POV: Five videos that were so bad that they almost ruined what was otherwise a perfectly great song.

Oh come on! What else was he supposed to do, read a book? The crowbar in the fake rain, and Patty showing off her hairy gothpits while contributing the inpenetrable backing vocals of "SING!" was classic all the way through. I haven't see the others (ye, I've still yet to get to DVD2 of "Family Jewels".. still basking in the first one.)

My answers to the thread question are half the videos from Wax Trax! I now can't hear Front 242's "Quite Unusual" without thinking of some low budget sci-fi movie with a creepy bald dwarf maniacally laughing, for example.

1.New Order "True Faith"
2.R.E.M. "Losing My Religion"
3.Fine Young Cannibals "She Drives Me Crazy"
4.The Chills "Pink Frost"
5.Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I almost said Dio's 'And All The Fools Sailed Away' but it really wasn't a great song to begin with. 'Rainbow in The Dark' is pretty lame.

Yeah. The video for "Black Planet" is pretty great. All it consists of is Andy, Craig and Wayne (the latter two more or less passed out) driving around Los Angeles freeway clovers in the Monkees' red dragster. One of my fave videos of all time, actually.

(I have pedant issues with the thread title, which seems to be asking us to name 25 videos!)

interpol - evil (pointless)

kylie - giving you up (she's a giant lass and er, she walks about at night. The End)

fatboy slim - praise you (first few times it's funny but all those awards for it?! god knows why)

madonna - love profusion - not a perfect song, but not awful - Luc Besson directed this shite. She walks down a windy street and then a beach. The end.

is there an opposite thread where a brilliant video made you love a song you didn't care about before?

New Order, "Fine Time". I saw "True Faith" named upthread but that video has nothing on the nonsensicality of this one.

I can't think of any more right now ... maybe later.

what the fuck??????

Oh, I'll take nonsensicality any day a over two stupid mime-clowns slapping each other's face for four minutes.

So, there's my review of the "Truth Faith" video..

as for

1.New Order "True Faith"
2.R.E.M. "Losing My Religion"
3.Fine Young Cannibals "She Drives Me Crazy"
4.The Chills "Pink Frost"
5.Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
what the fuck??????

"Losing My Religion" is grossly overrated. It was innovate but kinda boring. I'm more incensed in that it completely changed the MTV video ever since.. for the worse.

"She Drives Me Crazy" for similar reasons to "True Faith"..(same director, I think). This ranks lower on the suck scale thanks to Cox and Steele doing their more tolerable geeky foot shuffle.

"Pink Frost" is a sublime song, but a highly laughable video. Unless you find a Kinderfoto visage of Phillips face for the entirety of the video swooning back and forth over a montage of him stone-facedly pondering nature as he walks around a park near his pad somewhere to be high video art.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit".. another great song.. horrible horrible video. I think they came up for the concept of the video in three minutes. i don't care if they made the video before they knew how popular the song would be. The other Nirvana videos were far far better.. and even those weren't spectactular.

What's the Crowded House video where Neil is courting a 50ft woman. That was an APPALLING video. Oh, and I hate the video (Something So Strong? very old video, early days) with the terrible computer-generated coloured snowflakes that look like something from an Atari game.

Personally, I prefer the sadomasochistic clowns to insomniac children watching feathers fly around their rooms for four minutes. But I certainly see your point. Both videos suck.

JOUST!

Godley & Creme epileptic spasm videos are the best. (though I'm glad you agree that "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" is a great song!)

no,no, no no nononononoono noNO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Defend these videos, Doc!

"Growing On You" was great, in that it replicated all the stereotypes of 80s rock videos, and -- well, hey -- if you can feyly swagger on a pickup truck in tight pants through a hall of Marshall stacks for a music video, that's a thumbs up. But filming a helicopter-cam rockin-on-the-Grand-Canyon video? Stick to better cliches, please.

Defend these videos, Doc!

True Faith: I honeslty can't believe that any defense of this video is really necessary, quite possibly one of my ten favorite videos of all time. It's a little silly, yeah, but the synchronization of audio & visual is stunning and the bad-poetry symbolism of the whole deal is incredibly compelling, to me at least. I just love the director's style (big "She Drives Me Crazy" fan as well, obviously)

Fine Time: This one's a little more arguable, but I just like how inappropriate the whole deal is--that video would've been the exact last video I would have mentally pictured for the song, and the whole sense of irreverence about the video is fantastic.

The "Round and Round" video, I'm much less fond of, but it's still kinda classy. NO made great videos.

"erm, didn't we waltz about in the snow before?"
"no we didn't"
"yes we did"
"shut up and ride that horse some more"

I don't remember many details of the video for "Going Underground," but I remember it being awful.

Oh, and "Let It Be." Paul's over-emoting face! I know this was before over-emoting faces became a staple of rock video, but still.

That's three, anyway.

Regardless of their intentions, appearing silly is always a poor option (unless that is the intention, and even then it's a perilous choice, as there are few things worse than attempting to be funny and failing.)

Are you sure it was Crowded House and not, say, Bronski Beat?

oh, it was crowded house allright. are those guys brothers? because they look so alike and in one video they seemed to be crooning at each other...so very creepy.

I think the same thing is true of 80's Cure videos.

it's Neil Finn solo, "She Will Have Her Way"

But filming a helicopter-cam rockin-on-the-Grand-Canyon video?

you fucking mongrelist! that's the BLUE MOUNTAINS in New South Wales.

Do you hate joy?

The Kidz Bop Video more than makes up for it.

I've never seen the "Genius of Love" video! What's it like?

It's basically the album sleeve come to life in childlike animation.

Do you hate joy?

So OTM it hurts. Loathsome for helping spawn a decade of immaculately lit, sharpely edited, alternately in- / out-of-focus deep-and-meaninglessness. With bonus cherubs.

It's basically the album sleeve come to life in childlike animation.

Yeah, and it's fucking great! I like the early-Eighties PBS/Sesame Street/inner-city feel of it. Meshes with the music very well.

I guess that's easier than intentionally making good videos, huh.

Precisely.

Also, the "Sunshowers" video shits all over "Galang". "Galang" should have been a narrative video as opposed to "Multiplicity" starring M.I.A. because the subject matter and the sonics of the song do not mesh at all with the "Look at me! I am HAWT and I can't dance" boppery of the video AND the juxtaposition of the imagery vs. the song doesn't work or highlight anything other than the fact that if a cute girl shakes her ass in front of a camera, no one will pay attention to what she says.

This sounds awesome. I don't think I know the video or song though.

Sonic Youth's "100%" maybe?

Didn't Billy Squier's preeny dance-heavy video for "Rock Me Tonight" basically kill his career?

http://www.google.com.au/search?biw=760&hl=en&q=corinne+russell&meta=

Good call, and now that I think of it, Sinead has a habit of almost ruining a lot of songs with crappy videos ... the overreliance on gold paint and fire imagery in "Troy" ... as for "Nothing Compares 2 U", the song is so gorgeous that nothing could ruin it, but I'm generally turned off by "face close-up" videos, I think they're cloying and boring (think "Head Over Feet" and "No Surprises", although with the latter, at least there's a continuous theme and a surprise ending to keep you watching, but Thom Yorke is no oil painting, that's for sure).

(Dan in trying to hide his secret life as a face-slapping clown mime shockah)

And wasn't this video filmed, like, six or seven years after Back in Black was released?

No, I just covered my eyes. No singing weeble wobbles in my New Order videos please... or turtle women doing sign language (thanks, miccio.)

PHILIPPE DECOUFLÉ! WHAT HATH YOU WROUGHT?!! DIE!!!

That Cradle of Filth video where the keyboardist uses mallets to play is possibly the greatest video moment ever!

(ok, so maybe COF are not representative of what you're talking about, exactly, but metal videos have ALWAYS been more entertaining than the songs, usually!)

I think the "True Faith" videos is one of the best clips ever made, actually. It's my second favourite New Order clip next to the original "Blue Monday" video (I'm a sucker for lo-fi Apple computer graphics that look like they were culled from an alternate version of War Games).

99% of death metal or black metal videos usually consist of a band playing in a trainyard or a dark old warehouse with lots of fast cuts and shots of the drummer doing kicks on the double bass. Sometimes with an added thematic; say, Hate Eternal's "dude in the cloak" or the new Vehemence video where the lead singer runs around with a TV on a dark street for no real reason.