From Madonna flirting with Austin Powers to Will Smith dancing with an alien, there's a long, sometimes dubious tradition of soundtrack videos that bring musical artists into the world of the films.
I don't think I've ever watched the Hellraiser video, might have to do that when I get home!
The Men in Black one, I could probably still sing both that and Black Suits Comin' from the second film back to back. Can't do most mathematical functions, but I can sing those!
On a related note I always like to recommend the video for Dan Black’s “Symphonies.” The song samples the score to John Carpenter’s STARMAN and the video is a hit list of various terrific opening title sequences from film history.
Didn't make the list, and I think it sorta counts, but here's where I mention that my brother-in-law is in the "Dyslexic Heart" video because he and his roommate showed up at their arts/living space mid-video shoot and Cameron Crowe just dug their whole vibe and put them in it.
I don't know if a Beatle has ever made sounds that sound worse than that "Spies Like Us" song. Just dire. I love Adam Lambert, though I'm not familiar with the song/video mentioned here, and I'm definitely going to check that video out to see how it can be worse than "Spies Like Us".
I see a lot of people nowadays trying to reclaim "Beautiful Stranger" as a late-era Madonna classic that somehow stands alone as a song. And, nope. It's about Austin Powers and I will never be able to take it seriously.
Your writeup of "Men in Black" seems to suggest that it and "Wild Wild West" are the only two times Will Smith ever wrote a rap for a movie, which is merciful of you, as it lets Will off the hook for "Black Suits Comin'".
Studio Executive: "Okay, so what if Will Smith were Limp Bizkit? That kind of thing was popular a couple of years ago, and I can only assume will remain so. We'll get an abominable rap-rock beat and then Will can yell at the audience that they should break stuff or whatever."
Will Smith's agent: "He wants to keep it family-friendly. How about he just yells about nodding your head? Everyone can enjoy that!"
This was so good! I forgot about those About a Boy duck videos! (Though still listen to that soundtrack often, it's so good.)
Also I too was really curious about the connection between Lauper and WWF and did some research a while back. Here's what I found:
Allegedly it started because Cindi Lauper and Captain Lou Albino were seated next to each other on a plane. The two recognized they shared a cult camp sensibility during the flight, and became friends.
The friendship led Lauper to get Captain Lou to play her father in the Girls Just Want to Have Fun video. To return the favor, Captain Lou got Cyndi to come on a WWF talk show (Piper’s Pit) where they invented a rivalry to be settled through a women’s wrestling match.
Because of Lauper’s involvement, this WWF match aired on MTV, which helped get them a bigger audience. Having "reconciled" after the MTV match, Captain Lou was presenting Lauper an award for her women’s rights work. During the ceremony Rowdy Piper rushed in and “attacked” Lauper and Captain Lou. This led to Mr. T teaming up with Hulk Hogan to fight a tag team match against Piper for justice for Lauper & Lou in the very first Wrestlemania.
So what began as an excuse for Captain Lou and Cyndi Lauper to hang out at work ended up directly setting the stage for the WWF’s first big pay per view event.
I remember reading about this not long ago - was it in the new Vince McMahon bio? I love how much of the WWF's success in the '80s and '90s was luck more than anything.
Also, as someone who grew up on '80s WWF and is now a very pale gentleman, I am seriously considering changing my screen name to "Captain Lou Albino".
Surprised not to see G&R's (waste of ammunition) "You Could be Mine" on here. Peak Schwarzenneger, and probably the last moment that the Gunners were any good.
Huey's pre-song banter in the PoL video is just weird. It would be weird in a show, it's especially so in a video where stuff could conceivably be edited out. Maybe they had the best of both worlds since I don't think I've seen that part of it until full videos showed up on YouTube. I enjoy him saying "Hollywood came calling" in a tone of "man, this money is so exhausting to spend!"
Since it came up, has everyone seen the video of when Ray Parker, Jr. performed "Ghostbusters" at the '85 Oscars? It's an elaborate stage show that peaks when the "Ghostbusters" show up in not-at-all-like-the-movie bright blue astronaut suits, then Dom DeLuise shows up as an evil wizard for some reason. It's incredible stuff. https://youtu.be/mifNzspOweU?si=wOhO3VRjoEzcmHIR
God, that's amazing. I also love the fact that Parker spends the whole number in a levitating forklift and has to constantly move his head below or above the awkwardly placed rollbar.
Let’s not forget the reverse of this, when movies would suddenly turn into a music video. The most notorious example would probably be the inexplicable appearance of Frankie Goes To Hollywood in Body Double, which is unhinged even by De Palma standards, and not even the most jaw-dropping moment in the movie.
I don't know of a term to qualify this: "parodic pseudo-diegesis"? In the same vein as "Axel F," but way more so, I'll throw Zbigniew Rybczyński's video for The Art of Noise's "Dragnet" out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5U2N891E0
Probably also to do with Aykroyd as a bankable A-list comedy star more or less coinciding with both the height of music videos and the hit single movie tie-in.
Wow, I forgot about this. Yours is more bang-on with the theme of the article.
And something that occured to me after I posted: "The Art of Noise" as depicted in this video is NOT The Art of Noise, but the actors Rybczyński used to substitute for them in his AON videos. So mine's an even more debatable choice! Or perhaps just a more meta one.
Having been alive for--but not caring about--the ZOO TV Tour I finally understand that video after all these years. I was always partial to the Guns N' Roses video for "You Could Be Mine" tying into T2 where T-800 Arnold wanders through a concert (with shotgun) before confronting the band outside and opting out from killing them all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXx9S2nDouY
It'd happen again for Last Action Hero with ACDC's "Big Gun" with Arnold, as Jack Slater, trying to get on stage, having Angus Young's cap kicked onto his head and getting his own schoolboy uniform and guitar to play through "groundbreaking CG": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsXJitaiVo
We got the Ghostbusters but no Bobby Brown? Too hot to handle, too cold to hold! Had ‘em throwing a party for a bunch of children, while all the while the slime was under the building!
I don't think I've ever watched the Hellraiser video, might have to do that when I get home!
The Men in Black one, I could probably still sing both that and Black Suits Comin' from the second film back to back. Can't do most mathematical functions, but I can sing those!
On a related note I always like to recommend the video for Dan Black’s “Symphonies.” The song samples the score to John Carpenter’s STARMAN and the video is a hit list of various terrific opening title sequences from film history.
Oh that's neat. I'll drop in a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWWG75lLemA
Didn't make the list, and I think it sorta counts, but here's where I mention that my brother-in-law is in the "Dyslexic Heart" video because he and his roommate showed up at their arts/living space mid-video shoot and Cameron Crowe just dug their whole vibe and put them in it.
I don't know if a Beatle has ever made sounds that sound worse than that "Spies Like Us" song. Just dire. I love Adam Lambert, though I'm not familiar with the song/video mentioned here, and I'm definitely going to check that video out to see how it can be worse than "Spies Like Us".
I see a lot of people nowadays trying to reclaim "Beautiful Stranger" as a late-era Madonna classic that somehow stands alone as a song. And, nope. It's about Austin Powers and I will never be able to take it seriously.
Your writeup of "Men in Black" seems to suggest that it and "Wild Wild West" are the only two times Will Smith ever wrote a rap for a movie, which is merciful of you, as it lets Will off the hook for "Black Suits Comin'".
Studio Executive: "Okay, so what if Will Smith were Limp Bizkit? That kind of thing was popular a couple of years ago, and I can only assume will remain so. We'll get an abominable rap-rock beat and then Will can yell at the audience that they should break stuff or whatever."
Will Smith's agent: "He wants to keep it family-friendly. How about he just yells about nodding your head? Everyone can enjoy that!"
Wonderful Christmastime?
“Ode to a Koala Bear” is up there.
This was so good! I forgot about those About a Boy duck videos! (Though still listen to that soundtrack often, it's so good.)
Also I too was really curious about the connection between Lauper and WWF and did some research a while back. Here's what I found:
Allegedly it started because Cindi Lauper and Captain Lou Albino were seated next to each other on a plane. The two recognized they shared a cult camp sensibility during the flight, and became friends.
The friendship led Lauper to get Captain Lou to play her father in the Girls Just Want to Have Fun video. To return the favor, Captain Lou got Cyndi to come on a WWF talk show (Piper’s Pit) where they invented a rivalry to be settled through a women’s wrestling match.
Because of Lauper’s involvement, this WWF match aired on MTV, which helped get them a bigger audience. Having "reconciled" after the MTV match, Captain Lou was presenting Lauper an award for her women’s rights work. During the ceremony Rowdy Piper rushed in and “attacked” Lauper and Captain Lou. This led to Mr. T teaming up with Hulk Hogan to fight a tag team match against Piper for justice for Lauper & Lou in the very first Wrestlemania.
So what began as an excuse for Captain Lou and Cyndi Lauper to hang out at work ended up directly setting the stage for the WWF’s first big pay per view event.
Oh wow. I did not know that history.
I remember reading about this not long ago - was it in the new Vince McMahon bio? I love how much of the WWF's success in the '80s and '90s was luck more than anything.
Also, as someone who grew up on '80s WWF and is now a very pale gentleman, I am seriously considering changing my screen name to "Captain Lou Albino".
haha. And I think my main source was the book "Sex, Lies and Headlocks"!
This would be a good use for that meme that was used above the Strays review the other day.
Looking forward to the Disorderlies retrospective. Fat Boys live on!
Surprised not to see G&R's (waste of ammunition) "You Could be Mine" on here. Peak Schwarzenneger, and probably the last moment that the Gunners were any good.
GnR subsequently went original music video screenplays, with the increasingly cinematic November Rain and Estranged opuses. (Opi? Opes?)
Opus is 3rd declension. Plural is Opera.
Is that the ablative? 🙂
http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:opus
Ablative plural is "Operibus" :)
Huey's pre-song banter in the PoL video is just weird. It would be weird in a show, it's especially so in a video where stuff could conceivably be edited out. Maybe they had the best of both worlds since I don't think I've seen that part of it until full videos showed up on YouTube. I enjoy him saying "Hollywood came calling" in a tone of "man, this money is so exhausting to spend!"
Since it came up, has everyone seen the video of when Ray Parker, Jr. performed "Ghostbusters" at the '85 Oscars? It's an elaborate stage show that peaks when the "Ghostbusters" show up in not-at-all-like-the-movie bright blue astronaut suits, then Dom DeLuise shows up as an evil wizard for some reason. It's incredible stuff. https://youtu.be/mifNzspOweU?si=wOhO3VRjoEzcmHIR
Thanks for reminding me, I don't think I've watched the Oscars since.
Wha, why didn't they watch the movie before creating this? Or at least view some marketing or production stills???
God, that's amazing. I also love the fact that Parker spends the whole number in a levitating forklift and has to constantly move his head below or above the awkwardly placed rollbar.
that Spies Like Us video is awful!
though I do get a weird pleasure from how obvious it is that the three of them were never in the same place at the same time
Let’s not forget the reverse of this, when movies would suddenly turn into a music video. The most notorious example would probably be the inexplicable appearance of Frankie Goes To Hollywood in Body Double, which is unhinged even by De Palma standards, and not even the most jaw-dropping moment in the movie.
Digital Underground showing up in Nothing But Trouble
I don't know of a term to qualify this: "parodic pseudo-diegesis"? In the same vein as "Axel F," but way more so, I'll throw Zbigniew Rybczyński's video for The Art of Noise's "Dragnet" out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y5U2N891E0
Your mention of Dragnet made me remember another one that should be on this list:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pT_QRKfv8H4&pp=ygUbUmFwIHNvbmcgZnJvbSBtb3ZpZSBkcmFnbmV0
It occurs to me that Aykroyd has been part of a lot of these, you wonder if some of them were his idea.
Probably also to do with Aykroyd as a bankable A-list comedy star more or less coinciding with both the height of music videos and the hit single movie tie-in.
Wow, I forgot about this. Yours is more bang-on with the theme of the article.
And something that occured to me after I posted: "The Art of Noise" as depicted in this video is NOT The Art of Noise, but the actors Rybczyński used to substitute for them in his AON videos. So mine's an even more debatable choice! Or perhaps just a more meta one.
Having been alive for--but not caring about--the ZOO TV Tour I finally understand that video after all these years. I was always partial to the Guns N' Roses video for "You Could Be Mine" tying into T2 where T-800 Arnold wanders through a concert (with shotgun) before confronting the band outside and opting out from killing them all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXx9S2nDouY
It'd happen again for Last Action Hero with ACDC's "Big Gun" with Arnold, as Jack Slater, trying to get on stage, having Angus Young's cap kicked onto his head and getting his own schoolboy uniform and guitar to play through "groundbreaking CG": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsXJitaiVo
We got the Ghostbusters but no Bobby Brown? Too hot to handle, too cold to hold! Had ‘em throwing a party for a bunch of children, while all the while the slime was under the building!
Now I’ll never get this song out of my head.
Man, if I knew that then I had forgotten it. Wow.
Where does Aimee Mann's Save Me rank among these? I believe PTA shot this at the end of each shooting day for Magnolia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1H4BvAaqZo
Bonus: Phoenix nailing a gorgeous acoustic "Run Run Run" in costume on the set of Marie Antoinette:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rz9590Do_A