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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 13:56:24 GMT -5
What time is it? Well, I have 1:54. It's also countdown time.
75. The Cars—“You Might Think”
Album: Heartbeat City Label: Elektra Director: Jeff Stein.
They just don't make 'em like they used to. Much like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" and Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing," "You Might Think" is one of several 80s relics that have truly stood the test of time. This colorful clip is a melange of corny yet innocent visual puns, goofy sight gags, and cutout digital effects, with plenty of shots of that cute model (who, by the way, is Susan Gallagher, not Ocasek's future wife, Paulina Porizkova; most people mistake Susan for Paulina because there is a little resemblance and Porizkova appeared in the band’s video for "Drive."). In just over three minutes, director Jeff Stein brings to mind both Michael Snow and Andy Warhol's negotiated personal conflict via a postmodern reality. Because of its underlying romantic spirit, "You Might Think" is more liberating than Snow's Wavelength (not to mention *corpus callosum) and less preening than anything Warhol ever produced. In the name of love, Ric Ocasek repeatedly presents and repackages himself as a desperate romantic figure. And, it was that romantic repackaging and the special effects that helps “You Might Think” to win the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 14:29:23 GMT -5
74. Olivia Newton John—“Physical” www.youtube.com/watch?v=spaw8bCZMHcAlbum: Physical Label: MCA Director: Brian Grant And, here’s another one of those relics from the 1980s that has stood the test of time. Before Madonna, Olivia Newton-John made a ripple or two when her "Let's Get Physical" special aired on network television in the winter of 1982. This hour-long spectacle created by Newton-John and director Brian Grant was inspired by the artist's 1981 album Physical, which spawned the number one hit of the same name. The music video for the song features Newton-John in full double-entendre mode. The singer casts herself as a horny aerobics instructor dressed in a tight leotard supervising a group of overweight men trying to shed some of their excess fat. By video's end, the porkers have turned into sweaty Adonises straight out of a Wakefield Poole porn. No doubt wanting to get in on the action, Newton-John is stunned to discover that her class prefers each other's company. (That means they’re gay.) Amazingly, as tame as it seems today, the sight of men walking hand-in-hand into a gym shower sparked some controversy. MTV frequently cut the ending when it aired the video, and the sometimes sensuous nature of the video also led to it being banned outright by some broadcasters in Canada and the United Kingdom. And, Newton-John's influential fashion trends caused a few schools to adjust their dress policies. Nevertheless, “Physical” still stands up despite it’s sign of the times look. Sure, the video has a cheesy charm with the gags at the fat guys and with the slightly hilarious attempts of Newton-John to shed the good girl image she had at the time; but that twist at the end has elevated it a little. It’s funny and unexpected, and it has a nice message: it doesn’t matter who you’re getting physical with, just as long as your happy. This message is reinforced a little with Newton-John walking off with one of the fat guys at the end.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 15:22:55 GMT -5
73. The Cardigans—“My Favorite Game”
Album: Gran Turismo Label: Stockholm, Polydor Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Most people know The Cardigans for their song “Lovefool,” a bubblegum popish love song that appeared in the film “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet.” It was a huge hit for the band, but it completely misrepresented the band’s work as a whole. They were branded as saccharine soft-pop group on the basis of "Lovefool." However, they had an edge to them; and most likely due to this branding, the band went darker with their next album Gran Turismo. The video for "My Favorite Game" is a good example of it. The video perfectly embodied the pre-millennium tension of the late 90s. "My Favorite Game" follows leading Cardigan Nina Persson driving her red beater convertible recklessly through the desert on a crash course to self-annihilation. She seemingly takes control by putting her life (and the lives of others) in her own hands but, alas, her fate is eventually determined by a completely random act. So random that they filmed four endings for it: In ending one, Persson's body goes flying into the air and over the van roof where she is then depicted as being dead on the road. In ending two, she also flies over the van roof, except she tries to pick herself off the ground but is knocked out by the rock that was used to keep the car pedal down. In ending three, Persson is depicted being decapitated by the top of her car windscreen and a mannequin head, is seen in the next shot, rolling along the road. In ending four, she also flies over the van roof except she manages to pick herself up from the ground and walks away from the accident. The music video caused much controversy when it was first released. Many European channels, including MTV UK, only played an edited version of the video where all of the car crashes and reckless driving depictions where taken out despite director Jonas Åkerlund's attempts to meet the censorship standards by making six differently edited cuts of the video with varying degrees of violence and blood. The reason MTV UK rejected the video was because of fears that the video could encourage joyriding and cause car accidents amongst teenage drivers. But, in the U.S., the music channels were noticeably less restrictive as many of them either played the completely uncensored version of the video or a slightly censored version with only a few of the car crashes removed. Sure enough, this video did a good job of shedding that saccharine soft-pop label. Though, sadly they haven’t been as popular as they were with “Lovefool,” at least in the United States. But, that shouldn’t really matter. Popularity is overrated anyway.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 15:46:39 GMT -5
72. The Cranberries—“Linger” www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPLXJAWUnwIAlbum: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? Label: Island Records Director: Melodie McDaniel In 1993 and 1994, photographer and commercial director Melodie McDaniel hit pay dirt with the release of two black-and-white gems. One was for The Cranberries breakout single "Linger" (the other was for Madonna's "Secret."). McDaniel's images are less body-horrific than those of Cindy Sherman's, yet they're every bit as consumed with the way femininity is represented in modern art. McDaniel channeled the spirit of Sherman and John Cassavettes for "Linger," an abstract video diary that follows Dolores O'Riordan through a seedy hotel with two lookalikes by her side and a mysterious private investigator following them. O'Riordan codifies and displaces her "self" via her doubles, no doubt as a reaction to the way the males in the video choose to consume her. The starkly haunting yet beautiful video is just mesmerizing, so much so that it couldn’t be ignored. MTV soon put in into heavy rotation, and The Cranberries became a sensation almost overnight.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 16:08:33 GMT -5
71. Radiohead—“Fake Plastic Trees” www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKd06s1LNikAlbum: The Bends Label: Parlophone, EMI Director: Jake Scott Believe it or not, there was a time when Radiohead weren’t afraid to be big and obvious. The Jake Scott-directed video for “Fake Plastic Trees” finds Thom Yorke not only singing directly into the camera but singing as if he were singing for all the inhabitants of the lonely aisle he’s being strolled down, from the old and fading cowboy to the girl price-tagging the thousands of anonymous cans. Like Allan Ginsberg and Perry Farrell before him, Scott knows that no location screams conformity and alienation more than the supermarket, and the video’s key image is Yorke arching his back off the shopping cart, seemingly in surrender, only to pop back up with one of the angriest scowls you’ve ever seen, just as the song kicks into high gear. For almost a decade, Radiohead were misclassified in the US as Britpop, and this video is why: it seems too anthemic to be anything else. In actuality, the director has said that the video "is actually an allegory for death and reincarnation but if you can read that into it you must be as weird as the people who made it."
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 25, 2009 16:18:40 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 70-66. Here are the hints:
The last year of the decade that gave us disco, Jimmy Carter, Pop Rocks, and Star Wars; what you call yourself; how our solar system might end; liking it quiet; and falling for a female.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 14:06:06 GMT -5
Countdown time, motherfuckers!!!! Here's number 70: 70. Smashing Pumpkins—“1979” www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrivjzw0RlIAlbum: Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness Label: Virgin Records Directors: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris pay tribute to the tedium of suburban life in their video for the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979." Dayon and Faris's use of the fish-eye lens has an uncanny way of evoking the drunkenness and free-spiritedness of the video's subjects. (Speaking of which, I still want to know how they were able to get a camera to fly with a toilet paper roll.) Like a surrogate chaperon, Billy Corgan tails a group of angst-ridden middle-class teens as they experience the joys of house parties, skidding cars in circles, toilet-papering the neighborhood, pool-hopping and throwing patio furniture into swimming pools, bowling with liquor bottles and 2-liter sodas, and throwing extra-large slurpies wherever. Not only does the video fully capture the angst and boredom of it’s featured teens, but it also a nice little appeal to it. When I first saw this video, I was about like 11 or 12; and I fully expected it to be a forecast of what the next ten years of my life were going to be like. Or, at least, I hoped as much. And, I can imagine anybody else who first saw this video in their tweens expected the same. Those teens just looked like they were having a lot of fun. Unfortunately, that’s not for me; but it doesn’t matter. Today, it’s just a nice video to watch. Suburban teen boredom never tasted so sweet.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 14:31:53 GMT -5
69. Eminem—“My Name Is” Warning: Language www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmdRauWVbwgAlbum: The Slim Shady LP Label: Aftermath/Interscope Directors: Philip Atwell and Dr. Dre If you want a good example of a video making a star out of its artist, look at this one. Forget for a fact now, this song sounds like Eminem shooting catfish in a Nalgene bottle. Back when this first hit TRL (Shut up! That use to be THE SHOW back in the day! And, that’s where you saw it too!), it felt like someone needed to be making fun of the Spice Girls, peroxide-d buzzcuts weren’t yet a cliché, and damn, is Dr. Dre really backing a bratty white kid? Eminem went on to greater artistic heights, but the lasting image of his career is still this video: teasing his mom about drugs and tits, getting thrown out of a strip club, “The Shady Bunch,” and Dr. Dre in a doctor’s coat (which is amazing that he would put it on considering he began his career in shiny medical outfits when he was part of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru). However, the video that brought Eminem fame was a double-edge sword. Yes, the song and video has pigeonholed him into basically having to release songs and videos just like it in order for his career to continue. Yes, he has managed to get old white Republicans and homosexuals to unite in despising him. And, yes, his personal problems have become just as well known as his songs. But, none of that matters here. For four minutes, the ceiling on Eminem’s career was “a funnier Bloodhound Gang.” Okay, okay: a much funnier Bloodhound Gang. For four minutes, that seemed awesome. And, that is pretty much how most people want to see him.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 14:57:46 GMT -5
68. Soundgarden—“Black Hole Sun”
Album: Superunknown Label: A&M Records Director: Howard Greenhalgh
After viewing this video, you’ll probably have an expression on your face as blank and contorted as those of the suburbanites in the video. Thought, that’s what director Howard Greenhalgh wanted. Greenhalgh challenges American complacency in his apocalyptic video for Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun." It shows a group of doomsayers prophesizing the end of the world in a nice suburb, and every single person, except for that girl with the ice cream, has a creepy smile that’s made all the more creepier by special effects. The clip mocks and exaggerates our society's search for truth in television and its gratuitous exploitation of the earth. Soon nature turns itself on the unsuspecting suburb. A tall, thin blonde bakes in the sun as a Barbie doll is scorched on a barbeque. For torturing a cockroach under a magnifying glass, two young boys are burnt under the giant lens of the Black Hole Sun. In the end, the town people's distorted self-images and general arrogance becomes their end. And, all the while, the band looks on, unimpressed by the whole thing. Well, there is a reason for Soundgarden’s apathetic looks. In an online chat, the band stated that the video "was entirely the director's idea," and added, "Our take on it was that at that point in making videos, we just wanted to pretend to play and not look that excited about it." However, guitarist Kim Thayil said that the video was one of the few Soundgarden videos the band was satisfied with. Though, I doubt it gave him a smile on his face like those of the people in the video.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 15:13:59 GMT -5
67. Depeche Mode – “Enjoy the Silence”
Album: Violator Label: Mute Records Director: Anton Corbijn
On the surface, a guy walking around various terrains wearing a robe and crown, deckchair in hand, should be ridiculous or comic. In “Enjoy the Silence,” it’s neither. Never looking to camera, lead singer Dave Gahan brings an absolute pride and dignity to his role, tinged with just a little loneliness, and sells himself as owner of all that he surveys to an extent that lesser mortals would not likely have managed. Though, that almost never happened. When Corbijn presented the concept of the video to the band, which at the time was simply "Dave dressed up as a king, walking around with a deck chair", they initially rejected it. They changed their minds when Corbijn explained that the idea was that the King (Dave) was represented "a man with everything in the world, just looking for a quiet place to sit." Eventually, they agreed to Corbijn’s concept. Keyboardist Andy Fletcher later joked that he favored the video because "[he] only had to do about an hour's worth of work." Also, one thing that helps Corbijn’s concept was the interspersed band shots and flashes of the Violator album cover. These attempts at subliminal album advertising look cool and has become so iconic an image for Depeche Mode that even the barely animated cartoon version of it shown during their live set works wonders.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 15:28:31 GMT -5
66. The White Stripes—“Fell in Love with a Girl”
Album: White Blood Cells Label: XL Recordings Director: Michel Gondry
Quick: Name the last star-making video appearance not to feature the star in question. Parallel for comparison’s sake: In the late 90s, auto-makers tried a series a commercials that never actually showed you the car in question. The car ads were abject failures. Jack and Meg White did the same thing with the video for “Fell In Love With A Girl,” opting to let Lego versions of themselves to take their place. They went onto international superstardom. The difference? Well, for one, people appreciate hard work; and it’s obvious that this video was a task to make. It was shot frame by frame with each frame having the Lego bricks rebuilt, sometimes in a complex manner to seem as if it were an actual shot, and then formed together to give the illusion of motion. But, it wasn’t just hard work that made the video a hit. There was also the kick-ass punk rock song and a collective 20-something generation’s nostalgia for Legos and, the video’s great unsung reference point, 8-bit video games. A = Strum. B = Cymbal Crash. Thumb in A-B-A-B-Up-Down-Left-Right to unlock Buddy Holly lightning round. Dig the building blocks of rock ‘n’ roll.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 26, 2009 15:34:17 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 65-61, and a recap. Here are the hints:
Pyromaniacs denial, a violent metaphor for affection, a caffeinated beverage and the telecommunication medium you can view these music videos on, a Prince song sung by a bald woman, and all the people in pain.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 27, 2009 14:42:57 GMT -5
It's time for the countdown. No witty intro, just countdown time. Here's number 65: 65. Billy Joel—“We Didn’t Start The Fire” www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKu2QaytmrMAlbum: Storm Front Label: Columbia Records Director: Chris Blum “We Didn’t Start The Fire” isn’t much of a song. Billy Joel wrote it because he has a strong interest in history: "I'm a history nut. I devour history books. At one time I wanted to be a history teacher." According to his mother, he has been avidly reading history books since he was seven years old. So, the song is pretty much a history lesson, just Joel listing people, places, and events from 1949 to 1989. And, he’s not that thorough, skipping around in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Plus, now, it’s outdated; I still think he should release an updated version. And, the melody is horrible. Joel himself has said, “It's one of the worst melodies I've ever written.” That’s because unlike most of Joel's songs, the lyrics were written before the melody, owing to the somewhat unusual style of the song. Hell, it appears that this song was just written to make this music video. Luckily, the video is top notch. Directed by Chris Blum, it chronicles a middle-class husband and wife and their goal of the American Dream: a home, careers, and children. This is juxtaposed with the tumultuous social times of the second half of the 20th century (e.g., bra burning, the children becoming hippies, etc.). Joel acts as an omnipotent observer throughout. The chorus shows Joel beating on a table while a backdrop of famous photographs (Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination and Nguyễn Văn Lém's execution, among others) are consumed in flames. It’s simple yet powerful. The whole video fully captures the fears and paranoias of The Cold War and the late 20th century. That was a time things just kept escalating to a point when it seemed like Armageddon is a shot away. Of course, that didn’t happen. Yet, the video also captures the uncertainty of what do now. The Cold War came and went, and no one died. People lived in fear of a nuclear holocaust killing us all. That didn’t happen. People were so certain that they would all die that no real plan for the future was created. And once the Cold War ended without destroying the world, people didn’t really know what to do with they’re lives. Though, now we have terrorism, computers, iPods, and Brittney Spears to keep us occupied. Like I said, not much of a song but one hell of a video.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 27, 2009 15:12:37 GMT -5
64. Pat Benatar—“Love Is A Battlefield”
Album: Live From Earth Label: Chrysalis Records Director: Bob Giraldi
One of the first music videos to include spoken dialogue ("If you leave this house, you can just forget about coming back!" Pat Benatar's father, played by Trey Wilson, shouts as the troubled teen storms out of the house in a gargantuan huff), "Love Is A Battlefield" was a youth-empowerment mini-musical of operatic proportions (fitting considering that Benatar’s mother was an opera singer and Benatar herself is a classically trained singer; that’s why her voice is so powerful). Benatar flees for the city to pursue her dream of sleeping with men for money. She writes home to her younger brother, who pines for his sister and struggles to hide his secret desire of becoming a hustler. Benatar's pimp mistreats her, inspiring her to form a troupe of angry, dancing hookers who take on the night like a bunch of Raggedy Annes with a suspicious amount of choreography experience under their torn belts. They dance off into the trashy sunset and Benatar hops on a Greyhound bus home. In short, a classic. Yeah, I know the plot is a little cliché. Yes, I know the story-based video, Michael Jackson-inspired choreographed dance number, and atmospheric pop song was aimed squarely at MTV. And, yes, Benatar does look a little silly dancing. But, none of that matters. This video been firmly etched onto pop culture like a tattoo. Hell, it’s been parodied on South Park! Like I said, a classic.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Jul 27, 2009 15:31:33 GMT -5
63. Blur—“Coffee And TV” www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oqXVx3sBOkAlbum: 13 Label: Food/EMI Director: Garth Jennings The fact that the video is now more famous than the song means that the moment when a story about a missing Graham Coxon (oh, the irony) turns into one also about an anthropomorphic dancing milk carton no longer has the same unexpected delight. Blur's "Coffee & TV" tells the tale of one courageous little milk carton as he ventures out to find the missing boy printed on his side. Along the way, he encounters a weed-cutter-wielding neighbor, hitches a ride on a motorcycle and gets lost in a ghetto of crushed bottles and cans. Its adventures are still enormously funny and way beyond cute though, with a pleasing streak of cruelty to boot: the fate of his female counterpart is surely the most painfully amusing highlight of the whole thing. The clip is both touching and humorous, and it subtly incorporates Blur into its storyline. Eventually, the carton leads the missing boy back home, but not before it meets a violent end. But, it allows for the payoff happy ending, which even makes use of the song’s previously pointless coda, just one example of the perfect fit that makes “Coffee and TV” always seems sweeter and better when accompanied with its visuals.
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