Sunday Night Video Flashback Pt. 47!!!

Hope everyone had a great week. Here are this week’s videos. Hope you enjoy them!!!

V

Love Bites – Def Leppard

“Love Bites” is a power ballad recorded by British rock band Def Leppard in 1987 on the album Hysteria. It is Def Leppard’s only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 to date.

The title “Love Bites” was originally used for a very different song that was eventually re-titled “I Wanna Be Your Hero”, and which appeared as a Hysteria B-side and later on the album Retro Active.

Following the huge momentum generated by “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, the song was released in August of 1988 and quickly shot to the top of the U.S. charts, dethroning Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. It stayed there for one week before giving up the position to UB40’s “Red Red Wine”. The song also hit number eleven in the UK (their second best showing from the album).

“Love Bites” was ranked #8 on the list of “VH1’s 25 Greatest Power Ballads” and #52 on the list of “VH1’s 100 Greatest Love Songs”.

A popular rumor about the song concerns the final seconds. After the line “If you got love in your sights, Watch out, Love Bites”, what is seemingly heard is “Jesus of Nazareth, Go to Hell”. This rumor has been refuted by the band, most notably on a Hysteria documentary. The line is in fact producer Mutt Lange rambling in a Yorkshire accent, to the effect of “Yes it does, It Will Be Hell”, with the aid of a vocoder.

Hot For Teacher – Van Halen

“Hot for Teacher” is a song on Van Halen’s album, 1984.

The sexually suggestive song was best known for its long opening drum solo, near motorcycle like drum fills and its music video featuring the band as both adults and young students in a high school. The PMRC protested it, calling for it to be pulled from both the radio and television, due to the song’s sexually suggestive lyrics referring to sex with a teacher, and a beautiful female teacher stripping in the video, among other issues. In 2009 it was named the 36th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.

The music video (directed by Pete Angelus and David Lee Roth) was filmed at John Marshall High School, with Phil Hartman performing the voice of Waldo, the video’s hero. Along with Waldo, the “kid versions” of Van Halen face the trials and tribulations of (shown in black-and-white) grade school, until the swimsuited schoolteacher arrives. In the end, the kids grow up to become gynecologists (Alex), sumo wrestlers (Mike), psychiatric hospital patients (Eddie), playboys (Waldo) and game show hosts (Dave’s real-world aspiration). There are also scenes that show badly-choreographed dance moves of the rock band.

The music video for 2006’s “Situations” by Escape the Fate is based on the video for this song.

Girls On Film – Duran Duran

“Girls on Film” is the third single by Duran Duran, released on 13 July 1981.

The single became Duran Duran’s Top 10 breakthrough in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #5 on 25 July. Its success was particularly gratifying for the band, who had personally selected it for release following the failure of its predecessor, “Careless Memories”, which had been chosen by their record company, EMI. Its popularity provided a major boost to sales of the band’s eponymous debut album, Duran Duran, which had been released a month earlier.

The song did not chart in the U.S. on its initial release, but it became popular and widely known after receiving heavy airplay on MTV when the Duran Duran album was re-issued in 1983. It is regarded one of the band’s signature songs.

Girls on Film was originally co-written by Andy Wickett, one of Duran Duran’s previous singers before Simon Le Bon. The original demo of the song has a very peculiar sound that differs somewhat from the final album version recorded in 1981. However, Wickett’s version of the chourus remained, with very little change having been made to that part of the song’s composition. When Wickett left the band, Duran Duran bought the song from him for £600 and made him sign a waiver removing his rights to the song. (Andy Taylor also made mention of this in his 2008 autobiography.)

The song begins with a recording of the rapid clicking of a motor drive on a camera. Both manager Paul Berrow and photographer Andy Earl claim to have supplied the camera for the recording.

Over the years, “Girls on Film” has become a staple of the encores for Duran Duran’s live performances, and is often the final song of a concert, during which lead singer Simon Le Bon introduces the rest of the band. It was the song Duran Duran was playing at a private party on New Year’s Eve, 1999.

The song, along with “Rio” was originally omitted from the 1984 live album Arena due to the space limitations of vinyl, in favor of newer and less familiar album material from 1983’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger. Both tracks were included as bonus material in the 2004 CD reissue of Arena.

The song fared well on the radio and the charts before the notoriously titillating video was filmed, but the controversy that ensued helped to keep the band in the public eye and the song on the charts for many weeks.

The video (featuring topless women mud wrestling and other depictions of sexual fetishes) was made with directing duo Godley & Creme, and was filmed in August just two weeks after MTV was launched in the United States, before anyone knew what an impact the music channel would have on the industry. The band expected the “Girls On Film” video to be played in the newer nightclubs that had video screens, or on pay-TV channels like the Playboy Channel. The raunchy video created an uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for its original run on MTV; the band unabashedly enjoyed and capitalised on the controversy.

A Video 45 with videos for “Girls on Film” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” was released in the United States in March, 1983. The VHS-format tape contains the MTV-friendly “day version” of “Girls on Film”, while the Betamax format contains the uncensored “night version”. The Video 45 won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1984, the first year the Academy gave that award. The uncensored video was also included in the Duran Duran video album (1983) and the Greatest video collection (released on VHS in 1999, and on DVD in 2004). The edited version would later be used in the 2008 karaoke video game SingStar Pop Vol. 2.

Simon Le Bon commented in the audio interview on the Greatest DVD collection that the scandal of the music video overshadowed the song’s message of fashion model exploitation.

And finally, for my dear friend Lana who will see the humor in this…

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – The Proclaimers

“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” is a song written and performed by Scottish pop band The Proclaimers. It was released on their 1988 Sunshine on Leith album, and subsequently as a single. It has become one of their most popular songs, reaching #11 in the UK charts and No. 1 on the Australian ARIA Charts in 1989, plus, five years later, #3 in the US Billboard Hot 100. The song has become a live staple at their concerts. The Proclaimers played it at Edinburgh 50,000 – The Final Push, the final concert of Live 8 at Murrayfield Stadium on 6 July 2005, to symbolise the conclusion of The Long Walk To Justice.

The song is popular in Scotland, where, at Hampden Park, every time the national football team scores, the song is played and sung along to by Scotland fans.

“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” was featured on the soundtrack to the 1993 film Benny & Joon. As a result the original music video was re-edited with clips from the film.

The song was also the theme song for the Swedish TV-show, High Chaparall. It also features in the How I Met Your Mother episode Arrivederci, Fiero, as the song stuck in the tape player of Marshall Eriksen’s Pontiac Fiero between 1994 and 2007.

Daydream Believer: Literal Video Version

Who doesn’t love The Monkees? Happy Friday Everybody!!!

There’s an App for that…

Well I finally decided to get the WordPress App forom the App Store. It was free. I’m cheap. Sue me. On second thought, that would go against the whole “cheap” thing.

I’m not sure if I like this or not, but the landscape keyboard is way easier to type with.

I’ll piddle (I’m Olde English kids) around with it some more.

Cheerio,

V

What the hell happened?

As you’ve noticed by now, the Blog has gotten a makeover.  It’s hard to believe that I’ve been posting for almost a year now (August will be a year) so I guess it is about time.

All the old stuff is still here, just looks a bit trendier now.

Hey, all the cool kids are doing it.

Let me know what you think…..

V

Sunday Night Video Flashback Pt. 46!!!

Back for another week, so here we go!!!

That’s What Friends Are For – Dione Warwick

“That’s What Friends Are For” is a 1982 song written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager and introduced by Rod Stewart for the soundtrack of the film Night Shift.

The song is far better known for its cover version by Dionne Warwick and Friends. A one-off collaboration featuring Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder released as a charity single in the United Kingdom and the United States in 1985, it was recorded as a benefit for American Foundation for AIDS Research, and raised over three million dollars for that cause. The tune peaked at #1 for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1986 and became Billboard’s number one single of 1986. In 1988, the Washington Post wrote, “So working against AIDS, especially after years of raising money for work on many blood-related diseases such as sickle-cell anemia, seemed the right thing to do. ‘You have to be granite not to want to help people with AIDS, because the devastation that it causes is so painful to see. I was so hurt to see my friend die with such agony,’ Warwick remembers. ‘I am tired of hurting and it does hurt.’”

Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer-Sager, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Elton John, “That’s What Friends Are For”, 1985

The Dionne and Friends version of the song won the performers the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, as well as Song of the Year for its writers, Bacharach and Bayer Sager. It also was ranked by Billboard magazine as the most popular song of 1986.[1][2]

Dionne and Friend’s version also listed at #61 on Billboard’s Greatest Songs of all time.

Roll With It – Steve Winwood

“Roll With It” is a song recorded by Steve Winwood for his album, Roll With It, released on Virgin Records. It was written by Winwood and songwriter Will Jennings.

The single spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the summer of 1988. It topped the Billboard adult contemporary chart for two weeks, and also spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard mainstream rock chart. In addition, the song reached #30 on the R&B chart. In England, the song reached #53 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song “Roll With It” was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1989, Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal performance. The album Roll With It was also nominated as Album of the Year.

It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) – R.E.M.

“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is a song by the rock band R.E.M., found on their 1987 album Document and the 1988 compilation Eponymous. It was also released as a single in 1988, reaching #69 US Billboard Hot 100 and later reaching #39 in the UK singles chart on its re-release in December 1991.

The song originated from a previous, unreleased, R.E.M. song called “PSA”, which is short for “Public Service Announcement”. The two songs are very similar in melody and tempo. “PSA” was itself later released as a single in 2003, under the title “Bad Day”. In an interview with Guitar World magazine in the early 1990s, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck indicated that one of the primary inspirations of “End of the World” was Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.

The music video was directed by James Herbert, who worked with the band on several other videos in the late 1980s. It depicts a young skateboarder (Noah Ray) rifling through an abandoned, collapsing farmhouse and displaying the relics that he finds to the camera.

The track is known for its quick flying lyrics taking the form of what appears to be a stream of consciousness rant with a number of diverse references, including a quartet of individuals with the initials “L.B.” (In a 1990s interview with Musician Magazine, R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe claimed that the “L.B.” references came from a dream he had in which he found himself at a party surrounded by famous people who all shared these initials.)

Since it was written, it was used as the show closer at the large majority of the live shows that R.E.M. performed. However, for the 2004/2005 Around the Sun tour, it was dropped from the set almost entirely, only played twice in the whole tour. On November 4, 2004 it was used to open the show for the first time ever in response to the outcome of the United States presidential election two days earlier. They also played it during the encore of the re-scheduled Hyde Park concert at the very end of the tour in summer 2005. The replacement show closer for the tour was their 1992 hit, “Man on the Moon”.[1] The song returned during R.E.M.’s 2008 Accelerate tour. It was mostly used in the encore, played back-to-back with “Man on the Moon”.

Word Up! – Cameo

“Word Up!” is a funk/hip hop song originally written and recorded by Cameo. Due to its heavy play on American pop and R&B radio, as well as music video play on MTV, the single became the band’s most well-known hit. From the album of the same name, “Word Up!” was Cameo’s first top-forty US hit, peaking at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. It also spent three weeks at number one on the US Hot Black Singles chart, one week at number one on the US Hot Dance Singles chart, and reached number three in the UK. The song has now become a common phrase. It is the title character’s catchphrase in American television cartoon WordGirl.

Iran Election Funny Charts Ahmadinejad Comedy (by Placebo)

Sunday Night Video Flashback Pt. 45!!!

Here we go again!

Hope you enjoy them!!!

V

Break My Stride – Matthew Wilder
“Break My Stride” was a major hit single for Matthew Wilder in 1983 and 1984. It was covered by many artists throughout the years, including Blue Lagoon in 2004. It has also been used in the UK, as the musical accompaniment for the advertisement of the soya beverage Alpro.

Included on his 1983 album I Don’t Speak the Language, the single went to #5 on the U.S. Hot 100 and to #4 in the UK in January 1984. On the U.S. ARC Weekly Top 40 chart, the song went all the way to #3, and on the U.S. Cashbox charts, Wilder’s single didn’t break stride until the #2 position, where it remained for two weeks, in early February. A remix version went top twenty on the Dance charts, and the song even hit the Billboard Hot Black Singles charts for four weeks.

Though “Break My Stride” was Matthew Wilder’s only UK hit, he also reached the U.S. Top 40 with his next two singles, “The Kid’s American” (#28 on the ARC chart) and “Bouncing Off The Walls” (#39 ARC), before turning to behind-the-scenes work on other artists’ recordings.

The Wilder/Prestopino composition has been covered numerous times in several languages, and the song has been the basis for several rap/hip hop tracks. In 1997 the Wilder song reached a new audience when it was sampled for the hit Puff Daddy track “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down”. This song was also translated to the Spanish language by Argentine dance-pop group El Símbolo as “No te Preocupes” (Don’t Worry) in 1996. The Spanish lyrics respect the party-time spirit of the original, adding a funny ending.

Nothin’ but a Good Time – Poison
“Nothin’ But a Good Time” is the first single from the second Poison album Open Up and Say…Ahh!. The B-sides are “Livin’ For the Minute” and “Look But You Can’t Touch”.

The song was released as a single in 1988 on Capitol Records and reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

A cover of the song is featured in the game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, while the master track is featured in “Guitar Hero: Smash Hits”.

It is featured in the 2008 movie The Rocker.

The song also appears as a cover on the Reel Big Fish album Fame, Fortune and Fornication.

The music video features as a person washing dishes while listening to the Kiss’ hit single Rock and Roll All Nite performed by Poison. Then his manager turned off the radio as he told him to wash the dishes quickly, because he was moving in two speeds, “slow and stop”. Frustrated, he stopped washing the dishes and left the washroom. As he left, a live stage occurred beside the washroom, and as he banged the door shut, the band performed the song live without any audience. At the end of the song, his manager returned, and surprisingly all the dishes are washed.

Point of No Return – Exposé
“Point of No Return” is a single by the female dance-pop trio Exposé. Written and produced by Lewis Martineé, the single was originally released in 1985 with Alejandra Lorenzo (Alé) as the lead singer. The single was re-recorded in 1987 with Jeanette Jurado as the lead singer and included on the group’s debut album, Exposure. The original vocal mix of the song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in 1985, and the re-recorded vocal version reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1987. The music video features Exposé performing in front of an audience.

Let the Music Play – Shannon
“Let the Music Play” is a famous and critically acclaimed Latin freestyle song recorded by Washington, DC-area singer Shannon in 1983.

The original version of the record was produced by Mark Liggett and Chris Barbosa, the latter of whom was a Latino from New York who composed it with Ed Chisolm. He redefined the Electro Funk sound by adding Latin American rhythms and a heavy syncopated drum-machine sound that isolated it from sounding like Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” and Freeez’s “IOU.” This made “Let the Music Play” the first freestyle record in history.

The song played a surprisingly historic role in Western pop music. By the early 1980s, the backlash against disco had driven dance music off mainstream radio stations in the U.S. The rhythmic ingenuity of “Let the Music Play,” with its complicated drum-machine pattern produced by a filtered Roland TR-808, allowed it to circumvent the prevalent anti-disco bias and become a huge hit, hitting #8 on the U.S. Singles Chart and #1 on the U.S. Dance chart in November 1983, ushering in the dance-pop era. “Let the Music Play” is considered to be the song that opened the door for such other acts

The song has been remixed numerous times, and several artists have covered the record. In 1996, Scottish singer Mary Kiani covered the song and hit the #19 spot on the UK singles chart.

In 2006, Mexican pop band RBD covered “Let the Music Play,” which is featured on its first English-language album, Rebels but only as an iTunes digital-download exclusive. The track was not included on the album itself.

Ummm…yeah.

To enlarge the image, just right click and open image (or whatever your browser tells you to do):

Separate Ways: Literal Video Version

Meat Loaf: Literal Video Version (Anything For Love)