80's Video Critical Interpretation: Lesson Three

Time for me to bring back one of my favorite recurring posts to the blog: The 80’s Video Rewind in which I dissect one of the classic videos from my youth. Tonight we will be focusing on Steve Perry’s solo hit “Oh, Sherrie.” Solo as in a) not with Journey and b) the only hit he had where he wasn’t a member of Journey. Let’s break it down…

1) I don’t know if anyone ever knew why he did a non-Journey album or exactly how this song differed from every other Journey song. There isn’t much difference between this song and Open Arms in that they are both sappy love songs. In fact, the only way that you can tell that it is not a Journey video is due to the complete lack of people playing keyboards that are attached to the side of a warehouse.

2) At this point in human history (1984 to be exact) Steve Perry was considered a sex symbol. After seeing him in closeup during this video you truly wonder just how in the world that could even be possible. Sure the dude had some serious pipes to him but he is not what one would consider to be a handsome man in the traditional sense. Even as a kid I couldn’t figure out how he would get a girl like Sherrie and this is made even more confusing by the fact that the woman in the video is his girlfriend who happens to be named Sherrie. To be honest even as an adult I can’t quite believe it.

3) Back in the good old days of MTV a video could have a minute worth of things happening before the song even starts. In this instance it is the filming of what would have been a much cooler video at least to the 11 year old me. A fight between good and evil in a primeval forest? Why couldn’t we get that video? What always amazed me is that the production costs for this video must have been astronomical as they had to film all of that wedding scene with the huge cast and costumes and props all to set up the fact that the actual video was going to consist mainly of Steve Perry singing on a staircase at a train station. Also makes you wonder why they just didn’t film that in the first place.

4) On your list of mid-80’s music clichés we have a) the British video director wearing a skinny tie who is of a firm belief that a Steve Perry video is fine art, b) a gum chewing, over made up publicist with comically large glasses and c) the music reporter with the severe platinum blonde hair who feels that the opportunity to interview Steve Perry is the highlight of her career.

5) For the guitar solo section of the song Steve Perry is playing a broom while someone else is rocking out on a lute. Now viewing this outside the realm of video this is clearly insane. While I can understand Steve Perry getting upset with the video shoot and running off to just sing the song and maybe even play a broom when he gets to what he knows is the guitar solo how the hell is the other guy on the stairs supposed to know there is a guitar solo going on? Did they cue up the music or something?

6) Here is your first verse “You should’ve been gone / knowing how I made you feel / and I’ve should’ve been gone / after all your words of steel”. I have no idea what words of steel are outside of possibly carbon and stainless.

7) In fact, the entire song is about how they would be better off apart. Yeah, the chorus is about how their love holds on but every other line discusses how they should have been gone. It’s not really that uplifting a love song.

8) Finally, the reason why the eleven year old in me will always remember this video: you could totally tell that Sherrie wasn’t wearing a bra. I’m not proud of knowing this fact but as an eleven year old boy before the days of the internet facts like this were very important.

80's Weeked Rewind: # 1

Herbie Hancock MTV Music

So I am relaunching the 80’s Weekend Rewind series as we once again focus on a video that defines that era of popular music. This week’s entry: Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit”

As most people know pretty much everything that I learned growing up came from MTV. It is how I discovered what vegemite was, discovered that dance offs were typically used to settle urban conflicts and that robots were super cool. I’m pretty sure that everyone my age who is into robotics (and this is from a guy who has not only improved the AI of his Roomba but added spinning blades of death just to make things more interesting) can point to this video as the source of their love for the field. There is just something awesome about a house filled with robots that serve no apparent purpose.

However, the more interesting part about this video (and song) is the rumor that I knew growing up that this song was so dirty they would not allow the lyrics to be played on MTV. I swore that this was true growing up. The only explanation as to why there was just music and a few highly garbled words was that the song was so blatantly about sex that they had to ban it outright. The idea that there could be a song without words was completely foreign to me.

That said, why are so many of the robots wearing lingerie? What is that one in the bed actually doing? And for the love of God, why is one getting its head smashed into a bowl of breakfast cereal? No one has ever successfully answered any of those questions for me. All I know is this. I so totally have to build a set of those dancing robot legs.

80's Weekend Rewind #9

Styx MTV Music

In honor of Obama’s victory and the fact that my hometown of Chicago has returned to its rightful place in the national spotlight I felt that I should honor the greatest band in the history of the city: Styx. Oh, stop your bitching. Cheap Trick is from Rockford, REO Speedwagon is from Champaign and I’m not going to even talk about a band that featured Peter Cetera. (Yeah, Smashing Pumpkins was cool but Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness cannot compare to Kilroy Was Here).

This is what modern music is missing. What band has the same sense of style as Styx shows in this video? Dennis DeYoung dressed as a vaudeville piano player. James Young wearing what appears to be a white jumpsuit with the largest shoulder pads ever made. The rhythm section runs the gamut of attire from the bass player in a tuxedo to a drummer who is inexplicably in shorts. And above all you have Tommy Shaw dressed as, well, Tommy Shaw. You always got the sense that he never could quite understand what was going on around him.

Just be happy I didn’t choose Come Sail Away as the song…

80's Weekend Rewind #8

Journey MTV Music

(Author’s Note: I’m trying out the delayed post option here so hopefully you’ll see this at some point. Also, if this isn’t proof of the awesome power of mtvmusic.com I don’t know what is. Because I’ve been wanting to post this for months but YouTube wouldn’t let me embed it.)

There is nothing more classic 80’s than Journey’s Separate Ways. Let us detail the awesomeness at hand in this one.

· Steve Perry is wearing a t-shirt that is so tight that we can see that this song is making him very excited.
· The drummer is wearing a shirt that reads “Foosball”
· Dramatic cuts! Every five seconds! Always seeming to end on a closeup of Steve Perry’s face, which is in great need of moisturizer.
· Air keyboards! Yes, someone told the keyboardist to act like he was playing despite the fact that there was nothing there.
· There is a woman powerwalking through a loading dock throughout the entire video and it is never referred to or elaborated on.
· The poor keyboardist also has to play with his keyboard attached to the side of the building.
· I believe at one point there is a closeup of Steve Perry’s mouth and I would have been glad to have gone my entire life without seeing that image.
· The other four guys in the band simultaneously turn to the camera to sing the chorus.
· The drummer is at one point playing on oil barrels. This was obviously back before it became a precious resource.
· All of the guys in the band, standing on loading pallets, trying to rock out to the camera without instruments.

And to think this was the biggest band on the planet.

80's Weekend Rewind #7

Tonight on your 80's weekend rewind I bring you back to a nine year old boy's favorite video: The Tubes "She's a Beauty". For a nine year old this is like Nirvana. It is a strip club and a roller coaster all in one!

(Seriously, I always thought that this is what strip clubs would be like when I was a kid. Oh how disappointed I was when I found out that there was neither mermaids nor girls on trapeezes.)

For the life of me I can't explain exactly what this video is about. So we have a kid who is going on a carnival ride. But the safety system is a dominatrix, which would make Disneyland a much more interesting place. The band is playing and all acting like idiots when the camera is nearby. Then there are the strippers slash acrobats.

We then segue into a little girl performing in a ballet outfit, which seems wrong on so many levels given everything else that is going on in the video. Especially given that after seeing her they run into a tower of amps (though given the musical quality of The Tubes that might be agood thing) where we are joined by the women in cages followed by the mermaid (regular, not inverse for those wondering). By the time we reach the end the kid is now an old man.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm as screwed up as I am. Then I remember that I watched stuff like this every day for my entire childhood.

80's Weekend Rewind #6

In today’s edition of the 80s video rewind I decided that I should give a lecture on foreign relations.

Like most Americans, I have absolutely no idea how people live in the rest of the world. It is confusing enough when you travel to another part of the country and realize that, yes, you may be forced to buy your groceries at stores named Acme or Piggly Wiggly. But the culture shock that I received by going to England and wondering, “Ok, I’ve got a headache. Where is the damn Walgreens so I can get some aspirin” and being met by blank stares is rather stunning. That doesn’t even match the whole television situation with fewer channels, no programs ever starting on the hour or the half hour and the strange feeling you get when walking back from a bar, turning on the tv and seeing only nature programs being broadcast in sign language.

But at least I understood England. When you talk about the third world I don’t even have a frame of reference. I have to go back to my first introduction to those places which was, of course, Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

Imagine my surprise when I went to Mexico, which while not quite third world is probably in the second world, and discovered that things weren’t quite like they were in the video. First off, I wasn’t in India which is what I assume the setting for the video actually is. Also, there was a noted lack of mysterious women pulling me into darkened corridors or freestyle wrestling matches taking place in the jungle. (Look, I was nine when I watched the video. Even as an adult I’m not quite sure if they are having sex or if Simon LeBon is looking for an opportunity to hook her in a cross-faced chicken wing.) However, the kids rolling tires and friends of mine running out shirtless but sporting headbands showing pictures of myself to locals in an effort to locate me proved to be quite accurate.

I use this as my example as to just how narrow a view of the world that we have from pop culture. If you ask me what Bombay is like I would describe this video. Like I would be amazed to find that they have cars or electricity. Also, I would assume that I could flip over tables just because I was pissed off without setting off an international incident. As cultured as I think I am, and I probably beat the average American, I really don’t know that much about the world.

Do you know what the weirdest thing is? Twenty some years later and this is still a damn good song and I’m not afraid to say it. It just sounds really catchy and interesting. Duran Duran is one of the bands you bring up when you talk about crappy, synth laden 80s bands but the music worked for what it was. It was meant to be fun to listen to and it is. It will never change the world but you certainly wouldn’t change the station when the song came on.

80's Weekend Rewind #5

For this edition of the 80’s Weekend Rewind I am going to go back to a time when being a U2 fan was cool: Specifically, the Live at Red Rocks Concert.

As I have mentioned before I am really torn when it comes to U2. I was a huge, huge fan back when I was a teenager and note that was in the pre-Achtung Baby era. Being a U2 fan then still had some indie cred to it. Sure, Joshua Tree had broken big but they hadn’t become a football stadium band yet. Essentially, their music and style hadn’t turned to crap yet.

Ok, that is a little harsh. The music has always been decent. It is more like Bono’s act hadn’t started wearing on everyone yet. Watch this video. Bono is completely earnest in his sentiment and the crowd is wholly behind him. There is no messiah complex yet, just someone who is singing what he believes in. The problem is as the years past and the band grew bigger so did Bono’s presence and you just can’t provide an aspect of earnestness to fill a 60,000 seat stadium. You’re going to look like a jerk. There is no way around it.

That’s why I prefer this era of U2. Everything is real. The crowd has less douchebags than you will find nowadays. The band has something to prove. The Edge has hair. The sound is raw and unpolished. It just works better.

80's Weekend Rewind #4

Continuing the 80’s Weekend Rewind segment with one of the most unlikely hits of the entire 80’s: Men at Work’s “Down Under”. Let’s just list some of the degrees of awesome shown in this video.

· The classic Australian travel method of sticking a bunch of stoners in a van and driving into the desert.
· Collin Hay (the lead singer and now a rather indie music hipster) eating cereal and his own hair with the strange lady who made him breakfast.
· The short shorts on the real estate agent.
· The band member who carries a stuffed koala with him in every scene that is never commented on in any way, shape or form.
· The unleashing of the term vegemite on an unsuspecting American populace.
· When the band starts chugging beers one of the band members mistakenly drinks from the vase of flowers.
· The dance break in the middle of the song featuring the band members alternately juggling or digging in the sand.
· The den in Bombay that I never properly understood as a kid watching the video. Hadn’t been taught about Opium yet.
· The ending in which the Ark of the Covenant is seemingly replaced by the band’s gear.

Given that this is the start of the Olympics I should add in the following story. When Sydney was awarded the Summer Olympics for 2000 Collin Hay decided he had to reform Men at Work. As he said, “You know we are going to have to play Down Under at some point. We might as well sound good in the process.” I still remember them singing it during the closing ceremonies. That is a nice way of knowing that you’ve made it.

80's Weekend Rewind #3

Ok, I know that I missed my post last night. I had a relatively decent reason at the time. I had been out rather late and didn’t want to post under the influence. Plus, I needed to watch my tape of Big Brother and eviction night waits for no one. (Seriously, how did they not get rid of Jessie? Who would willingly live in a house with a body builder?) I still should have posted but I just wasn’t in the mood to write.

Today was actually worse. It is a very long story that I will not get into right now. However, it is nice to know that there are a few things that can get me out of a funk. I just wish that I didn’t have to have my life deteriorate into sheer insanity for it to happen. That said, it did get me moving.

Anyway, as part of the 80s rewind project here is one of my favorite unheard of songs from that time period: “Hourglass” by Squeeze. I remember this video as a kid and I always enjoyed it even if all it did was show you all of the fun tricks of perspective that you can use with a video camera. It also gave me a great understanding and appreciation of Magritte at a young age and there are no issues that can be made on that front. See, back in the day MTV taught me about fine art.

80's Weekend Rewind #2

Your 80’s weekend rewind, slightly delayed because I kind of forgot to post it this afternoon.

In honor of the Olympics here is the Asia classic “Only Time Will Tell”. Exactly why a gymnast is featured in the video has never been made clear. I don’t believe that anyone upon first hearing this song would immediately think “this song could be greatly improved by a tumbling routine.” It is not as though it is in time to the music or anything. Sure it is probably on beat but there is no dramatic impact.

Also, I would like to use this video as an indication of what it was like pre flat screens and digital cable. That is what a high quality television set looked like in the early 80’s. Very large boxes where the right hand portion of the box is taken up with analog dials for channel selection. Yes this is when you had a VHF and UHF selector and heaven help you if you lost the knob with the channels on it. I literally had to use pliers to change the channels on one of my sets growing up.

And as much as I would like to make fun of Asia I really can’t. As a kid I just loved their songs. And sure it is cheesy and overly synthed but it is still a great song to listen to. Basically no different than listening to Keane today. Consider that a positive thing. Anyone that makes a song that lasts 25 years has done something right.

80's Weekend Rewind #1

And now time for your inaugural 80’s Weekend Rewind, where we here at Battling the Current highlight one of the greatest songs from years gone by. And yes, the fact that these songs will typically be more than 20 years old depresses us mightily. Our first selection is one of the most awesome videos ever. Let’s list the ways, shall we?

1) The song is “In a Big Country” by the band Big Country. Typically albums are self-titled. In this case, it is the song itself that is self-titled. Makes for easy memorization.
2) The video is a ten year old EC’s dream of a James Bond adventure. Riding ATVs! Scuba Diving! Repelling down cliffs! Chasing after a strange and vaguely attractive woman but not having to, you know, have a conversation with her! What else could one want in a video?
3) I still think that the bass player is having more fun on stage than any bass player has the right to have during the concert scenes. Seriously, the guy is smiling and bouncing around. Twenty five years later I still remember the bass player.
4) Not only is the plot of the video completely unfathomable but it seems to have nothing to do with the song, which itself doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m not sure why dreams are supposed to stay with you in a large political division of a geographic entity. I certainly don’t understand why the best group of people to chase after what one assumes is treasure is a pop rock band. Seriously, it is never shown what is in the box they are chasing after. It just seems like the band decided to do a whole bunch of crazy stunts while looking rather dour and serious.
5) This is still one of my favorite songs of all time. Even with that being the case myself and every other music fan who is not directly related to the band is unable to remember anything about this song other than the chorus. Well, maybe I could remember “Growing flowers in the desert” but in all honesty I think they could replace all of the verses with just a repeat of the chorus and no one would mind.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!