Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Video / Classic Video Killed the Rock n' Roll Star
Posted by David Schmader on Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 1:59 PM
Billy Squier's video for "Rock Me Tonite" was forced into my brain yesterday by Dave Segal's post on the worst videos of all time (it came in seventh!). I've been lightly obsessed with it ever since.
Some history: This video came out in 1984, when music videos were mandatory. Not only did MTV still play music videos in the '80s, they played whatever videos they had over and over and over (24 hours a day is a lot of time to fill), and many musical acts—from a-ha to ZZ Top—were made exceptionally wealthy through the power of eye-catching videos, which were essentially commercials that MTV ran for free, ad nauseum.
Given all this, the general idea seemed to be that a bad video was better than no video at all—but this theory was proven violently false by Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonite," which finds the power-chordin' guitar-rocker literally prancing around like a prancer, with exceptional gusto. It's an amazing performance, and it effectively wrecked Billy Squier's career. Apparently, fans of power-chord-heavy guitar rock don't like their stars to prance.
Other key fact: The clip was directed by one Kenny Ortega, the choreographer of Dirty Dancing and Newsies, and the director/choreographer of High School Musical. Make of that what you will.
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That in conjunction with the off-the-shoulder, pastel, flashdance aerobic outfit was just a bit too much for the newly heavying guitar-rock crowd to take.
Say what you will, dude wrote one of the best Xmas songs ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG9QyKxYU…
I am not entirely convinced Squier wasn't being sarcastic when he was filmed prancing around like that. I think a lot more about this could be written -- did he think videos were such a passing fad that he could perform in one like that, and still maintain his core (male) audience -- not unlike the Sweet doing pop songs for Top 40 and still rocking the punters on tours with Slade in the early 70s? Was he making fun of a teen fan base he definitely had after "Everybody Wants You" (a GREAT pop song everybody loved)? And think about Billy's roots in post-glam band Piper? And flaunting androgyny in 80s metal videos in general?
Wika fact: "Squier originally performed with the band Magic Terry & The Universe, which also included Klaus Flouride, who went on to play with The Dead Kennedys."
This video demands a taunting, passionate "Letter To Axl" sort of performance built around it ... or some kind of "Showgirls" mockery ... but who would step up to provide us with such entertainment? Who could we possibly trust to do that? David? Would you know?
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