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May 26, 2006
YouTube's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
Well, it’s Memorial Day weekend. Don’t have much to say, since mentally I’m already in vacation mode. Got a BBQ and my brother’s birthday and like eight trips to The Foxy Lady in my sights, so honestly, what more could I say? Other than I’m kidding about the Foxy Lady, lest my own lady come back prematurely from Italy and open up a can of whup ass. Or, as they say in Italy, a can of Chef Boyardee.
I’ll leave you with a few memories of my own, namely, 80’s music videos. I remember listening to the majority of these songs on the radio as a kid, but don’t remember a lot of these videos, to be honest. Every Saturday morning, I’d have my blank cassette tapes ready, primed to record my favorite songs of the day. Inevitably, I’d get the last 8 seconds of Casey Kasem’s anecdote about the artist in question. And inevitably, the story ended tragically. Listening to them later, you’d get a snippet like, “…and that’s why her mother never talked to her again”, or, “…told us that this song come to him as wild boars descended upon the carcasses of his cousins” or something equally horrific. Hard to enjoy “One Night In Bangkok” after such a snippet.
Earlier in the week, I listed this site, and since I have no life, I’ve watched a lot of these videos,and below are some of the best I’ve come across. And by “best” I generally mean “wow, how did we survive the 80’s without killing ourselves out of shame”.
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“Break My Stride”. I swear the director of this video mandated that they show Matthew Wilder as little as possible. And who can blame him? Wilder looks like John Oates’ dorkier cousin. And Oates already had set the bar pretty high.
“Bang”. Oh sweet f#ck. Gorky Park. This one I remember. And remember loving. Now, I realize that shouting “DA!” simply doesn’t have the visceral thrill of shouting “YEA!”. No wonder we won the Cold War.
“Once Bitten Twice Shy”. Ah, Great White. The lead singer casually tossed off the greatest monologue I ever heard while onstage in Worcester back in 1987: “Now, this next song is about f#cking. I’m not talking about sweet, nice, making love to your wife. I’m talking about nasty, dirty, down in the mud, scratching until you bleed F#CKING!” I was eleven. Good times.
“Toy Soldiers”. Not on the big list linked above, but come on. Freakin’ Martika. She had about 36% to do with my transition into pueberty. Thank you Kids Incorporated for creating a character named Ryan, who got to interact with her on a weekly basis, and maybe, you know, after the show, did stuff to her against an amplifier. Aaaaaand I’ve said too much again.
“Separate Ways”. Again, not on the megalist, but should. This video was absolutely killed on MTV’s “25 Worst Videos of All Time” show, and with good reason. (My fave part of their takedown: Jon Stewart around the 2:00 mark screaming: “Hit that wall, hit it, you pr!ck....YES!” Best moment of the show. Until they gave Vanilla Ice a baseball bat to destroy a copy of "Ice Ice Baby" and he instead destroyed the set as Chris Kattan shouted, "VANILLA! NOOOOO!" Has to be seen to be believed. Sadly, YouTube seems to be letting me down on this one. Oh well.
“Making Love Out of Nothing at All”. Oh sweet Jesus. After “Thrilller”, everyone thought they could make a video that was a minimovie. Air Supply clearly could not. Absolutely painful acting. Only redeeming quality is the singer’s Afro, truly the finest Afro rocked by an Australian in the 80’s. (Greatest mullet of the 80's? No question.)
“St. Elmo’s Fire”. Another trend in 80’s videos: awkwardly inserting actors from the movie that has your song on the soundtrack. I love that long walk Parr takes past the cast at the end at the video, where every single actor has the “what the hell are we doing here, my agent is so fired” look. Just absolutely priceless. And yet, they acquit themselves better than the cast of “The Jewel of the Nile” in this Billy Ocean classic. I mean, just…yea. (Even creepier? Check out Track 4 to the "Nile" soundtrack. The hell????)
Posted by Ryan McGee at May 26, 2006 12:00 PM