Five Films For Friday
I posted a spot of video yesterday, which I don’t normally do. Not that I don’t get sent videos by people, more that… well, I don’t know why, really. I guess I spend enough time trying to figure out what I want to write about albums, I don’t really make time to think about videos much. Besides, at the level of music I am generally interested in most videos are just a vehicle for the song anyway. And I can listen to albums whilst doing my proper job, which also hel… you’ve dozed off haven’t you? Sorry.
Anyhow, this week I have posted a massive THREE videos. Three! How ’bout that. And this weekend there will be another eight going up, from the New Year’s House Gig, including something of an exclusive: a new Broken Records song. So there you go, we’ve turned into some sort of multimedia news-whore hipster haven in the new year, shocking isn’t it.
So, on yesterday’s posting of the new OK Go video, Bart suggested that I ask about favourite music videos for this week’s Friday Fives. I thought I answered him politely enough, but the poor fellow’s gone completely off the rails. I tried to get to the bottom of what he was burbling on about in that inscrutable ginger way of his, but all he said was this:
And erm, tee hee, sorry! Gingers – the last ethnic minority it’s okay to ritualistically make fun of. Anyhow, minor mentalist distractions aside, I thought this was an excellent idea, so this week’s five will all be about music videos. This should be as good an opportunity to de-lurk as any, and of course, that’s what the Friday Fives are for – getting people out of the woodwork and onto the page – so have a go at these five. the easiest way to answer is probably to just link to the YouTube videos where appropriate, I guess, but please don’t try and embed them in the comments. I have no idea if it would work, and it will make the whole thread an ungodly mess – just paste in the URL and the link will be added automatically.
1. Favourite music video
2. Favourite laughably dated music video.
3. Favourite massively DIY music video.
4. Strongest memory of MTV.
5. Favourite band-related moment in an actual motion picture.
Clem Snide – Made for TV Movie
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Nirvana – Dumb (MTV Unplugged)
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Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (MTV Unplugged)
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The A-Team Theme (Okay, the movie looks awful, but I couldn’t resist posting this)
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1. Olafur Arnalds – Ljosio. Beautiful piece of music, stunning video.
2. Guns N Roses – November Rain. Simply for the part where Slash walks down the aisle of the massive Catherdral but when he exits the building he comes out of a tiny little church in the desert.
3. Bart help me here is it Sleeping States from England who have that wonderful home made video? I forget the name but I loved the song and the video.
4. Nirvana unplugged. In the days MTV actually played music.
5. Possibly in High Fidelity when he fires on the Beta Band.
I don’t watch music videos. Ever. I couldn’t tell you what my favourite songs videos featured. But sometimes people link to them online and I actually watch them, so in the spirit of Friday I will try.
1.Coffe & TV – Blur
2. I saw some Korean karoake videos on a screen in a restaurant once.
3. Oh I give up.
4. Never having watched it.
5. There was a scene in Six Feet Under where Claire took crystal meth and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was on in the background. That was good.
I suck this week.
1. Feeder – Just A Day. Not a great band, but this always brings a smile. Think it reminds me of having a bedroom with posters and things in it. Being young and all that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGrUVHqt2mE
2. Fat Larry’s Band – Zoom. One word: bassist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX9LSOshOYY
3. Pavement – Gold Soundz. Probably a popular choice, but with a bit of luck I’ll get in first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj6QilYg5VA
4. Kurt Cobain launching himself into the drumkit at the end of Nirvana’s Reading set in 1991.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap3k0ZdwzBI
5. Afghan Whigs – “Be For Real” in Beautiful Girls. Not on YouTube, but here’s the other song they do in the film, which is still pretty damn good.
http://www.spike.com/video/afghan-whigs-cant/2788998
1. Kate Bush -’Cloudbusting.’
2. Shakespear’s Sister -’Stay.’ Totally over the top, very camp, but rather fun.
3. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five -’The message.’
4. I only finally had MTV once I moved to Scotland and had cable, so I guess the night MTV2 had half an hour of eighties goth music: the Cure, Sisters Of Mercy…fabulous!
5. Agree with Euan about the Beta Band, but overall, probably Nick Cave in Wings of Desire.
Oh and speaking of music video, loving this from Chris Bradley, out next month:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETJWnC7qt9o
1. Weird Al – Fat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqz1ojIQTBk
2. M — Pop Musik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HaAOCGb3bw
3. David Bowie – Heroes. So simple, but the genius explodes off the screen in my HO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQFuNHCMF2Y
4. U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday. Live at Red Rocks. Every hour, on the hour, throughout 1983.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ
5. This is not really “band” related, but I loved Jarvis Cocker’s moments in The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
I posted my five, but I’m thinking it might be hung up in the spam filter because of the links.
I can’t think of any for the Five, but I’m going to break protocol and comment anyway. I’m allowed to because I am part of ‘the last ethnic minority it’s okay to ritualistically make fun of’.
Well, I’m not so much ginger as auburn, but when I was a kid it was pretty bloody red and so this is me, commenting without doing the Five.
Umbrage taken.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Mine’s up.
In link limbo.
Dammit Euan, you beat me to it!
1. November Rain
2. November Rain. I see no inconsistency with these two answers!
3. Probably the previous OK Go track A Million Ways
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1_CLW-NNwc
4. Beavis & Butthead. Puerile but great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4r14ZNy8Q&feature=related
5. LIke everyone else said – From Her To Eternity in Wings Of Desire.
1. What Becky said. If pushed.. nah, just dunno.
2. Paul Simon – You Can Call Me Al.
3. One of the ones our students did last year for a Cribs song, I’ll find the link later when I can get onto youtube. I like Art Brut’s ‘Good Weekend’ video as well.
4. I don’t have any MTV memories at all.
5. The Commitments ‘Try A Little Tenderness’. The Wings of Desire bit is a good call too.
I realise now that I can’t get access to youtube at work. So this whole thing has backfired horribly. I can only guess at how hilarious the above video about ginger people is.
1. I can say with absolute certainty that Sugar Water by Ciba Matto is my favorite music video of all time. I’ve watched so many times and still can’t quite imagine how they went about coordinating it all. Just another case of a simple idea executed really well.
2. Tainted Love? Is it Tainted Love that a guy gets chased round his bedroom by a weird ghosty? If it is, then that one.
3. Sweet Baboo made videos for all the songs off his last record. I can’t remember the name, and can’t look it up, but one of them. I’ll link to it later. Because providing a full reply to this post has taken on some kind of newfound importance in the abysmal failure my life has become.
4. Probably getting drunk and watching Jackass.
5. When David Hemmings goes to a Yardbirds gig in Antonioni’s Blow-up. Or if I’m not being a film geek smart arse, Green Day at the start of the Simpson’s movie.
also, Euan it’s Rivers by Sleeping States. And yes – it’s absolutely amazing.
1. Radiohead no surprises (how long can he hold his breath?)
2. the stone roses- fools gold
3. King Creosote- Klutz (the one with the yellow clogs)
4. Pearl Jam unplugged- I seem to remember Eddie V falling onto his back from a bar stool?
5. Got to agree with Euan. High Fidelity/Beta Band
Fucking hell, Bart’s choice is good.
Matthew, maybe don’t approve my five when you get back from lunch, it could be embarassing.
1. Favourite music video.
Blur – The Universal. OR Coffee and TV.
2. Favourite laughably dated music video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk
3. Favourite massively DIY music video.
Ok Go – Here It Goes Again (the treadmill video)
4. Strongest memory of MTV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8zcz5QBu48
5. Favourite band-related moment in an actual motion picture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmAEauh5clY
kind of?
1 Weezer – Buddy Holly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemivUKb4f4
2 Def Leppard – Let’s Get Rocked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygiTv7tEYm0
3 Band called quinn – DIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyf1jfJmK54
4 when i finally got MTV i was too old to watch it. here’s a treat from ITV’s graveyard shift metal show ‘RAW’ (and would have done for #2, too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdDxz2bkfhE
5 Quincy and the punks. ‘We’re just your lousy escape goat!’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYd7bOn52M
Bart, that’s the one! great song, great video.
Oh, and the Olafur Arnalds Video you can see here:
http://thesteinbergprinciple.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/olafur-arnalds-ljosio/
I was thinking the other day.. You never see helicopters in action movies or on the telly anymore.
Thinking about this today, the same applies to pop videos.
In the 1980s and early 90s, it was all helicopters, everyone one was in them; but when was the last time you saw a helicopter in something new?
1. Dunno, maybe the Rorschach test one for Crazy?
2. Probably something like Thriller. I’m not really a video person either, those Frontiers of Science don’t push themselves forward you know..
3. Not a video as such, but the early slide shows I Like Trains did at their live shows, my favourite was always Before The Curtains Close Part II.
Back when Ash was in the band they also put out several animated videos, Terra Nova is especially good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTEOaXCl4Nw
He’s also done lots of other stuff since as Broken Pixel.
4. Probably Beavis and Butthead. I never used to watch MTV, but B&B were pretty much inescapable back in Ye Day..
5. Most of Dig!, but especially any bits with the Bez-style space cadet whose job description seemed to be to take drugs and wave a maraca occasionally
Dylan’s comment about helicopters reminds me of all those aspirational-type videos from the 80s, so I might have to change my answer to 2) to Rio or something else involving speedboats and ladeez
The things they fly around in Avatar are pretty much fancy helicopters.
I also think that pretty much every time you saw a helicopter in a movie or pop video, it was a Bell 206 JetRanger.
It’s the Fender Stratocaster of helicopters.
D’You Kno What I Mean by Oasis is the last video I can think of with Helicopters. Or Ready Or Not by the Fugees maybe?
Oasis apparently used two Westland Lynx AH7s, so they don’t count.
The Fugees’ song came out in 1996 so it barely scrapes out of the early 90s time-period I was talking about..
But you can have that one.
I should credit Wikipedia about now, I don’t actually know any of this shit about helicopters.
Oh dear. I am going to be rubbish here.
1) Shakira – Hips Don’t Lie. It’s wrong but, I love her. I love her so very very much.
2) Jai Ho! – The Pussy Cat Dolls. Dated the second it came out.
3) Streams of Whiskey – The Pogues.
4) When I was on tour we used to put on MTV in the morning because we were doing Opera and listened to Public radio in the car and needed arse time. That and jet lag. It’s the only program on at 4:00am.
5) All of Tom Waits scenes in Mystery Men.
1. The White Stripes one with the Lego.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRDi67G0Siw
2. Pretty much any video by MTV Europe stalwart DJ Bobo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMJBk7YhsN0
3. Yacht Rock. Love the Loggins-McDonald stuff, but the casting of the Eagles as high school bullies to Steely Dan’s nerds is brilliant. ‘Do you hear dark sarcasm?’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb_XEwgfmDk
4. The ubiquitos ‘VJs’, say what you like about music telly nowadays, but at least they’re gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVG4pE26Fr0
5. The first five minutes of A Hard Day’s Night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkKra3_pfBY
1) Don’t watch many music vids as my computers crap at playing them. Off the top of my head “Four Winds” by Bright Eyes, cos it’s great to watch the wee guy get pelted with stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqPVXTOKqqs
2) Prince “The most beautiful girl in the world” as nominated by my other half : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQyERNB7udA
3) Yeah Yeah Yeahs ‘cheated hearts’ same idea as the feeder vid but with fans sending in their vids of themselves as YYYs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBGWOJwg7X
4) Nirvana Mtv unplugged this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xHl-P_arVA
5) Nick Cave as a saloon singer in The Assassination Of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikam-i4_J_k
1. “California” by Wax – I’ve been looking for this video online for years, but haven’t found it. It was early or mid-90s. The entire thing was one continuous shot of a man on fire running to catch a bus. It was awesome. The song was good, too.
2. So many to choose from! “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benetar is the first that springs to mind…or pretty much any of the countless smoke/broken glass/horse wandering down a street videos of the ’80s. And I guess the flannel-clad Pearl Jam/Nirvana/Temple of the Dog videos of the ’90s are dated now, too.
3. “Niejasności” by Gaba Kulka, though I admit bias since she’s an old friend.
4. A few are strong since watching MTV was very popular for me and my friends in the early ’90s. The premieres of “Novemember Rain” and the pilot of The Real World. But probably the very strongest memory for me personally was watching/hearing Courtney Love reading Kurt Cobain’s suicide note aloud to his fans at a vigil just a few days after he was found dead. It’s sad to think of how MTV has declined over the past decade.
5. The entirety of Hedwig & The Angry Inch. Ok, so they aren’t a real band, but they should be!
If anyone cares, that Sweet Baboo video.
OOOOOOOOOH.
1 – Sigor Ros, Untitled.
Watch it in the wrong mood and woe betide you! Incredibly provocative imagery and soundage. Its awesome though; makes me feel aaaall funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPBQniIeBUg
2. Prodigy – Out of Space. This is brilliant. I have loved this since it first came out. The hair, the tune, the clothes, everything so wonderfully early nineties! This tune played at a Silent Disco at Tartan Heart Festival last year and I lost my tiny mind, (and shoes).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di9OBlcCiDk
3. Rareform – Spinechilla. I have no idea who put this on Utube but I did this ten years ago with frozen footage (it was a cowuld day) for some DnB friends.
Filmed in the Arches in Glasgow, the woods behind my house and for some reason, a terrifying tenement block in Pollock!!
Sheer DiY. Dont mock me, I was young! ( This is where Matthew changes his mind about me doing a video for the Foxx! )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9yrBWydhHU
4. Being on MTV. The Lick came to Glasgow and I danced my then, very RnB influenced, arse off. I would find the footage but I have better things to do
Trevor Nelson actually said hello to me; oh the fame.
5- Band, movie, umm. Back to the Future when Marty McFly plays with the band and his fingers start disappearing? Will that do?
Merry Christmas.
1. Favourite music video
I haven’t seen that many music videos over the last 10 yrs or so so urm I’ll say the film for the whole of Elegies album by I Like Trains
2. Favourite laughably dated music video.
I used to follow a band called King Kurt back in the day and they made some remarkably bad videos esp for a song called banana banana
3. Favourite massively DIY music video.
As scientist said I Like Trains did some good early stuff
4. Strongest memory of MTV.
Nirvana unplugged
5. Favourite band-related moment in an actual motion picture.
the only thing I can come up with is in Shaun of the Dead when they are deciding which lp’s to use as frisbies sorry for that.its been a long hard day
1. Y&T’s Summertime Girls
2. Paula Abdul, Opposites Attract
3. The Mae Shi, Run To Your Grave. Don’t know if this is DIY but it has the look and feel.
4. The young Ones, The Buggles and Headbangers Ball
5. Neil Young turning to The Band and saying “They got it now Robbie”. Or Chuck Berry correcting Keith Richards on how to play one of his songs. Richards face is priceless.
Low amount of responses today, this post took some effort to put together.
1. I can’t choose a favourite – there’s far too many great ones to pick just one – but I always enjoyed this one. I know, I know; but however much you hate them it’s still impressive…
2. I die inside a little bit every time I see this.
3. This one always makes me smile.
4. Not really an MTV person, myself; does this count? And how come so many people are going on about Nirvana? Guess there weren’t too many great MTV moments…
5. I guess 24 Hour Party People and Dig! etc. don’t count? The film’s already mentioned, but not this classic moment.
Yes, almost a week late so I’m skipping the fucking rules and simply saying that:
most dated video: anything by Wham!
most memorable: the moment they flipped the switch. Yes I was there, we were glued to the screen, the buildup was huge and we WERE the MTV generation. Now everyone my age is sobbing over how much they lost in the stock market, how much hope they’ve lost in Obama, and how sad it is that even with Viagra nobody will fuck them anymore. See what MTV will bring you? RIP Howard Zinn and JD Salinger. xoxo