June 20, 2010

Some bad music videos, part I

I've had crappy music videos on the mind. Come join me, will you not?





Billy Ocean…that guy had a zillion hits during the '80s, sold an insane number of records, yet he's all but forgotten, minus the occasional appearance of "Caribbean Queen" on a compilation CD, slotted between "The Warrior" and "Goody Two Shoes." I just had an epic weekend of nerdiness, trading pop culture tidbits with a member of Team! The Musical, and "Caribbean Queen" came into the mix ("it's simply…awesome"). We talked about the B.Osh, what little we could recall—I remembered his real name (Leslie Charles, from Trinidad), but I got an intriguing trivia factoid wrong: I had believed he started as a touring bassist for Sting, but it was sort of the other way around; Sting considered ditching the Police early on for a job playing bass for the O-Man (makes sense, since Sting wasn't solo till after the O'ster hit it big).

And I mentioned CQ's follow-up single, "Loverboy." No one seems to remember this, even though it hit No. 2 in 1985. But I did recall the video. And I watched it again for the first time in decades. Errh…

What junk this is. I'm picturing Billy Ocean's handlers (a guy like that has lots of handlers), in the brainstorming session: "Listen, Billy, you're a star! We're gonna take you to the stars! Have you heard about this thing all the kids love, this Star Wars thing?" Never mind that Return of the Jedi was two years gone at this point, and the Cantina scene (which this video is clearly imitating) was going on a decade old.

And man, this is stupid looking. We have an expressionless two-legged tauntaun, eying a character from the Dark Crystal, who's apparently making time with a cross between a puffer fish and Joseph Merrick. Meanwhile, a bunch of extras are walking around aimlessly in lame costumes: there's TV Head, 1960s American Astronaut Stereotype, Crow T. Robot's prototype, Jabba the Hut's uglier cousin, and Octavo the clown from Scarface. Intermittently, we see Billy singing in an abandoned hookah bar, visible via floating pyramid. What's going on here? Tauntaun wants Dark Crystal, so he goes all Greedo on Puffer Merrick, forcibly grabs her, she puts up minimal resistance, then they escape to the beach from the end of Planet of the Apes as a trio of dollar-store Jawas sing along. What does this have to do with the song? What does this have to do with anything???

The Ocean-ographer, it turns out, still tours and records, a little more successful in the U.K. than here, and he seems to have cachet among a lot of R&B stars as a crossover-success elder statesman. Nearly every musician who was around in the '80s has something to be embarrassed about, but the "Loverboy" video is really the bottom of the barrel. And this from a guy who would later record "Get Out of My Dreams, Get Into My Car"! Sting made the right move.

Tomorrow: In the early days of MTV, musicians really didn't know how to make videos, how to deal with the camera being on. Stay tuned for the silly results.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

roshe run
chi flat iron
ugg boots clearance sale
uggs on sale
ugg black friday
new balance shoes
discount uggs
tory burch black friday
fendi handbags
ugg boots for kids
cheap uggs
cheap uggs uk
michael kors bags
cheap ugg boots for sale
kate spade
nike roshe run
nike kd 6
genuine uggs
cheap ugg boots uk
uggs on sale
uggs outlet online
dansko shoes
uggs uk
p90x workout
ugg boots outlet
cheap basketball shoes
ugg boots sale uk
balenciaga bag
ugg boots sale
genuine ugg boots
ugg outlet store
vera bradley black friday 2014
tiffany & co

John said...

coach outlet
nike air huarache
michael kors bags
adidas running shoes
cheap oakley sunglasses
louboutin sale
adidas
ralph lauren outlet
longchamp handbags
cheap oakley sunglasses
20170325yuanyuan

chenmeinv0 said...

michael kors handbags
adidas yeezy
oakley sunglasses canada
michael kors bags
nike outlet
longchamp bags
coach factory outlet
ed hardy clothing
ray ban sunglasses
adidas originals zx flux
2017.3.31xukaimin

caiyan said...

rockets jerseys
oakley sunglasses on sale
louboutin outlet
coach outlet online
cheap nfl jerseys
birkenstock outlet
tory burch outlet online
michael kors uk
coach outlet online
air max 90
0411shizhong

Sonia Perez said...

Que gran post. Me hace muy raro que haya bares de cachimbas abandonados. Y más que hoy en día, es decir, en la actualidad cada ve hay más bares de ese tipo y más personas, más que todo la juventud que suelen fumar hookahs. Gran blog.