Life has gotten too raw for me. Since about this time last year, I’ve been feeling too real. When I’m mad it’s the maddest, when I like something I’m more likely to be hyperbolic about it, I don’t know. I’m a mess.
So from the depths of my cranky and miserable last post, I go on to expressing my hyperbolic love for something.
This is quite possibly the perfect music video. I love every frame. I watched it twenty times in the last twenty-four hours. Dig it, and then allow me to explain:
“Love Removal Machine” – The Cult
A music video is meant to convey a sense of the feeling of the song. For rock, that’s gonna be a lot of movement. The camera hardly sits still and neither do the musicians. It feels exultant. Then the guys do all that rock shit – twirling drumsticks, bellowing at the mic, trotting around the stage like fancy horses. The lead singer is like the fancy prancey lil bro of Glenn Danzig and just super cute in the video, but the other guys got charisma too. They have all the tropes of butt rock fashion plus frilly blouses and mesh shirts because they (improbably) came out of the post-punk scene in Britain. Even the patently bad things in the video – making literal reference to the lyrics, jumping through stacked cans like the Kool-aid Man at the end – are corny fun. I love it.
I’ve also watched this video for Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood five or six times recently. The song is less rockin for me, but the video. Damn, what a wild scene. Trigger Warning: There’s some stuff that could look non-consensual and remind survivors (probably rather abstractly) of badness. Other than that, this video gets me in da pants. Everyone in the video is hella sexy to me except for the tiger. It just ain’t right. I should also note here that this isn’t for everyone and don’t say I didn’t warn ya. If you feel the need to say you find anyone from this video (or anywhere) ugly, don’t expect to see your comment get through moderation.
“Relax” – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Hot.
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Wow, thanks for the heavy dose of nostalgia. I remember when the Radio One (BBC’s main rock/ pop radio channel) DJ’s banned “Relax” (the lyrics were a little too explicit) and FGTH were number one for weeks. I like that video, although I really preferred the “two tribes” video.
I sort of like the Cult, although never really enough to see them live. I found the Damned’s rather more tongue in cheek Goth Rock more to my taste (I still love “Grimly Fiendish”). Still it is less surprising that the kind of frilly shirt and makeup came out of punk, when you think that the precursor of punk was Glam (T-Rex, early Roxy music, Bowie (Aladin Sane time) ).
The Cult were interesting to me for this reason: they cut across the genres. On a Friday night at my university union they played all kinds of music. The dance floor would half-fill with a certain kind of person when they played Kylie Minogue or Whitney Houston, tottering on their heels round piles of handbags, and all those people would leave when the Smiths came on and it would half-fill with a completely different set of people shuffling around looking at their shoes. Then a whole bunch of much cooler people would replace them if New Order was played, and occasionally the DJ would have a minor seizure and play Iron Maiden or AC/DC and a fourth entirely different crowd would half-fill the dancefloor and give themselves minor neck injuries.
Then at some point during the evening “She Sells Sanctuary” would come on, and ALL the above and more would cram onto the floor. Everyone seemed to love that song.
Only Damned I listen to much is early, but I should give the frilly shirt era an earnest listen some time. I didn’t have Friday night at university union, but I did have alien moments in the community college student center, where some unseen person would only play Depeche Mode’s “I Feel You” and fuckin “Hotel California” on the jukebox. Good timez.
Fun stories though, I like it. <3