I’d figure a lot come from the 80’s, with the advent of MTV.
In Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield”, there’s at least two butt-brained things in it - the sneering, pimpadelic bar manager, and the classy boob-jiggling dance shimmy at 3:20.
If words can describe this execrable next offering then I’d probably win the Nobel Prize for Describing Execrable Next Offerings. I am sorry, but the lyric “just need your luuuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvv” will soon become a terrifying earworm.
At 2:42 in what I can’t even get myself to describe…well…oh, just watch it.
Any second of footage where Rob Halford or a headbanded Mike Reno (Loverboy) appears.
Or a sneering Billy Idol shadowboxing into the camera. (there seemed to be a lot more sneering back then) Yeah - I have a special place in my hate-on heart for that poser shit-heel.
I thought my detestation of this song would bias my view of the following, but no, it’s shit as well.
Band members pretending to play invisible instruments on a deserted industrial dock? OK, this music video is off to a bad start.
But what makes it special is what happens starting at 1:07.
Check out the guy with a mustache on the right, flailing around half-heartedly like an arrhythmic boy who’s just realized that he has arms, so awkwardly that he has to move his foot at one point to keep his balance and then, at 1:13… WTF is that you ask? Sheer bliss, I say.
They manage to hit every single metal cliché… and each of them is wrong in its own wonderful way. Highlights include the rythm guitarist at 0:20, and the grand waterfall solo at 3:44
On one episode of Family Guy they actually played the entire video for David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s version of “Dancing in the Streets” in which Bowie and Jagger prance around an abandoned building in silly clothes. I won’t link to the video because I might actually watch some of it and I don’t think I could take that again, but suffice it to say that the style has dated very, very badly.
That wasn’t supposed to be a proper music video. It was hastily put together for Live Aid and ended up being played more widely than they anticipated. At one point Jagger, I think, takes a swig of Coca Cola like it’s lunchbreak.
It was even given its own chapter in MTV’s oral history book as the video that killed a career.
It was directed by the wonderfully gifted directed Kenny Ortega - who has gone on to work with Michael Jackson, do High School Musical and much more. Ortega convinced Squier that pink silk was a cool look and that prancing around a pink bedroom made Squier look fierce.
Oops.
ETA: Yeah, Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield is hilarious. I remember watching that when she breaks into the Michael Jackson group dance with the shimmying - all the while with Benatar looking hard to sell the tough song lyric. Man, could it be more obvious that she only cares about singing? (I mean that in a good way - she’s a pro and knows what she does well)
Yeah, the Billy Squier one has to be the shining example of this. I watched a lot of MTV in my college years - a LOT - and I can remember shaking my head wondering what he was thinking prancing around with all those satin sheets.
Another “great” moment from someone trying to figure out how this music video stuff worked was Ronnie James Dio in the video for “Rainbow In The Dark.” When he gets to the lyric “You’re just a picture” he brings his hands up in front of his face to form a rectangle … you know, like a picture. The very next lyric is “You’re an image caught in time,” whereupon he points to his wrist, where one might wear a wristwatch. Get it? Time?
The very obviousness of Dio’s gestures during this hard rocking song was close to laughable.
Hey, I saw it wasn’t in the OP, then scrolled down and still didn’t see it. Oh yeah - jumpin’ on that!
Squier is a great guitarist and really had a good 80’s hardrock thing going on. I still love songs like In the Dark and Lonely is the Night. But yeah, man, that video still makes me squirm.
I’ve seen Prince perform in assless pants and make it work - safe to say, however, that Squier is not Prince
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If words can describe this execrable next offering then I’d probably win the Nobel Prize for Describing Execrable Next Offerings. I am sorry, but the lyric “just need your luuuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvvv” will soon become a terrifying earworm.
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This looks like the opening credits to a really bad 80s sitcom, perhaps the long-lost spin-off of the Diff’rent Strokes/Perfect Strangers cross-over, “Livin’ Large.”
During the whole video the guy is singing to an eight year old girl, and it really looks bad.
I had to read the YouTube comments to figure out what was going on. In short, the child is the product of the Roman dude’s wife and his fan-bearing slave, hence “tainted love”
It still looks very creepy when he is singing to the girl.
Can’t youtube link at work but … Winger’s video for Seventeen features Kip Winger singing lead and what can only be described as posing with a bass guitar. He never actually touches the strings during the entire video. Once you notice it, you can’t watch anything else in the video.
The biggest issue with Winger is that once B&Butthead put words to what everyone was thinking - AND it turned out that Kip Winger took ballet lessons and you could kinda see that in his cool-guy moves - and it was a recipe for mockery.
I recall reading an interview with Pat Benetar, who admitted she had two left feet and could not dance to save her life. In particular, ‘Love is a Battlefield’.
She said something about they kept the camera above her waist ‘and physically moved her legs around so that she looked like she was dancing’ - an awkward situation! No wonder she looked silly, she was pretty much out of her element!
As someone who as seen Winger live on more than one occasion, I can report that it looks just as weird in concert. However, the times that I saw them, they actually put on a hell of a show.
I’m not sure I understand this. What is the issue with Rob Halford? Or is it just 80’s Rob Halford?
This whole thread is reminding me of David Lee Roth’s Just a Gigolo Video where he walked from video shoot to video shoot spoofing all the 80s looks.
My hall of shame video submissions: Any Kiss video after they took off their makeup. Special mention to Lick it Up where they debuted their non makeup look.
