerns are real. However, the video was edited and heavily overdubbed to make it appear the band defied the police and kept on filming the video. In reality, they stopped performing upon being ordered to do so, and the song was performed to playback. I know it hurts to have this perception of reality shattered. Hell, I thought it was all real too until I did the research for this entry. But, that shouldn’t take away from the video’s greatness. For one, they did a good job of making it seem like the whole video was real. Plus, the video captures the song’s theme of searching for a feeling of belonging, with the band and film crew wanting to film the video paralleling that feeling. But, the main reason is that it fully captures U2’s cooler that everything presence they had been gaining in the late 1980s. Around the time this video came out and afterwards, they were pretty much the biggest act in the world; and this video shows some of that aura that surrounded them. At the time, they had just released The Joshua Tree, an album that saw the band diving deep into the roots of American rock. The wild beauty, cultural richness, spiritual vacancy, and ferocious violence of America were explored to compelling effect in virtually every aspect of The Joshua Tree, yet they were able to keep a worldly appeal mainly because of the lyrics of the songs. In 1987, U2 had the world in the palm of their hands, and you can see why in this video.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 23, 2009 20:32:53 GMT -5
Okay, that's all for tonight. Here's a recap of the past 20 videos we've gone through:
100. Beastie Boys—“Fight For Your Right (To Party)” 99. ZZ Top—“Legs” 98. Daft Punk—“Around The World” 97. Godley And Creme—“Cry” 96. Lenny Kravitz—“Are You Gonna Go My Way” 95. OutKast—“Hey Ya” 94. Wyclef Jean—“Gone Till November” 93. Janet Jackson—“Rhythm Nation” 92. Fatboy Slim—“Praise You” 91. Guns N’ Roses—“November Rain” 90. Yeah Yeah Yeahs—“Maps” 89. New Order—“True Faith” 88. Robert Palmer—“Addicted To Love” 87. Peter Gabriel—“Shock The Monkey” 86. The Killers—“All These Things That I’ve Done” 85. Bonnie Tyler—“Total Eclipse Of The Heart” 84. Toni Basil—“Mickey” 83. Red Hot Chili Peppers—“Give It Away” 82. Human League—“Don’t You Want Me?” 81. U2—“Where The Streets Have No Name”
Tomorrow, numbers 80-76. Here are the hints:
That first video that appeared on a network that use to play music, an optimistic man, an atheist's magnus opus, feeling the weight of something heavy, and a single moment in life.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 15:39:47 GMT -5
Countdown time, Shirley. Here's number 80: 80. The Buggles—“Video Killed The Radio Star” www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKJHRisppCoAlbum: The Age Of Plastic Label: Island Records Director: Russell Mulcahy On August 1, 1981, MTV began broadcasting. This was the first video to air on the network. That little answer to a trivia question alone would be enough to put it on this list, but there are other reasons. For one, the surreal look of it made it stand out from the typical “band playing their song” videos of its day. But what really gets it on the list is its prophetic song. Group member Trevor Horn has said that his lyrics were inspired by the J.G. Ballard short story “The Sound-Sweep,” in which the title character, a mute boy vacuuming up stray music in a world without it, comes upon an opera singer hiding in a sewer. He also felt "an era was about to pass." The theme of the song is thus nostalgia, which is also echoed in the tone of the music. The lyrics refer to a period of technological change in the 1960s, the desire to remember the past and the disappointment that children of the current generation would not appreciate the past. In the 1950s and early 1960s, radio was an important medium for many, through which "stars" were created. Then came the 1980s and MTV. Soon, the music video became the thing that made “stars.” Think about it. Michael Jackson and Madonna had some good albums, but most remember them more for their videos. And, the look became a little more important than the music. Stylish videos with good looking artists get lots of play on the music channels. Hell, today you don’t even need the music. A lot of people have become famous from stupid YouTube videos. It was fitting that this video was the first one to air on MTV; it’s like they knew that things were going to change once they started broadcasting.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 15:56:41 GMT -5
79. The Killers—“Mr. Brightside” www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnwLf88t_WcAlbum: Hot Fuss Label: Island Records Director: Sophie Mueller Like I said earlier, videos can make stars, and this one pretty much did that for The Killers. Now, there are two versions of this video. One is just the band playing the song, shot in black and white. After that monochromatic, bare, and ultimately charmless video, director Sophie Mueller took that as the starting point of how not to shoot "Mr. Brightside." Enter huge sets, huge costumes, and a swarm of chicks baring their asses for a bunch of aristocrats. Along the way, Brandon Flowers resurrects the idea of the badass pop-crooner and throws the whiny kid of the earlier video to the wayside. Although "Mr. Brightside"'s love-triangle with the lead singer is a staple for music videos, it's the excess and the sprinkles of camp that makes this video taste so sweet: Flowers hamming it up for the camera and romping through checkers boards while his porcelain-doll muse interprets the song through an acrobatic dance. Plus, you can’t go wrong with Eric Roberts.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 16:24:18 GMT -5
78. Faith No More—“Epic”
Album: The Real Thing Label: Splash Records, Reprise Records Director: Unknown (I couldn’t find out who did it)
At a time when hair metal and glossy dance pop dominated MTV, Faith No More's "Epic" stood out in 1990 for its adventurous musical and visual sense. The song itself was a classic single that pioneered a hybrid of rap, punk, and metal that unintentionally inspired some of the shittiest bands known to man later in the decade, but the video for it became a little more memorable than the song. Inspired by the work of painter Salvador Dali, it featured surreal images, like an exploding piano and a hand with an eyeball in the middle of it and lightning shooting out from it, combined with performance footage of the band soaked by an artificial rainstorm on a sound stage. But, one image is best remembered than all the others: the slow-motion footage of a flopping fish laid over the song's pretty, piano-tinkling coda. That disturbing image of the dying fish was subject to controversy because of the perceived treatment of the fish. However, even though the fish is out of water and dying on camera, it was in fact slow motion footage; and the fish was returned to its tank alive in a matter of seconds. Nevertheless, that damn fish became just as famous as the band, so much so that the band began joking about it in interviews. During one interview, the band joked that the fish belonged to Icelandic singer Björk, whom they claimed to have stolen from her at a party. There are also stories of Björk giving the fish to the keyboardist Roddy Bottum after a poetry reading in San Francisco. Nevertheless, like the song, the fish has no meaning beyond its visceral effect, which is both oddly beautiful and incredibly creepy. As for animal-rights concerns, well, at least the fish was immortalized in a way his breaded and fried brethren never were.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 16:40:06 GMT -5
77. Queen And David Bowie—“Under Pressure”
Album: Hot Space Label: EMI, Elektra Directors: David Mallet and Andy Morahan
When directors Mallet and Morahan were given the job of making the video for Queen and David Bowie's now-classic anthem "Under Pressure," they were told two things: they had to make a video but Queen and Bowie weren’t going to be available to film it. So, they pieced one together entirely from silent film and documentary stock footage. Amazingly, the video doesn’t looked half-assed. The directors actually put some thought into it and used their creativity to create a memorable video. A symphony of images cued to the Queen and Bowie duet, this socially conscious slideshow was edited in such a way that the images add to beautiful tone of the song. Stinging yet hopeful, the clip celebrates the pressure-cooker mentality of a culture willing to wage war against political machines. This is propaganda worthy of Sergei Eisenstein, the unofficial father of the music video and whose "Battleship Potemkin" is a main source of inspiration here.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 17:07:21 GMT -5
76. Talking Heads—“Once In A Lifetime” www.dailymotion.com/video/x12spb_talking-heads-once-in-a-lifetime_musicAlbum: Remain In Light Label: Sire Records Directors: David Byrne and Toni Basil When the Talking Heads first hit the music scene, they didn’t sound any other band that was out there. So naturally, when they started making music videos, they didn’t look anything like any other music video that was out there. Case in point, “Once In A Lifetime.” When it comes to music video performance, David Byrne is something of a nerdy Robert DeNiro, and “Once in a Lifetime” is his “Raging Bull.” He huffs, he puffs, and he generally freaks people the fuck out, looking about four times as ragged as Dustin Hoffman in “Marathon Man” (meaning he probably stayed up the last four nights straight before the shoot). Byrne is Jake LaMotta without an opponent, mentally and physically kicking his own ass as if the stress of the modern world had actually made him lose sense of his motor functions. And then comes the chorus, where Byrne surrenders completely, floating on a sea of blue screen and looking unsure as to whether he’s reached heaven or is merely stuck in limbo. Though, Byrne doesn’t deserve all the credit; half of it should go to Toni Basil. She’s the one who choreographed the erratic dances Byrne does in the video, and she also showed Byrne footage of epilepsy patients as inspiration. Plus, the video shows her range. The dancing is a complete 180 from her “Mickey” video, but it’s just a memorable. She was Byrne’s Martin Scorsese, deftly guiding him through his “boxing match.” Together, they came up with a clip good enough to be shown in the New York Museum Of Modern Art. Music video acting may have existed before “Once in a Lifetime,” but Byrne (with Basil’s help) that made it Lee Strasberg worthy.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 24, 2009 17:10:40 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 75-71. Here are the hints:
Automobiles having a thought, a famous work out video, the competition you like the best, loitering, and plants that don't need to be watered.
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