Best And Worst Music Videos

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 7:26pm

I just got done reading Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum's FAAABULOUS book I WANT MY MTV, an oral history of the channel's first eleven years and its gossipy and brilliant. A must read for anyone who was around then.

He asked over 400 people what their best and worst videos were. "best" was highly varied, but worst was rather unanimous: Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonight", which was so bad it actually managed to end his once ubiquitous stardom.

Whats your best and worst?

[ChenoKahn]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 8:54pm

I Want To Love You Tender

[strummergirl]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:08pm

"Rock Me Tonight" is awesomely bad. Squier's homophobia came out in his complaints as he was certain the video was terrible because its director Kenny Ortega put the male gaze on him and objectified him. Forget ripping his shirt off and crawling on the floor, the dancing is really something else that I am sure was Squier's own doing.

"Separate Ways" and "Physical" are the only videos that I think can compare.

My Favorites (and I think this says a lot about how insanely auteur-driven music videos became):

"Janie's Got a Gun", "Vogue" and "Express Yourself" by David Fincher.
"Closer" , "Criminal" and "Hurt" by Mark Romanek
"Fell in Love with a Girl" by Michel Gondry
"Otis" and "Sabotage" by Spike Jonze

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 10:17pm

Are we speaking about from pre MTV (like the great/awful ABBA videos by Lasse Halstrom pre movie fame) to now, or just in the key MTV generation? Because I can think of a lot of worse videos than the admittedly awful Rock Me Tonight. (I had no idea Ortega did it--it's funny as the song was produced by Jim Steinman who of course loved homoeroticism in the videos he would usually script for his songs, including the brilliant Total Eclipse of the Heart directed by future Highlander director, and openly gay, Russell Mulcahy).

I do think the key David Fincher videos are classics of their era--sorta the peak of when music videos were at their most cinematic (he has said he wouldn't want to direct music videos now as he believes with current technology, non narrative special effect videos work better to music). Express Yourself, Vogue and Bad Girl are classics of his Madonna work but I have a soft spot for Oh Father which perfectly captures the feeling of abuse. He also was great at filming dance, as Vogue showed and his Paula Abdul videos, even his All That Jazz rip off Straight Up (back then in interviews he said he always dreamed of doing a dance movie musical).

If I'm picking post MTV-era videos, it gets a lot harder to choose. I am glad that Youtube seems to have brought the form back, when for a while it kinda seemed to have died.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/20/12 at 11:43pm

The book covers '81-'92 and will have you dashing to your youtube to rewatch the videos.