# Music videos where the band/singer doesn't appear **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408 "2009-09-17T04:24:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/41 "2009-09-18T14:55:50Z")
Michael Penn, his song “long way down” has one of the most amazing videos ever and the studio was pissed that he wasnt in it so his only appearance was at the very end as a still photo of him sticking his tongue out…probably the final straw between him and the studio. ---
**Author:** ![cactus\_waltz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@cactus\_waltz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cactus_waltz)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/42 "2009-09-18T17:29:31Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > Actually, the band (drawn) is in the video. They’re in the background during the bar scene. Well, shoot. Now I really want to find a Radiohead-less Radiohead video. ---
**Author:** ![unwashed\_brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@unwashed\_brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unwashed_brain)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/43 "2009-09-18T18:06:35Z")
> [@cactus\_waltz](#): > > Well, shoot. Now I really want to find a Radiohead-less Radiohead video. Don’t think they’re in the vid for Pyramid Song, which has a beautiful ending. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/44 "2009-09-18T20:35:16Z")
> [@Postariti](#): > > They Might Be Giants - Istanbul Not Constantinople Actually, at some point in that video you can see the John’s heads. I’m not sure where I heard it, maybe in the commentary for the video on “Direct from Brooklyn” that in order for a video to be played on MTV at the time, you had to have the band in it at some point. So they pasted their faces into the stop-motion animation. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/45 "2009-09-20T12:59:12Z")
Didn’t the video for C+C Music Factory’s song Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) have Zelma Davis lip-syncing Martha Wash because Martha was “too fat” to be in a video? ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/46 "2009-09-20T16:56:53Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > Didn’t the video for C+C Music Factory’s song Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) have Zelma Davis lip-syncing Martha Wash because Martha was “too fat” to be in a video? But that video featured Freedom Williams as well as Clivillés and Cole… so only one artist wasn’t featured. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/47 "2009-09-20T17:03:58Z")
Quite a few wrestling promotions produced music videos back in the day. Likely violated the hell out of copyright in so doing, but they’d take a popular song and dub it over footage of featured wrestlers. Ones I can remember off the top of my head include _Here I go Again_ featuring Kerry Von Erich, _Sharp Dressed Man_ featuring a tag team called The Fantastics, and _The Boys are Back in Town_ featuring a six-man team called the Freebirds. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/48 "2009-09-20T20:41:32Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Quite a few wrestling promotions produced music videos back in the day. Likely violated the hell out of copyright in so doing, but they’d take a popular song and dub it over footage of featured wrestlers. Ones I can remember off the top of my head include _Here I go Again_ featuring Kerry Von Erich, _Sharp Dressed Man_ featuring a tag team called The Fantastics, and _The Boys are Back in Town_ featuring a six-man team called the Freebirds. Back when I watched it a lot, they (WWE, which was the WWF at the time) did something like that for the song “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by Wang Chung. Damn it was lame. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/49 "2009-09-20T23:28:50Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > But that video featured Freedom Williams as well as Clivillés and Cole… so only one artist wasn’t featured. Title of the thread says singer, not the whole group. Plus they replaced the original with a more attractive version, so it probably deserves a mention. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/50 "2009-09-21T08:12:07Z")
> [@caligulathegod](#): > > Title of the thread says singer, not the whole group. Plus they replaced the original with a more attractive version, so it probably deserves a mention. The title is “Music videos where the band/singer doesn’t appear” so it seems it can be either/or. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2009, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408/51 "2009-09-21T13:15:12Z")
Not strictly in the “they don’t appear” sense, but Depeche Mode appears only briefly in the awesome video for [Wrong](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bsXOcK9_Cw). Pretty much, as the car drives down the street, it drives by them and they stare at it in slow motion for a few seconds. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-videos-where-the-band-singer-doesnt-appear/510408.md?page=2)