Willow ,'Help'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
It's got the long velvet coat, and the cane and the absinthe and the vulture and the hedge labyrinth...
When it was in high rotation, a friend taped it, and then we sat down with all of our Edward Gorey books and went through the video frame by frame, finding all the visual references. Yes, this is how goths amuse themselves on a rainy day.
I was describing how great the song "Perfect Drug" was to someone and realized that I was really describing how great the VIDEO was. Unfortunately, I mentioned this stunning realization and was made fun of.
The song's pretty cool, too.
realized that I was really describing how great the VIDEO was.
Well, it is a great video.
I've realized this is as close as I come to a guilty pleasure, but I do love music videos. Not uncritically, but still, for somebody who listens to as much music as I do, this is not the Right Attitude. But I've always loved watching music. When I was in high school in the seventies, I spent many many Friday nights riding my bike to midnight movies just to watch The Song Remains The Same or Get Back.
I love watching old Elvis and Little Richard live clips, Louis Jordan's movie clips and scopitones, Duke Ellington soundies, and James Brown and Bo Diddley and The Ronettes on The TAMI or TNT Show and Dick Dale in beach movies and Serge Gainsbourg's weird little art videos and my New York Dolls documentary and TMBG animation and Siouxsie's super stylish videos.
I've always loved a band's visual style, whether it was in their clothes or their record sleeves or their videos. I love watching performances and thinking about Peter Hook's bass playing or Keith Moon's drumming, or the twin guitar attack in The Church. I love NIN's uncanny industrial/horrror show aesthetic - it's a big part of what the 90s looked like.
So I think that's my musical heresy. I love videos.
but still, for somebody who listens to as much music as I do, this is not the Right Attitude.
Why isn't it the Right Attitude? I don't understand why it would be musical heresy to love music videos.
'Cuz it's supposed to be about the music, man!
Or is it because MTV sucks?
'Cuz it's supposed to be about the music, man!
After I discover a new band I like, I go to Google and look for images of them. I like seeing what (if any) their visual style is.
The song's pretty cool, too.
I love the song. But I'm a huge NIN fan.
Hmmm.... that makes me think... in the last year and a half I've bought a bunch of albums from iTunes. I just realized that for most all of those bands I have no idea what they look like - or anything else, for that matter.
I love the song. But I'm a huge NIN fan.
I was listening to Pretty Hate Machine the other day, and was struck by just how ... poppy it sounded. Sulky and angry, yes, but undeniably pop music.
'Cuz it's supposed to be about the music, man!
There's a strong bias that music shouldn't get over on visuals. That, in fact, most crap music and the most commercial pop, sell because Britney's belly is bare or like that. It's a very strongly held notion in punk/indie orthodoxy that videos are evil, 'mersh, cheezy, inauthentic, corporate.