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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 6, 2009 17:29:19 GMT -5
14. Herbie Hancock—“Rockit” www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK0Pi4wC8HkAlbum: Future Shock Label: Columbia Records Directors: Godley & Crème For those of you who don’t know, Herbie Hancock is one of the most influential jazz musician of the 20th Century, known for embracing elements of rock and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. Around the early 1980s, he began to incorporate electronic and hip hop into his music, beginning his electo-jazz phase. It all started with his album Future Shock. Even though it’s among the most critically derided albums of his career, Hancock had a hit on his hands, especially with the single “Rockit.” The scratching and out-of-this-world sound deserve some credit, but the main reason it was a hit was because of the video. Directed by duo Godley & Crème, the video featured robot-like sculptures by Jim Whiting moving in time to the music, and Hancock only appears in the background on a TV screen. Amazingly edited and filmed, it’s incredible to see the robots move with the music. Plus, the robots are a nice fit for such an electronic song. Yeah, it might look a little dated; but those robots didn’t even look high tech for 1983. Besides, that doesn’t really matter. Hancock and Godley & Crème made a classic.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 6, 2009 17:47:26 GMT -5
13. Missy Elliot—“The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”
Album: Supa Dupa Fly Label: The Goldmind, Inc./Elektra Records Director: Hype Williams
You could probably chalk it up to Missy's laconic drawl and a cough from some endo. Few other explanations could describe the act of wearing a suit that looks equal parts S&M-bondage and Willy Wonka-blueberry to achieve instant pop stardom. Contorting Hype Williams's slicker-than-an-oil-wreck style inside out (with a heavy emphasis on out), Missy began her trip into music video surrealism with "The Rain." Along the way, she takes a trip to the beach with Timbaland in her fish-eyed Hummer. Although she beeps like the roadrunner, the rhythm of the trek strictly sputters along with Missy's fingers flipping around in faux-stop-motion glory. This whole video is pretty much just a showcase for Missy Elliot, a clip that ceremoniously introduced her to the world. But, that’s not a bad thing. That’s pretty much what all music videos are: showcases for the artists, to make them look good and get people talking about them. And, Williams is all too happy to make Missy look good. All of his tricks work in this one, even the fish-eye lens. Like I said before, Williams has gratuitously abused the fish-eye lens throughout his short career, but never has this gimmick worked better than it does in "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)." The now tiresome fish-eye frame grotesquely exaggerates Elliott's too-freaky personality. Even the distracting and uninspired presence of various hip-hop artists (Diddy, Da Brat, Lil Kim, and, of course, Timbaland) can't take away from Elliott's inspired ability to move to her own sounds.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 6, 2009 18:04:18 GMT -5
12. R.E.M.—“Losing My Religion”
Album: Out Of Time Label: Warner Bros. Records Director: Tarsem Singh
Fans cited Caravaggio and Gabriel Garcia Marquez as referents in this beloved video, but, really, its most striking image is Michael Stipe, before canonization as Saint Hip of Baldness, doing the safety dance or something (hint: it involved twitching his elbows). Bill Berry glowers like he’s Charlie Watts while Stipe is Mick Jagger, dancing around and hogging the spotlight. A pink-mouthed youth, too pretty for rough trade, does a convincing Sebastian, although he looks annoyed rather than agonized by the arrows sticking out of him. Yes, it looks pretentious and artsy-fartsy. But, it works. The melodramatic and dreamlike look; the references to Caravaggio, Marquez, Maxfield Parrish, and Andrei Tarkovsky; the Hindu and Catholic images; and Stipe’s dancing all fit the song to a T. It’s hard to imagine any other images playing over the song. As a visual representation of the most teasingly ambiguous hit song ever to hit the top five, it’s garish, a tenth-grader’s idea of surrealism. As a means of selling R.E.M. as four ugly men of mystery to a mass audience ready to welcome them, it was a gesture of consummate shrewdness.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 6, 2009 18:22:13 GMT -5
11. Nirvana—“Smells Like Teen Spirit” www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXO3OMGKPpwAlbum: Nevermind Label: DGC Director: Samuel Bayer Is it the best video of the 1990s? No. Is it the most iconic? Well, that’s hard to argue or deny. Pretty much anytime anyone mentions the 1990s or shows a montage of the decade, there’s a good chance you'll hear “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and you may even see a small portion of the video. So, what’s the reason for this? Well, like every aspect of the band's all-too-brief creative output, the worth of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was arguably elevated in the wake of Kurt Cobain's death. In retrospect, however, the clip's twisted pep rally images (anarchist cheerleaders, dancing custodians, and rioting students) have become signposts of the grunge era. You know, I could keep going on with the blah blahs about how this video defined a generation, about how 15 years ago it probably didn’t seem that stupid to have cheerleaders wearing anarchy symbols, and about how “It’s about a deodorant!” and all that. But here’s what’s really striking about this video: for a band that publicly decried ever looking “cool” (they often looked like hobos, and not hipster junkie hobos from the 70’s, just regular old high school dropout hobos) they never looked better than in this video. Kurt, if not sexy, at least looked healthy. Dave Grohl’s shirtless drumming seemed natural. And, even Chris Novoselic acted like he belonged. There’s a point where Cobain is unleashing another chorus, and the kids are coming off the bleachers and almost mobbing him, Kurt screaming them back to their seats; it might be the only time in his entire life the Cobain looked “cool.” Cobain seems both apathetic and lightly buzzed about being the anointed saint of early 90s teen angst in this video, but it was very likely the only time he ever felt “cool,” too.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 6, 2009 18:26:04 GMT -5
Tomorrow, we enter the Top 10, with 10-6. Here are the hints:
An animalistic appetite, pain, stating who you are, accepting someone, and a suspenseful story.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 14:39:59 GMT -5
Well, we're almost done. Today, we begin the top 10, and tomorrow we reach number 1. So, let's get to it. Here's number 10: 10. Duran Duran—“Hungry Like The Wolf” www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJRCE6e2xIgAlbum: Rio Label: EMI Director: Russell Mulcahy In the 1960s, Pink Floyd became famous for their stage shows. It wasn’t just that they had some great songs and could really play; they had an awesome psychedelic light show that fit well with the music. Eventually, Pink Floyd’s live show began to incorporate more gimmicks like lasers, flying pigs, and puppets that eventually overshadowed the music. What does this have to do with Duran Duran? Well, they were in a similar position in the 1980s. They became famous for their videos. Like Pink Floyd, who saw a band playing on stage boring and decided to give the audience an entertaining experience, Duran Duran saw a video with a band just playing boring and decided to make their video into basically short films set in exotic locals. Russell Mulcahy, a frustrated director who wanted to make films, was happy to oblige them. For “Hungry Like The Wolf,” the band had a vision of jungles and exotic women. Mulcahy suggested Sri Lanka, a country he had just visited. They went with the idea, and EMI gave them all $200,000 to go to Sri Lanka and make a video. And, what a video they made. Witness the most colonial video ever: lithe white men sprinting though a vaguely “Middle Eastern” bazaar before apparently stalking some dark-skinned native beauty, all while Simon Le Bon causes a ruckus in another “exotic” looking café. It’s a mix of apoplectic, “how-the-fuck-did-they-get-away-with-this” shock and neon-fried absurdity. Clearly gunning for “Thriller”-sized epicness, Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf” instead becomes the weird juxtaposition of power and race structures straight from Joseph Conrad and bubbling pseudo-Romantic cream. Think of this as one of the ultimate 1980s baby videos: the looming complexities and new realities of a globalized, decolonized world all pushed aside for a moment of grinning, bawdy indulgence. Or, you can think of it as a band finding a gimmick that led them to fame that eventually overshadowed the music. Yeah, Duran Duran made great pop songs, but like Pink Floyd and their laser light shows, the band’s videos became more known that their sound. But, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a great gimmick.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 15:20:03 GMT -5
9. Johnny Cash—“Hurt”
Album: American Recordings IV: The Man Comes Around Label: American Recordings, Universal Music Group Director: Mark Romanek
Who would have thought that the best music video of this decade would have come from a man whose career began over 50 years ago? Think about it: Johnny Cash started recording music when rock ‘n’ roll was first emerging, TV didn’t come in color, and the Dodgers and Giants still played in New York. This music video came out of left field. It seems hard to imagine that this would work: you have an old man singing a song that sounds like it’s about heroin addiction. At the time, Cash was in the twilight of his career. His last few albums mostly consisted of cover songs. But, even before American Recordings proved it beyond all doubt, Cash was a man with two careers in parallel: one bringing the poignancy, the other novelty tunes like “One Piece at a Time,” and that one where he does an impression of a guy being hung. So how better to close his career than by dovetailing the two: a novelty cover version paired with a video featuring poignancy laid on so thick as to crush your heart through sheer persistence. Cash as Jesus, Cash as the pouting rebel, Cash the American, Cash as America personified, Cash the husband, Cash the man in black, Cash the guy who sold records in droves, Cash the lonely, scared, dying old man. In the end, we get a video that is so touching that it could bring a tear to a statue’s eye. Even the song’s original writer, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, was touched by it: “I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore… It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure.” When the video came out in 2002, it received widespread praise and acclaim. A lot of people saw it as a fitting epitaph for man with such a long and good career. Sure enough, it became just that: Cash died a year later. It's hard to imagine there could have been a better way to close the piano lid on his career.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 15:40:15 GMT -5
8. Madonna—“Express Yourself” www.dailymotion.com/video/xkxt1_23-madonna-express-yourself-ext_music Album: Like A Prayer Label: Sire, Warner Bros. Records Director: David Fincher You know, most people don’t look at the music video as an art form. Some see it as a commercial for the artist and his/her latest single and album. Some just see it as an excuse for the artist to look cool for 4 or so minutes. However, if done right, a music video can be an artistic expression. It can be used as a creative visual representation of the song that can enhance it and add a new layer to the song. Here’s a good example. "Express Yourself" is the embodiment of "queer chic," a bombastic masterpiece that heralds Madonna's uncanny ability to use her consumer-driven image to code her feminist politics. Something this inspired by Fritz Lang's “Metropolis” is not without theoretical implications. Here, Madonna plays the high priestess of a futuristic wage-slave community who celebrates the power of her repressed mechanism via self-love. The clip's infinite metaphors are intricate and delirious without ever being pedantic. While Madonna looks for a way to vicariously penetrate the slave kingdom below her secret tower, sexual frustration begets physical aggression. Director David Fincher evokes the glamour and exoticism of male-on-male competition via the slave community's constant flexing and cockfighting. Inside her postmodern living quarters, the 5'3" Madonna towers above the crowd, slithers under her dining room table and asserts her feminine wile. Madonna's prissy, henpecked husband tries to control her with his false idols (a musical diorama that seemingly tightens her S&M vice) but is ultimately no match for the video's alpha male, Guess model Cameron. Conflicted, her boy-toy revolts against the machine that simultaneously angers and teases him with the power of its pussy. She's powerful and dangerous (her cat is black for a reason) and gets to choose the man who will control her. "Express Yourself" is as conceptually audacious as “Metropolis” because it celebrates both the power of the female sex and its ability to cripple the machine that dehumanizes it. Just looking at this video, it’s not hard to see why Fincher was able to parlay his video directing career into a movie career. If he can turn a simple music video into something more, then he could have easily done the same for a movie. It’s also not hard to see why Madonna made so many good videos. She sees videos not just as a way to sell herself and her music but as another way to get her point across. See, a music video can be art.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 16:00:36 GMT -5
7. A-ha—“Take On Me” www.dailymotion.com/video/x14x5l_aha-take-on-me_musicAlbum: Hunting High And Low Label: Warner Bros. Records Director: Steve Barron Like I said, a music video can be art; and this one takes that statement literally. Yes, there have been many animated music videos. There are a few on this list. But, this one is the most famous, the most iconic. One of the most successfully executed concept videos of the early MTV era, A-Ha's "Take On Me" would go on to influence both music video (Incubus's "Drive") and film (Richard Linklater's “Waking Life”). Using rotoscoped animation, "Take On Me" told the tale of a woman, played by Bunty Bailey, who is literally drawn into her newspaper's comic section and falls in love with a cartoon hero. When a disgruntled waitress tears and discards the newspaper, the comic's panel walls begin to deteriorate. Pages are pressed together and barriers are broken as different realities clash and characters from other stories enter the couple's world. The dramatic conclusion finds the hero in a collision course between fantasy and reality, a fine line music video makers would walk for years to come. When "Take on Me" came out, the clip propelled the song and A-ha to worldwide fame. It’s a great example of a music video quickly bring fame to its band. It's also one of the first that depicted an actual story, or at least that curtailed montage techniques together to form some kind of narrative, albeit one of a fantastically Swedish bent. From the eyebrows-appealingly-raised initiation to the Pinocchio hammering-on-the-door-of-life finale, it also marks the debut of a love affair brought from contemplation to consummation in 3 minutes and 45 seconds time. The life-into-animation-into-life analogy and windswept 1980's pencil drawings may have aged, but the neo-classical sentiments enshrined in "Take on Me" remain as a virtual bible of the video age.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 16:30:16 GMT -5
6. Michael Jackson—“Thriller” www.dailymotion.com/video/x4hx94_michael-jackson-thriller_musicAlbum: Thriller Label: Epic Records Director: John Landis Some would say that “Thriller” is THE greatest music video of all time. I’m not one of those people. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great video. It’s a sprawling epic, the “Gone With The Wind” of music videos. But, the thing about “Gone With The Wind” is that even though it’s a great epic, there are better movies out there, like “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” “Raging Bull,” and “The Godfather.” And, there are better videos out there. Hell, I even think Jackson had two better videos than “Thriller.” But, it’s still great. Never before had a music video, a largely artless marketing tool up until that point, employed plot, costume and cinema style so expansively as Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Despite its ghoulish subject matter, the clip possessed an innocence not unlike that of its famous star. Black actors were transplanted into a 1950s setting for the video's opening film-within-a-film. Jackson and his date exit the theater and take a detour through a graveyard, awakening a troupe of pelvic-thrusting zombies. To give the video its authentically creepy quality, Jackson enlisted director John Landis and Academy Award-winning make-up artist Rick Baker, both hot off 1981's “An American Werewolf in London.” Today, there is a general consensus that “Thriller” is the most successfully ambitious pop music video of the MTV era, and it’s hard to argue with that. Jackson and Landis spent $800,000 to make the video, and it was obviously money well spent. The video's dancing zombie sequence, choreographed by Jackson and Michael Peters, has yet to be topped, with the choreography’s stream of stop-motion jerks and twists having become the lingua franca of R&B, teenpop, hip-hop, and almost any non-ballad that gets within sniffing distance of the Top 40. That red, shoulder-pads-as-coastal-shelves jumpsuit is clearly Smithsonian-bound. And, if that’s not enough, Vincent Price drops what can only be described as 16 bars of seminal, blueprint horrorcore rap: “The funk of forty thousand years / And grizzly ghouls from every tomb / Are closing in to seal your doom.” But, what makes it great is the fact that the video aspires for more than being just an entertaining video. It aspires to be one of the most entertaining things ever put on film, and in my mind, it accomplishes that. Like Madonna, Michael Jackson saw the music video as more that just a video for a song. While Madonna had artistic aspirations with her videos, trying to come up with visual representations that would help get the message of her songs across clearer, Jackson was more concerned with the entertainment aspect of them. He saw music videos as another way for him to really entertain people, to leave them speechless and awe-inspired. And, he’s clearly succeeded. For a generation of youngsters scarred shitless by the closing image, an apparently human Jackson whipping around, gazing at the camera and revealing demonically feline eyes, music videos would never be as grand, visceral, or authentically epic. “Thriller” is not the greatest music video of all time, but it is the most epic.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 7, 2009 16:32:10 GMT -5
Tomorrow, we come to the end. The final 5 videos.
No hints. Figure them out yourselves.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 8, 2009 13:26:56 GMT -5
Here it is. The final countdown. Well, not my countdown, but it's the end of this one. Anyway, here's the beginning of the end, number 5: 5. Pearl Jam—“Jeremy” www.youtube.com/watch?v=gskAeWgEExkAlbum: Ten Label: Epic Records Director: Mark Pellington Here’s another video that has multiple versions. The original video for “Jeremy” was filmed by photographer Chris Cuffaro. However, Epic didn’t like it. So, they shelved that video, which is available on Cuffaro’s website, and brought in Mark Pellington to film the one we all know today. You know it. The one that’s been described as “an Afterschool Special from hell” by Entertainment Weekly. The song is based on two stories: the main inspiration comes a newspaper article about a 15-year-old boy named Jeremy Wade Delle, from Richardson, Texas who shot himself in front of his English class at Richardson High School on the morning of January 8, 1991 at about 9:45 am. The other is a personal experience in Eddie Vedder’s life: “I actually knew somebody in junior high school, in San Diego, California, that did the same thing, just about, didn't take his life but ended up shooting up an oceanography room. I remember being in the halls and hearing it and I had actually had altercations with this kid in the past. I was kind of a rebellious fifth-grader and I think we got in fights and stuff. So it's a bit about this kid named Jeremy and it's also a bit about a kid named Brian that I knew and I don't know...the song, I think it says a lot. I think it goes somewhere...and a lot of people interpret it different ways and it's just been recently that I've been talking about the true meaning behind it and I hope no one's offended and believe me, I think of Jeremy when I sing it.” The video is pretty much just a reflection of the song; it depicts a teen named Jeremy being taunted by classmates at school, running through a forest, and screaming at his parents at a dinner table. Jeremy is the only character that actually moves throughout the video; the other characters in Jeremy's life are in stationary tableau. Shots of words such as "problem", "peer", "harmless", "bored", and "child" frequently appear onscreen. Also, the phrase Genesis 3:6 appears, which references the creation of sin, specifically Eve eating from the tree of knowledge and giving some of the fruit to Adam. As the song becomes more dense and frenetic, Jeremy's behavior becomes increasingly agitated. Strobe lighting adds to the anxious atmosphere. Jeremy is shown standing, arms raised in a V (as described in the lyrics at the beginning of the song), in front of a wall of billowing flames. Jeremy is later shown staring at the camera while wrapped in a US flag, surrounded by fire. The band also appears in the video, cut into the scenes with Jeremy. However, Vedder gets the most on-screen time, looking like a freaking devil thanks to his facial expressions and the low angle he’s being shot from. The final scene of the video shows Jeremy striding into class, tossing an apple to the teacher and standing before his classmates. He reaches down and draws back his arm as he takes a gun out of his pocket. Of course, this scene was edited for TV. The gun only appears onscreen in the uncut version of the video; the edited video cuts to an extreme close-up of Jeremy's face as he puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth, closes his eyes, and pulls the trigger. After a flash of light the screen turns black. The next shot is a pan across the classroom, showing Jeremy's blood-spattered classmates, all completely still, recoiling in horror. Ironically, the ambiguous close-up of Jeremy at the end of the edited video, combined with the defensive posture of Jeremy's classmates and the large amount of blood, led many viewers to believe that the video ended with Jeremy shooting his classmates, not himself. Nevertheless, the video was still left a powerful image burned onto viewers’ minds in the 1990’s. It also deeply affected the band itself. After "Jeremy", Pearl Jam backed away from making music videos. They didn’t release another video until 1998's "Do the Evolution", which was entirely animated. It’s not surprising. “Jeremy” haunts the viewer. It leaves him or her with a image so terrifying that they would rather put it out of their minds. Yet, it keeps coming back, especially whenever another school shooting happens. Because of incidents like Columbine, “Jeremy” has rarely gotten airplay. It seems like most people would like to forget it. But, we can’t.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 8, 2009 14:00:05 GMT -5
4. Michael Jackson—“Smooth Criminal”
Album: Bad Label: Epic Records Director: Colin Chilvers
And now, for something completely different. Michael Jackson made a movie. In 1988, “Moonwalker” came out. The movie is basically a 93 minute trip through Jackson’s ego. An “ego trip” if you will. There’s not much of a plot. It starts off with the video for “Man In The Mirror” and then moves onto a montage of Jackson’s career up to Bad, a version of the video “Bad” with kids in place of adults, Jackson running from his adoring fans, Jackson dancing with a claymation rabbit, and the video for “Leave Me Alone.” Then, it finally gets to the plot: Jackson and some kids accidentally overhear the plans of Mr. Big (Joe Pesci) and go on the run as he tries to kill them. It’s…um…weird to say the least. However, about halfway through, Jackson, wearing a sweet ass white suit, walks into a bar, throws a quarter across the room into a jukebox, and gives us what may very well be the coolest thing to ever be put onto celluloid. It matches the song well. “Smooth Criminal” is a galvanizing, guitar-heavy song that presents a murky murder scenario and has that infamous refrain (for the record, he’s singing “Annie, are you okay?”!). It’s foreboding and ridiculously, repeatedly listenable; the video is also foreboding and demands repeated viewings. It also has this cool retro look with its film-noir night shots and dapper, Dick Tracy-style costumes. And, Jackson looks awesome in the video. I mean, it manages to make him look badass. Think about it. Michael Jackson was a skinny, effeminate man who’s skin was whitening at the time. A little kid could have probably kicked his ass. Yet, in this video, Jackson has this cool, cocky swagger that makes him look like a guy you don’t want to challenge to a fight. And, the video gives us Jackson’s coolest move: the antigravity lean. It’s so awesome that it’s not humanly possible to do. Seriously! The lean was achieved using special harnesses with wires and magnets. And, to do it during concerts, Jackson had to invent a special shoe in order to do it. It’s not surprising that this is the best part of “Moonwalker.” The lead up to it was just a shrine to Jackson, and the stuff that happens after it is…well…weird (Jackson turns into a transformer, seriously!). Nevertheless, this is the only reason to watch “Moonwalker.” It’s such an awesome clip that doesn’t really get enough love. “Thriller” is Jackson’s video that gets the most praise, but this is the one that deserves it. He took all that entertaining coolness from “Thriller” and improved on it ten fold with “Smooth Criminal.” Though he does have one better video, “Smooth Criminal” is Michael Jackson at his coolest.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 8, 2009 14:18:48 GMT -5
3. Peter Gabriel—“Sledgehammer”
Album: So Label: Geffen Records Director: Stephen R. Rosen
You know, this video deserves a spot on the list just for the hard work it took to make it. I mean, just look at it. It looks it took them forever to make this damn video. But, all the hard work paid off. Peter Gabriel and director Stephen R. Johnson teamed with the Brothers Quay and Nick Park ("Wallce & Gromit") in an effort to make a video that Gabriel called "a bit groundbreaking." Clearly meeting their lofty goal, 1986's "Sledgehammer" paved a stop-motion, claymation path for videos by Primus, Tool and, most recently, The White Stripes. Though the award-winning "Sledgehammer" isn't exactly profound, its visual pretenses are crafty and certainly fun to watch. The impressive claymation and pixelation techniques gel perfectly with the playful atmosphere of the song while also expanding the boundaries of what a music video could be. But, it’s not just the special effects and hard work that make it so great. While they ensure it a spot on the list, they’re not the reason that it got ranked so high. So, what did? Simply put, “Sledgehammer” is a work of absolute, cheeky genius. There’s a sense of childlike playfulness throughout, from the opening shots of blood pumping along to the music (What part of the body is that? Hmm.) to the literal manifestations of the countless sexual metaphors. Makes me laugh every time, especially during the lines “You could have a steam train / If you’d just lay down your tracks,” and “Show me round your fruit cage / Cause I will be your honeybee.” “Sledgehammer” isn’t just a euphemism for the penis; it’s also how subtle this video and song are. But, who needs subtly? This video clearly works with out it. I sometimes wonder if this video would air on MTV if it premiered nowadays, what with moral conservatism running rampant. Then again, moral conservatism was pretty high then; and it still got on the network. Maybe people were too mesmerized by the dancing chickens to notice the song lyrics.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 8, 2009 14:47:50 GMT -5
2. Michael Jackson—“Billie Jean” www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-cHBv7UpAAlbum: Thriller Label: Epic Records Director: Steve Barron If “Thriller” is Michael Jackson at the height of his epicness and “Smooth Criminal” is him at his coolest, then “Billie Jean” is Jackson at his entertaining best. Well, actually, it’s one half of his entertaining best. The other half is him performing “Billie Jean” as the Motown 25 special in 1983. In that performance, Jackson was on stage alone; and he had everyone captivated with his singing, his presence, and his moonwalking. In “Billie Jean” the video, Jackson is just as much of a force to reckon with. How fucking cool was Michael Jackson that he could light up a sidewalk with the tap of his foot? The sidewalks are acknowledging his growing superstardom, and, by proxy, so did his audience. In this legendary video for the Grammy-winning smash single "Billie Jean," Jackson plays an urban Dorothy who walks on down the road and challenges an ex-fling's restraining order...or something to that effect. In a 1999 interview with MTV, Jackson could barely remember who directed the clip though he did reveal that the best part of the video was entirely his idea. Director Steve Barron didn't want any dancing in the video, but what he didn't know then was that to prevent Michael Jackson from dancing was not unlike dangling a baby from a fourth-floor balcony. Just wrong. Since then, “Billie Jean” has grown to legendary status. A lot of it has to do with a huge misnomer: that it was the first video to feature a black artist to air on MTV. Technically, it wasn’t. Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, Joan Armatrading, Tina Turner, Jon Butcher Axis, The Bus Boys, and Donna Summer were some of the Black artists whose videos were shown during MTV's inception. But, they were let on the air because their music fit MTV’s rock format. They wouldn’t show Jackson because he was a black man who played “black music,” which was stupid because some of the pioneers of rock (B.B. King, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry) were black, making rock “black music.” Anyway, that was pretty much the answer Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson's record label, CBS, got when he approached MTV to play the "Billie Jean" video. Yetnikoff became enraged when MTV refused to play the video, and threatened to go public with MTV's stance on black musicians. "I said to MTV, ‘I’m pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I’m not going to give you any more videos. And I’m going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don’t want to play music by a black guy.’" MTV relented and played the "Billie Jean" video in heavy rotation. So, technically, “Billie Jean” was the first video to feature a black artist to get played in heavy rotation on MTV. And, thanks to that, rap was able to pretty much take over the network in the 1990s. But, it isn't just the history that makes “Billie Jean” so great. It’s Jackson. The man was one of the greatest entertainers of all time. He really knew how to put on a spectacle filled with cool special effects and lots of dancers. But, he didn’t need any of that. Jackson was at his most entertaining when he was on his own. He had a charisma and swagger that could keep anyone entertain, and he knew it. That’s why “Billie Jean” is his greatest video. It’s just Michael Jackson, alone, entertaining the world.
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