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.

NT's greatest hits, no. 23 (of 34)

Just when you thought it was forgotten…

"Message in a Bottle" by the Police

I have a sister, three years older. Based on her musical tastes, I often speak of a subgenre of rock & roll I call "Older Sister Music." Sort of pop-goth acts, e.g., Depeche Mode, the Cure, the Smiths. Not that only older sisters are into these sounds—I love the Smiths, and the BQT's door girl Sherry—youngest of three—is a hardcore OSM fan—but these bands seem emblematic of a type of teenage girl of the '80s and '90s who seemed perpetually two to four years older than me.

Yet far and above, growing up my sister's favorite band was the Police. Not a unique choice in the early to mid-'80s, but she was particularly dedicated; she had a three-foot-diameter copy of Synchronicity hung on her bedroom wall. And while I never picked up on Depeche Mode via next-bedroom-over osmosis, I did become a pretty ardent Police fan, of which I remain (Sting solo I can take or leave, especially after his management office fired DJ GB's husband).

Like the Beatles, the Police hit a sweet spot of massive fan adulation and critical appreciation. And listening to their best work, it's kind of amazing how such creative musicianship broke through to the masses on the level it did; the first few Police records combined punk rock and exotic, far-afield rhythms in a way that no one else picked up on, at least until the past few years (Vampire Weekend and bands of that ilk seem to get it, and they do have their moments). But "Message in a Bottle," my favorite Police song, is on the more conventional side: a terse and tense new-wave rock tune, with an intensely repeating guitar figure. It's a good opportunity for the band to show off its musical chops—Stewart Copeland is justly hailed as a mind-blowing drummer, but I don't think Andy Summers and Sting ever got full credit for how adept they were at their own instruments, to which "Message in a Bottle" is strong testament. And while Sting's high and yelpy vocal style is ripe for parody, it worked perfectly for this music and subject matter, at least back then (1979 this song was released).

Speaking of which, "Message in the Bottle" shows Sting's lyrical style mutating from open expressions of isolation and self-pity ("Can't Stand Losing You" is hilariously sad) to the exotic but fairly transparent metaphors of Synchronicity. "Message in a Bottle" is particularly elegant, in that it tells the story simply and unpretentiously, with plenty of palpable emotion. At the same time, it rocks, satisfying that other major aspect of my musical interest. This song is brilliant, this band was excellent. My sister was right about some things.

More of NT's greatest hits: "Emily Kane," "Born to Run," "Shake Some Action," "Chips Ahoy!," "Radio, Radio," "Could You Be the One?," "Summer in the City," "Teenage Kicks," "Strawberry Fields Forever, " "Tunnel of Love," "I Get Around," "Local Girls," "Don't Let's Start," "Suffragette City," "See-Saw," "My Name Is Jonas," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Reelin' in the Years," "Objects of My Affection" and "Crimson and Clover," "OK Apartment" and "Just What I Needed"