The
three videos that I mentioned loving yesterday ("Take Me Home
Please", "My Own Worst Enemy", and "I'm Not Okay")
were not just videos that I have liked over the course of a long life of
watching music videos, but they were also three that I used to play together. I
played them along with a fourth video, except I didn't like that video that
much, and was only playing it to hear the song. That song was Alkaline Trio's
"Mercy Me":
I
love this song, but I don't really care for the video. It is inventive and
visually interesting, and the images don't really take away from the song. Obviously the favorites mentioned had strong humorous elements, but
there is some humor here too. I don't have any clear reason for not liking the
video; it just doesn't do it for me.
There
may be a tone mismatch. While I say the images don't really distract from the
sounds, at the same time, the images don't have the same energy. Also, there
may be kind of an "uncanny valley" effect going on, where they look
almost natural, but not quite. That mismatch can repel people. (This may also
be my some people find clowns off-putting.)
I'm
leaning more toward the aesthetic issue, because as I look back on the various
videos that I hated, and would refuse to watch, with a lot of them it was that
there was something ugly or gross about them. This included George Thorogood
ripping off his face to reveal robot parts in "Bad to the Bone", the
Spitting Image puppets in "Land of Confusion" by Genesis, squished
hands and residual tentacle slime in Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy", and the
clay forming images on and around Peter Gabriel's head in
"Sledgehammer".
It
may also include the faces morphing in Godley & Creme's "Cry". I'm
not sure that it does, because morphing has been used in a lot of other videos
and not bothered me. I think maybe the problem was that I didn't like the song
that much, which kind of leads to one of my most hated videos of all time, "Ebony
& Ivory", by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney.
I
did not start out hating "Ebony & Ivory", but then it started
stalking me. The climax was when I came home from school one day and turned on
the television. It was on MTV, so I switched to VH1, and it was there too. I turned
off the television and switched on the radio, and it was there too. Obviously
with all of that switching I had already started hating the song, but that was
the clearest sign of its level of infiltration.
Just
two years earlier I remembered not minding that songs got overplayed, because
they were songs I liked. Why did I hate this one so much? I think the issue is
that it's not a very good song.
I
hate saying that, because I'm in favor of racial harmony, but if we are going
to address such an important topic, can we do a little better lyrically?
We all know that people are the same wherrrrre EVer you go
Side by side on my pi-an-o keeeeey-board, oh Lord why don't
weeeeee?
Cake
gets away with having the lyrics mismatch the tempo, but they're edgier. I
think it's a bad song, and in small doses you can overlook it, but over and
over again it could actually increase racism and desires for segregation. And
Stevie Wonder, I know you can and have done better.
I
have been re-watching these videos before writing, and one thing I remember
from some kind of "I Love the '80s" special was them talking about
music video cliches, and that if you didn't know what to do there were a few
standbys like curtains blowing in the wind. Guess how "Ebony &
Ivory" starts?
So
maybe it's easier to make a lazy video for a lazy song, but there's one other
video that really bugs me. This is the one where everyone will know my
judgment can't be trusted, so I guess it's good that I saved it for last. I'm
not a big fan of "Thriller".
I
never got into Michael Jackson. I tried, because it sure felt like everyone
else loved him, but eventually I just accepted it. Because I did not really
like his music, I never grew to love any of his videos, but I would still watch
them, except for "Thriller".
Part
of this is the ugly/gross thing, which keeps me from enjoying zombies. Beyond
that, looking back at it now, I feel like the song does not serve the video. The
length is monstrous, but very little of the footage actually has the song playing,
and playing the song over those segments would not feel right.
There
are things that are interesting about it. The opening segment does definitely
hit some points for harking back to the '50s creature features, and we use some
of the dolly tracking shots that we associate with the '70s - it hits some of
the right notes - it just takes too long, and it feels like with too little
purpose. Whether that is more of a John Landis issue or a Michael Jackson
issue, or just an issue of them collaborating, I don't know.
Most
likely their goal was to make something really cool, rather than thinking
specifically about what the music video would do for that song. The song did end
up being very popular, and Michael Jackson made a lot of money, so it's hard to
argue with success. I still don't like it.
Nonetheless,
tomorrow we will spend some time on the purpose of music videos.
Sledgehammer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWJE0x7T4Q
Ebony
& Ivory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmALA8miQY8
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