Greatest ever Music Video
Posted by: RICHYH on 25 July 2003
For me there is only one candidate****** Rick Waller - I will always Love You *****
The Plasmatics. Can't remember the song title but I'm pretty sure it's from "Beyond the Valley of 1984" ("Masterplan" maybe).
Anyway, as I remember the video, a near-topless Wendy O. rode atop a school bus (harnessed, as if it were a horse) right through a wall of televisions. Awesome.
Eric (taking a certain satisfaction in displacing herm's thoughtful Chopin prelude comparison thread with this
.
Anyway, as I remember the video, a near-topless Wendy O. rode atop a school bus (harnessed, as if it were a horse) right through a wall of televisions. Awesome.
Eric (taking a certain satisfaction in displacing herm's thoughtful Chopin prelude comparison thread with this
.Crucial correction:
The Plasmatics video was not "Masterplan" but rather "The Damned", from their 1982 album Coup D'Etat
Unsurprisingly, prudish MTV apparently refused to show this video at the time it was released (early '80s), although they did play it during a Beavis and Butthead episode in 1993. Improbably however, the plucky upstart public television station where I lived at the time (Denver's KBDI) played it repeatedly in the early '80s, so I got to see it over and over.
Twenty years on and this now strikes me as the quintessential music video: an intensly angry but unfocused and incoherent political message, punk/metalhead guys smashing their guitars into old cars in a desert, a school bus driving through a 20ft high wall of televisions, and a nearly-topless ex-hardcore-porn-starlet-turned-punk-rocker with an orange mohawk screaming:
prisoners of the dead
fear the unknown dread
tidal waves at sea
set the serpents free
coup d'etat on a global scale
opposition locked up in jail
domination the goons are the boss
human race nailed to a cross.
Can't see what more anyone could want, really.
Eric
The Plasmatics video was not "Masterplan" but rather "The Damned", from their 1982 album Coup D'Etat
Unsurprisingly, prudish MTV apparently refused to show this video at the time it was released (early '80s), although they did play it during a Beavis and Butthead episode in 1993. Improbably however, the plucky upstart public television station where I lived at the time (Denver's KBDI) played it repeatedly in the early '80s, so I got to see it over and over.
Twenty years on and this now strikes me as the quintessential music video: an intensly angry but unfocused and incoherent political message, punk/metalhead guys smashing their guitars into old cars in a desert, a school bus driving through a 20ft high wall of televisions, and a nearly-topless ex-hardcore-porn-starlet-turned-punk-rocker with an orange mohawk screaming:
prisoners of the dead
fear the unknown dread
tidal waves at sea
set the serpents free
coup d'etat on a global scale
opposition locked up in jail
domination the goons are the boss
human race nailed to a cross.
Can't see what more anyone could want, really.
Eric
quote:
does Koyannisqatsi by Phillip Glass count?
Tom, of course it doesn't man. "Music" videos aren't about art. The "music" part has only two functions:
i. to let you see your favorite rock stars rock out.
ii. to make chicks dance and thereby cause their tits to bounce up and down. (Note here that "Exercise" videos operate on the same principle and aren't about exercise either).
By the mid-80's all the basic music video moves had been made, and, in the face of dwindling MTV ratings, people tried to get creative, and make something they called "art". Of course the result was a disaster. How many times can you watch raindrops falling in a puddle? How many scenes of misty-eyed lovers longingly looking out of train windows can you see before you want to puke? MTV producers lost the plot, but if they'd just gone back and studied the old Van Halen and Whitesnake videos the genre could have been salvaged.
The only music videos that get much play today are hip-hop videos. Why are they successful? Because they show people's favorite rappers and DJs bouncing up and down and girls with tits bouncing up and down with them. Watch and you'll see.
So I'm afraid that if you're going to start referring to characters like Glass you'll have to join herm in the Chopin room (and bring your stopwatch
).Eric
quote:
of course it doesn't man. "Music" videos aren't about art. The "music" part has only two functions:
i. to let you see your favorite rock stars rock out.
ii. to make chicks dance and thereby cause their tits to bounce up and down...........
How many times can you watch raindrops falling in a puddle? How many scenes of misty-eyed lovers longingly looking out of train windows can you see before you want to puke? ....
And it's only Monday morning!
quote:
Originally posted by Ludwig:
Herbie Hancock, "Rockit" is the coolest but I don't know about "greatest".
DAMN!!! Someone beat me to it - that is one wild video...
Other ones I thought were kind of cool, but probably look horrible now are:
Money for nothing - Dire Straits
Brothers in arms - Dire Straits
Take on me - Aha (how dated - but how cool when it was out?)
Heart - Pet Shop Boys
Chocolate girl - Deacon Blue (these last two,IIRC, told "stories" and worked really well.
The jack that house built - Jack'n'chill (cheesy techno video to match cheesy techno track - the boy was from Plymouth - probably the only cool thing to come out of Plymouth, well barring me of course
well, not, but anyway!)Life on your own - Human League (loved the way all the people just disappeared - one of the only things on telly I remember clearly from when I was 8...)
Fell in love with a girl - White Stripes - Lego can be such fun!
I've NEVER seen Sledgehammer - I heard so much about it but I've NEVER EVER seen it! And I watch a fair ammount of TV...
When the music's over turn out the lights
quote:
Originally posted by John Channing:
_The jack that house built - Jack'n'chill _
I've got that on 12"! I was still at school when it came out and I believe it is now quite sort after.
John
I've got two copies from Ebay - both non-mint, but they amazingly both sound OK. I gave the worse condition one to a mate
I was 12 when it charted - it's one of the first "dance" tracks that did anything for me - love the intricate use of sampling in it - way more innovative than stuff like Krush's House Arrest (though I seem to remember the video to that was kind of cool too).When the music's over turn out the lights