specifically meaning here, that they let down the great song - fail to do it justice
nominations please!
this doesn't even properly exploit the prettiness of Pete Perrett!
bad angles, shit lighting, minimal commitment from the band themselves in terms of stage moves or "giving it some"
could hardly be more desultory or uninspired - basic soundstage set up
the stale air of the Marquee/Rainbow type mid-level concert hall wafts off it
6 comments:
Remember seeing vid for The Only Flame in Town through a Blissblog link similar to this years ago. Elvis Costello's songs and their sentiments seemed to jar horribly with their promos. Judging by how things worked out for him, his tacky showbiz side won out in the end
"Monkey Gone to Heaven"
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" (although "Atmosphere" makes up for it a thousand fold)
"Pump up the Jam"
Neneh's "Buffalo Stance"
Other than "Queen is Dead" and "Stop me if you think...", pretty much anything by the Smiths
"Live Forever"
"Love Spreads" (ok, not a great song, but a breathtakingly crappy and lazy video for a major label group after 5 years absence)
A companion piece for brilliant videos for forgettable songs should start with "Let Forever Be" by the Chemical Brothers.
i love the videos for 'love will tear us apart' (cheaply done as it is) and 'buffalo stance' (charming period piece!)
the others i can't remember so that probably proves you right. i don't think there was ever a good Smiths video, or a Mozzer one for that matter.
Scritti's videos are all poor, largely because of Green's evident discomfort in front of a camera. he photographs really well but he doesn't work on video, for some reason.
'only flame in town' is a horrendous smarmy song with a horrendous smarmy video so in that sense it's a success!
can't remember any other Costello videos really but "radio radio" is quite effective, as is the US clip for "peace love and understanding", or am I thinking of "can't stand up for falling down". at any rate, a basic affair but not actively detractive. oh yes "every day i write the book" is would-be Culture Clubby just like the song, effectively bright and bouncy
Fair point re:EC. I suppose my issue with his promos is that he's in them! Can appreciate his tunes much better when I don't have to be looking at him🙂.
An example that springs to mind is Smashing Pumpkin's Try Try Try, a band who had the odd decent single, (the ones that didn't sound like a poor man's Jane's Addiction) but the vid for that lets it down badly, a relic of the last days of the (rock) music industry. What you think a promo should be for a song and the sorry mess it turns out to be can be so different
ha it's true, he's not a pretty fellow but i guess that was his whole early shtick: the vengeful Buddy Holly
actually someone at MM said the same thing about his voice - that if only he'd just write songs for other people. But I like EC's voice, it's the right one for those songs, and in that sense, so is his face.
i don't know that Smashing Pumpkins song. I didn't like them at the time, except for "1979" which always thought had a really cool feel and atmosphere to it. It's Billy Corgan's voice that is the problem generally, it's too overwraught. a really grating texture.
That said "Rat in a Cage" actually sounds good on classic rock radio now and i can finally see why they were so successful.
A lot of Nineties things i would have disregarded actually sound good now - Offspring, Weezer (a few of the tunes anyway), Sublime, even the odd Green Day. But i draw the line at No Doubt.
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