Martha, My Dear: ILM's All-Time Video-Poll Results Thread

(xpost) Just working on a list for #41-100 now. I was actually wrong--almost all the videos in the #41-60 range got 5 or 6 votes, just not as many points.

Our family had a well-worn recording of Friday Night Videos from 1984 that's burned into my brain and remains classic to this day. 'Yo Little Brother', 'Rockit', ZZ Top's 'TV Dinners', etc. It was largely weird and creepy stuff and I loved it so! I should poll those specific videos some other time.

Oh and naturally I forgot to vote in this poll. Drat.

I voted despite very provincial and scattershot knowledge — didn’t have cable growing up and still probably haven’t seen a lot of things that were ubiquitous; the first three Directors Label DVDs established canon for me (and I’m guessing will be well represented). I watched maybe 20 noms I hadn’t seen and did vote for a few of them, plus various faves old and new discovered mostly on YouTube.

Get this: my parents didn't get cable until 2000. Growing up, I depended on Friday Night Videos and my friends.

"Yo Little Brother" is the best sequel to "Let the Music Play" possible.

“Yo’ Little Brother" is great fun tho, I’d never heard (of) it before

Night Tracks on TBS was often more fun to watch than MTV in the '80s. They played much more dance music and black music. It came on at midnight Friday and Saturday nights and ran all night. I remember parties when we would just put that on and it was great entertainment.

that would be “Give Me Tonight”, no need to look further

― celebrating ten years of constant posting (breastcrawl)

I don't consider "Let The Music Play" and "Give Me Tonight" separate singles: same fabulous electrogroove.

Where does "Do You Wanna Get Away" fit in? I guess the groove is less electro and more straightforward, but there's still some freestyle elements.

"Do You..." is closer to period dance music.

It's definitely my least favorite of the three

yep, formula running down

Shannon was so big in Miami that LTMP's third single earned airplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSaOxK_kTKU

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me that Miami had a freestyle station before the legendary Power 96, namely WHQT Hot 105. That was where you heard Shannon in 1985 (I was a high school listener). In about the summer of 1986 the two stations traded formats, with Power 96 assuming the freestyle sovereignty all the way to the end of the era.

I have some physio at 10:40, but I'll post the first couple before I leave--I'll pick up again around 11:30.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-40.jpg

40. “Jocko Homo,” Devo (1977)
56 points/6 votes
Director: Chuck Statler

Images were much harder for me this time than with previous polls I've done. Neil Young and Yo La Tengo were easy. The two film polls (discounting an early one, when I didn't put any thought into them), road films and political films, even when I hadn't seen something, I had a reasonably good sense of the film to pick something that worked. (I remember not having a clue about the John Landis film Into the Night--that was the rare exception.)

There are a lot of videos among these 40 I'd never seen before. And--I'll say stuff like this periodically, and it's never directed at people who voted for them--there are a number I don't like. So I'm sure with some of them, if it's a video you love, you won't care for the image; I'll have missed whatever it is that makes the video memorable for you. (I would skim those videos quickly, but I didn't have the patience to watch them all.)

i kinda dig that they're gonna be thumbnails with youtube UI included

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me that Miami had a freestyle station before the legendary Power 96, namely WHQT Hot 105. That was where you heard Shannon in 1985 (I was a high school listener). In about the summer of 1986 the two stations traded formats, with Power 96 assuming the freestyle sovereignty all the way to the end of the era.

― Josefa,

Excellent post. Hot 105 exists as the adult R&B station; these days I occasionally tune in for the quiet storm show.

(xpost) That was something that looked good to me, and I figure 97% of video viewing now happens on YouTube anyway; the two have basically verged. (I have one Vimeo image for the one Björk video I couldn't get on YouTube here.)

And, of course, not cropping that stuff out was easier, and also keeps the original ratio there.

Verged = merged...

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-39.jpg

39. “When I’m with You,” Sparks (1979)
57 points/4 votes/one #1 vote
Director: Brian Grant

Devo restoration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk1DNzg0LWs

sorry i'm bad at remember how not to embed lol

I suppose the first two define the earliest days of video--be as weird as possible. I very much doubt that Brian Grant and Chuck Statler, when they directed these, ever thought anyone would be looking up their names in 2022.

(Not a big Devo fan, but I did vote for "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize," primarily because of how much I love the song.)

Back in an hour.

Ah, sorry I missed that--that version looks much cleaner. (The not-clean version does look more primitive, though, which is apropos.)

i hadn't seen either of these but they're fantastic, particularly the sparks video

Damn, I meant to include non-embedded links in the info...I'll start doing that when I get back.

i didn't realize i'd seen the music video for "jocko homo," but now i'm realizing that i saw it as part of a short film called 'devo-lution,' which i saw during college at an ann arbor film festival. it's an incredible amount of fun, and the "jocko homo" part is definitely the highlight. would've voted for it if i'd known it was a free-standing video

Shannon was so big in Miami that LTMP's _third_ single earned airplay.

📹

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me…

seeing Sparks tomorrow, never seen this before. thanks, Clemenza!

"Jocko Homo" was one of the first videos I saw as a kid, probably on the pioneering CityTV program The New Music, which predated MTV. It's amazingly grotesque, even from the perspective of the 70s, but I prefer the faster album version of the song too much to vote for this version.
Though I'm a Sparks fan, I hadn't heard "When I'm With You" till this year. I voted for it just for Ron's smile.

I forgot about the Sparks ventriloquist video. It's a bummer how much 80s Russel Mael looks like Tucker Carlson.

Wow, I voted for both of these. I was the #1 vote for Sparks. A somewhat strategic boost!

Interesting too that the countdown begins with two brother acts!

First two placings suggest a really fun rollout, I'm here for this

That Devo doc containing the "Jocko Homo" video is, curiously/appropriately, included on the Criterion disc of Island of Lost Souls (1932).

i kinda like the slowed version of “jocko” from the video

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-38.jpg

38. “Relax,” Frankie Goes to Hollywood (1983)
57 points/7 votes
Director: Bernard Rose

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yem_iEHiyJ0

One I do remember, and "Two Tribes." I like the long "Relax" sequence in De Palma's Body Double (pretty sure Holly Johnson appears).

xps also a voter for Jocko Homo, could have voted for all of those early Devo videos, arresting genius.

a partial Chuck Statler videography (he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, wth?):

1976 Devo: Jocko Homo (Music Video)
1976 Devo: The Truth About De-Evolution (Short)
1976 Devo: Secret Agent Man
1977 Suicide Commandos: Burn it Down
1978 Devo: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Music Video)
1979 Devo: The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise (Music Video)
1979 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (Music Video)
1979 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Oliver's Army (Music Video)
1979 Madness: One Step Beyond (Music Video)
1979 Nick Lowe: Cruel to Be Kind (Music Video)
1980 Devo: Whip It
1980 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: High Fidelity (Music Video)
1980 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down (Music Video)
1980 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Love for Tender (Music Video)
1980 The Cars: Panorama (Music Video)
1980 The J. Geils Band: Love Stinks (Music Video)
1981 Devo: Beautiful World
1981 Devo: The Men Who Make the Music (Video)
1981 The Time: Cool (Music Video)
1983 Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Let Them All Talk (Music Video)

fuck, why didn't i vote for "relax"

why not link the videos?

Get this: my parents didn't get cable until 2000. Growing up, I depended on Friday Night Videos and my friends.

Get this: I've never had cable.

At least a half-dozen of those got votes.

I like the screenshots better--whatever polls I've done, the fun I have creating the images are really the main reason. You can click on the link easily enough if you want to watch the video.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-37.jpg

37. “Human Behaviour,” Björk (1993)
58 points/7 votes
Director: Michel Gondry

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0mRIhK9seg

how many times do y'all think gondry will place on this poll

123

The answer to that question...amazed me.

I might have had some dim awareness before starting this that Björk was considered an important video artist. But because her music has never meant anything to me, the videos haven't either. Think I may have seen this one once--I vaguely remember the giant insects--the other two that placed, never.

i think i was avoiding putting gondry on my ballot bc i knew he'd be overrepresented here and then i belatedly realized he did the chemical brothers video i voted for ("star guitar")

I know the song, and I figure I must have seen some of the video at some point, but the revelation of the poll for me was "Unfinished Sympathy".

I was a #1 vote for "Sabotage" btw, didn't see the email. Given that my son makes me play him that video over and over again, it definitely has legs.

I feel like I could make a separate list of "movie scenes that I wish could be music videos."

Andy Warhol's Vinyl for Martha Reeves & The Vandellas' "Nowhere to Run"

James Benning's 11 x 14 for Bob Dylan's "Black Diamond Bay" (two scenes actually)

Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and GoodFellas for "Then He Kissed Me," "Mickey's Monkey," "What Is Life," "Jumping Jack Flash," "Atlantis" and probably many others

Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising for "He's a Rebel"

etc.

"Subterranean Homesick Blues" in this list is one example.
I feel like part of the attraction of scenes like that is that they're not independent works; the songs come in, blend with the movie and leave. Watching them on their own feels like it's inflating them somehow.

I've written a book on the subject (pop music in films), and my interest in the two subjects is connected I'm sure. (Another voter has also written a book on the subject...I won't link to his without checking.)

But then Kenneth Anger's use of the Paris Sisters' "Dream Lover" in Kustom Kar Kommandos strikes me as a special case because it's not an excerpt from the film, it's the entire film. I didn't vote for it bc I was trying to honor the distinction between that and videos that were made to promote a record, but I guess that is the principal difference between that and, say, Bruce Conner's film for "Mongoloid" by Devo.

the subterranean “video” has surely been seen by far more people than the entirety of don’t look back, and certainly passes the iconicity test (based on how often it’s been parodied and imitated)

it’s a bit different from scenes from narrative films that prominently use a song

To me, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" works fine as a (legitimate) standalone video. If Don't Look Back didn't exist, but MTV had existed in 1965, I could see where Dylan would have come up with exactly the same thing as his idea of what a video should look like.

(The "Like a Rolling Stone" video that I voted for, which was probably done six or seven years ago, I would love to know the extent of Dylan's involvement with that. Other than commissioning and ultimately approving it, my guess is nil--I just can't imagine him coming up with anything like what materialized.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2af69xt0VKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gib916jJW1o

I think Bob Roberts came out before "Subterranean" became an "official" video, so I vaguely remember being thrilled just to see the Don't Look Back sequence referenced. (Didn't care for the film at the time, got better when I watched it years later.) Looking at it now, it's just weird that the women look like the Robert Palmer women--reference overload.

Bob Roberts did it a few years after INXS iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4

The Maxell advert is one of the best TV adverts of all time. There’s another one which uses Desmond Dekker’s ‘Israelites’ along same lines to diminishing returns.

That would be this, then. As with “Into The Valley”, I could never hear the track the same way again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KShjB5jyjM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lucero

realized while watching the video for the odb remix of "woo-hah got you all in check" that i love this dude's work, always creative if on a more modest level than say a hype williams, sucks he died so young. tha alkaholiks video he did ("the next level") is pretty much as good as "'93 til infinity"

oh yeah thats a good videography. he loved him some contrast.

kush is a GREAT video

this one too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5xJBKVGTGs

always loved the song/video for xzibit's "paparazzi"

xp lol

this is making me want to do a poll for just hip-hop music videos

would participate

after i finished my ballot i made a youtube playlist of it, then i had the bright idea to expand it to 100 places, so here's the finished product:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRIBtlBJdQ_IZV5yzhr1MnbzHhjbes9-

pretty proud of it, very rewarding project! i've wanted to do something like this since youtube first came into existence and now a majority of the videos have hd upgrades

that link doesn't work because of the weird hyphen at the end, so here's the real link:

brad's all-time top 100 favorite music videos ever

Good selecting. I'm happy anyone else has seen and loves "Y Control."

nice brad! lots of crossover with my favs

Totally forgot something I'm almost certain I would have voted for: Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." I think it was made a couple of years after Graceland; it starts with Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie. When Mickey Mantle shows up, it's as sublime a moment as Paul McCartney in "They Don't Know"--obviously Paul Simon's dream as a kid, to be pitching to Mickey Mantle, and suddenly there he is. Near the end, another sports icon.

I didn't vote in the Broadcast poll, because I really only remember (and love) "Echo's Answer," but I wish I'd known about this for the video poll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yEz1eZmUco

AV Club predictably making some eye rolling choices. https://www.avclub.com/50-greatest-music-videos-ranked-1850820669/slides/52

Very quickly scanning, but yeah. If you could generate a Masterpiece Theatre equivalent of a greatest-videos list, this would be it. (Which is not to imply that most of the famous ones here are boring but good--they're boring and bad.)