Special Guest Blogger: Stephan Cox Names Worst Videos of All Time

Well, we got back from New York on Saturday, went literally two hours after landing to a Christmas party, and have been in sort of a Christmas fugue state ever since– a state involving errands, and wrapping paper, and online ordering, and the UPS man knocking on our door approximately every seventeen minutes with something someone ordered for us, or something we ordered for someone else– you get the idea.

Considering all this, you’d think that I wouldn’t have the time to come up with funny stuff for my blog, and well, you’d be right.  But– lo and behold!  My charming and clever husband has agreed to be my guest blogger today, providing you with what I think is one of the funniest breakdowns of bad eighties videos I’ve ever seen.  Because frankly, we know you’re in your office, and you’ve probably just given up on working altogether now, right?  And now you’re just looking for funny stuff. 

And now, without further adieu, I give you:

Worst.  Video.  Ever.
by Stephan Cox

So, in a fit of pique induced by
attempting to find the worst rock video ever (and by worst, I sort of mean
best), I managed to unearth a gem I hadn’t seen since it first was aired on
Friday Night Videos in the early 80s. (Note: I grew up in a very rural area that
didn’t have access to cable, thus, no MTV. So in order to see any music videos
at all—without a doubt the lingua
franca of my peers at the time—I had to watch the ghetto version, Friday
Night Videos, on whatever the hell network channel it came on. On Friday nights
no less. It was fuzzy and I had to adjust the antenna (!) to get a picture. I
was probably 14 at the time… Good Christ. This both dates me and makes me look
like a bumpkin loser at the same time.)

 

All this started yesterday when
my friend Cory, for reasons only known to him, forwarded me the video of ”One Night in Bangkok," by Murray Head:

For you younger folks, this piece of pop culture ephemera comes
from a simpler time. A less ironic time. A tackier time. This was a song from a
hit Broadway show called “Chess,” about, well, chess. The video features Mr.
Head (and BTW, if your family name is “Head,” a) change it, b) pronounce it
differently, or c) for the love of God, don’t name your child “Murray”) walking
along in his skinny tie and suave je ne
sais quoi, surrounded by assorted
musical theater types dancing and emoting Cats-style. This was the 80s, after all.
By any standard, this is a bad video. A cringe-worthy video. But not one for the
ages.

 

The next video he sent along, to
torture me presumably, was for the cover version of "Puttin’ on the Ritz," by a singer named Taco:

Now we’re getting somewhere. This particular video is likely
shown on a continuous loop in Dante’s 8^th or 9^th circle.
It features a heavily made up, really, really gay man (Note: It’s okay—as Lori
has mentioned before, we were both drama majors, and we’ve lived in San Francisco, LA and Manhattan. We’re honorary gays) sashaying
about a sound stage in thick pancake makeup, wearing a white tuxedo, and
sporting a neon cane.

 

I remember when preparing for a
garage sale during my youth my parents going through some old boxes, finding
some of their old clothes—two-tone platform shoes and matching vest for Dad,
ultra-suede dress with peasant blouse for Mom—and them blanching about the
styles they wore in the 70s (and these were the clothes they got married in, I
shit you not. I have photos). After watching the Taco video, I can somehow
relate. It’s not that I ever walked into high school in with a neon cane and
white tuxedo, God forbid, but I remember thinking when I first saw that video,
“Hey, that guy’s pretty outrageous. That takes some forward thinking. A man
wearing makeup. Maybe it’s only a matter of time before we’re all doing it.”
Much like my parents likely thought when they ordered out of the Halston
catalogue for their wedding outfits.

 

The song in the video is
unbearably bad. It wasn’t a song that needed to be remade, and certainly not to
an electronic beat. (Another note to those of you who grew up on the 80s:
remember when you first heard electronic music? I sure do. I remember being so
completely blown away by Depeche Mode, New Order, Yaz. I thought, “Wow, they
don’t even need actual instruments to make this music. We’ve clearly arrived at
the apex. Music will never sound more modern. There will never come a day when
people play this music for kitsch and nostalgia sake. I will never grow old. I
will never die. I think I’ll take up smoking.”) So, as the guy does his little
fruity two-step through the sound stage while lip-synching the song, crowds of
musical theater types dressed like 1930s homeless people pop up hither and
thither, doing little soft-shoe routines. I can imagine the pre-production
meeting for this video: “We need hoboes. But hoboes who can dance!”

 

It’s a terrible, terrible video
for a terrible, terrible song. Embarrassing. Awful. But not great-awful. Not
even close. Not when compared to the Rosetta Stone that is Journey’s video for "Separate Ways."  This one has a strange Casey Kasem intro, but don’t let that throw you.  It’s pure Journey goodness.

I know, I know, this video gets voted
worst video of all time by VH1 and whatever the hell, but I promise you, I
hadn’t seen it since it aired on Friday Night Videos back in the day, and I just
happened to remember it in the clutch after Cory had sent the previous two
videos. I needed something good. Something jaw dropping. Something featuring
grown men playing air instruments. I found it.

 

Please, please, if you’ve never
had the pleasure of seeing this video, do so now. I’ll wait.

 

There’s so much going on here,
it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, there’s the locale. At this
point, the band is a major touring act, selling out stadiums all over the world.
They have, like, three platinum albums. And for some reason, they’re shooting a
video on a shipping dock in Oakland, and playing air instruments. For no
particular reason.

 

Then, there’s the woman, who
is… so 80s. The curling-under pompadour, the makeup, the leather skirt. And as
my wife said upon seeing it, you just know she’s got a giant bush. One of those monsters that
creeps up the belly and out over the thighs. No one seemed to mind those back
then. It boggles the mind. Anyway, this woman walks in and out of the frame, and
every time she exits, she walks into the same warehouse. What’s in there?

 

The most compelling thing, of
course, is just how seriously the band is taking the whole thing. Steve Perry,
with his noodly little arms poking out of a muscle shirt, is giving it all he’s
got, as the band alternately plays a) their actual instruments, b) no
instruments, and c) their instruments on a wall. The drummer actually does a
drum fill on a set of garbage cans at one point. The audio track goes off at a
point when Steve is lip synching. What makes it great is that they’re all just
so damn committed to the song, at one point, fanned out like a gay barbershop
quintet, leaning enthusiastically into the camera and exhorting us that, “one
day, love will find you, break those chains that bind you…”

 

What is mind-boggling is that
even after a full day spent shooting this video, after watching the rushes and
the dailies of their performances, and then, at last, watching the finished
product, the entire band went, “Yep. Looks great! Ship it!” Not one of them
thought to yank the emergency break on this sucker.

 

Anyway, lucky for us they didn’t.
Oh, and my friend Jim then sent me this video
of some obviously bored youngsters who did a shot-by-shot reproduction of the
Journey video:

These kids get it. There is hope for the future.

• Category: Guest Bloggers