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Monday, 10:59 pm in Music

I figured today we’d take a break from our regular Music Monday today to instead bring you a very special Video Edition.  Previous Mondays have focused on songs I like; today instead I’ll be focusing on videoclips I like.  And I think today I’ll do 10, just because I can‘t stop at just five.  It’s like a mini Rage guest program!  I’ve always wanted to do one of those.

1. Nine Inch Nails, “The Perfect Drug”
I remember when, may years ago now, I first saw this clip on Rage.  I think it was kind of my first ‘goth’-looking videoclip, and I was absolutely fascinated by it.  The song is kind of ho-hum, but because of the clip I had an obsession with it for a great chunk of my early-middish teens, despite not actually knowing what Absinthe was at the time.  You know, I swear I’ve seen another version of this clip, too; one with everyone popping yellow capsules filled with oil.  It was much more clubby than goth.  Anyway.

2. The Cure, “Wrong Number”
Watching this clip now – for the first time since, oh, it came out probably – it occurs to me that whoever made it must’ve watched Mermaid in a Manhole the night before.  I mean, worms writhing around in Technicolor paint pustules?  I dunno, watching these clips I’m starting to see a pattern; I guess before I started obsessing over incomprehensible surreal arthouse films I used to obsess over incomprehensible surreal music videos.  However, “Wrong Number” falls into the category of being more psychedelic fugue than ominous premonition.  Can’t complain, really.  I totally had a crush on Robert Smith when I was a kid.  What can I say; I’m a sucker for English guys with bad hair.

3. Peter Gabriel, “Digging in the Dirt”
An oldie; a real, real oldie.  This was one of my favorite clips when I was all of about ten years old.  Obviously I didn’t really ‘get’ the narrative at the time; I just loved the grotesque little claymation cuts in it.

4. Smashing Pumpkins, “Tonight Tonight”
Not only is the one of my favorite songs of all time, it’s also one of my favorite videoclips.  I love the whole way Billy Corgan starts shaking as the music starts moving into the big “Believe, believe” chorus in the middle; so classy.  Anyway, asides from that I just love the early-cinema visuals of this clip.  I’m guessing it’s based on one of those old old Jules Verne-esque ‘voyage to the moon’ movies that floated around for a while – in fact, I’m sure I’ve seen that moon-face before – but you’ll have to excuse my ignorance of early cinema.  Pointless fact:  I’ve only ever had one band-based poster, and it was of the Pumpkins dressed up as they appear in this clip.  It’s not like I was a huge Pumpkins fan or anything (though Corgan is kind of cute is a weird bald way), I just really, really liked the look of the thing.

5. U2, “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”
Aah, back in the days when Batman movies had the guts to still be campy and inane.  Back before superhero flicks became Real Cinema with Real Issues and blah blah blah bo-oo-oo-oring.  Who would’ve thought, though, that when Bono isn’t out saving the third world he apparently moonlights with an evil, Joker-esque supervillain alter ego?  How novel.  Anyway, I love animated video clips, so aside from liking the song itself, I adore this clip.

6. Pearl Jam, “Do the Evoltion”
Speaking of animated videoclips, this one – with its art by Todd McFarlane (the guy who did Spawn) – was one of the Great Influences on my drawing style.  At the time it was released, even dubbed anime were quite rare, and while I’d seen a few I was still fascinated by the notion of cartoons for grownups.  And not ‘strip’-style sitcom cartoons like The Simpsons, either; I’m talking real-deal, high production values, comic-style art cartoons.  Even today they’re pretty rare, and I can name maybe five off the top of my head (The Maxx, Spawn, Aeon Flux, Stripperella and The Head*).  Anyway, the rest of the animation in this clip aside, the thing that always obsessed me especially as a kid is the instrumental bit in the middle where the Deathgirl is dancing under a strobe.  The sheer powerful energy and movement of that scene is something I’ve always adored.  For a long time, the Deathgirl was the original Sigyn (with a bit of Julie Winters thrown in for good measure; especially around the thighs).  Interestingly, I always thought the song lost almost all of its impact when disconnected from the visuals, which I guess just goes to show how ingrained the scenes are in my head.

7. Tool, “Prison Sex”
I fucking loathe Tool.  Seriously; whiney pretentious emo wankers all need a good slapping.**  Nevertheless, Tool generally have funky videoclips, of which this one seriously always stuck in my mind.  I guess just because of that whole BDSM ‘defiled child’ image that’s going on here, and the Brom-esque design of the big black monster thing.  Whenever I need to conjure up appearances for phantom horrors in my writing, this monster (along with Silent Hill and the art of Brom) is always the first thing that pops into my head.  Actually, the Odin!monster in Corner – with its “skittering insect legs” – is based on it, come to think about it.

8. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
Congratulations, Soundgarden, you’ve managed to do in five minutes what it’s taken David Lynch decades to hash out.  Yeah, clean and prissy middle-class suburbia is fucking terrifying.  Anyone who tries that hard to be ‘normal’ is obviously hiding something.

9. David Bowie, “Little Wonder”
Ah, Bowie, how can we get past you?  Even in your over-tight Labyrinth pants.  Like “Wrong Number”, this clip manages to blend a bunch of images – the hanging doll-things specifically – and narrative that are fairly common in your run of the mill Tool/Marilyn Manson/NIN video.  However, what “Little Wonder” does that always fascinated me, is manages to do it in a way that isn’t menacing; it’s wonderful.  It’s different and it’s weird and it’s dark but it’s not… scary.  It’s not threatening.  Like “Wrong Number”, pretty much every Tim Butron film ever made and – to a somewhat more subtle extent – Doctor Who; all things that celebrate and revel in the dark places where the weird stuff lies.  And, conversely, that show a certain kind of fear and mistrust for the supposedly ‘normal’, the status quo.  It’s watching clips like this as a kid that made me realize I always wanted to live in a world like that.  I didn’t want to live somewhere safe and sterile.  I wanted to wear floor length frock coats and have inappropriate two-toned hair and imaginary friends at age 22.  Funny how the Brits tend to do this better; when the Americans do ‘dark’ it’s almost always somehow menacing and wrong (coughBuffycough).  When the Brits do it, it’s an adventure.***

10. Blind Melon, “No Rain”
What?  What’s this?  A clip with no monsters?  A clip with no twisted horrors or grimy sets or psychedelic surrealism?  That’s right, kids, it’s not all doom and gloom.  Asides from the song itself, this clip taught me at a young age that no matter how much other people think you’re weird, no matter how much they laugh, there’s always a bright sunny field of bee dancers out there just waiting for you.  Also, how mid-90s do these guys look?  Man, I never realized how much I missed that grungy, long-haired look.  Everyone nowadays is way too preened and metro.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this week’s clips, and remember to tune in next Monday when we return you to your regularly scheduled downloads.

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* For you nitpickers, yes I’m deliberately discounting stuff like Drawn Together – which doesn’t cover the art style I’m thinking of – and Beavis and Butthead – which isn’t aimed at quite the right audience.

*** Yes, this is a generalization.  I can think of two exceptions right now; Burton, who I’ve already mentioned, and JK Rowling.

• Tags » meme, music monday, videoclips, youtube