Love Is A Battlefield
No one in my car touches channel changer when Pat comes on, but the video for “Love Is A Battlefield” is absolutely some entry-level cringe. Apparently our hero in this one is fighting against the tyranny of parental units, only to discover that life on the street isn’t glamorous because…um…love is a battlefield? I’m not sure if she’s a hooker or an assistant bartender or what, but you can be certain that the guy with the gold foil overbite is bad news. He seems to be a pimp or perhaps the head bartender. Either way, the women who’ve fled their parents for the safety of the discotheque are clearly threatened by him. Fortunately, they rally together and he’s repelled by a West Side Story dance battle. But then again…aren’t we all?
She’s A Beauty
Don’t get me wrong. “She’s A Beauty” is a great song, and Fee Waybill’s freaking awesome. It’s just the video that’ll keep you cringing for three and a half minutes. Or three and a half hours, since you won’t be able to get it out of your head. It starts out very subtle — a giant carnival advertisement showing a woman whose bikini is slipping off, crouching down next to the words “Ride the Beauty.” And who’s going to ride the beauty? Apparently a thirteen year old boy. I’m sure there’s something reassuring about being held securely in your carnival ride seat by the firm grasp of a pony-tailed dominatrix, but they probably could have done without the seat tearing through a giant paper breast. And to really bring the cringe factor to a high peak, amongst all the dommes, caged women, and dancing girls we get…an eight year old ballerina.
Incidentally, the kid in the video is Alexis Arquette. When the video was produced Alexis was Robert, the younger brother of Rosanna Arquette, girlfriend of Steve Porcaro, whose Toto bandmate Steve Lukather co-wrote “She’s A Beauty.” If you want to ride the beauty, you just have to know people.
Rock Me Tonight
Quite a bit has already been said about this video, but…there’s always more to say. Tons of speculation, of course, about whether this video was the direct cause of his rapid decline in album and concert ticket sales. I’m pretty sure the horrible video is coincidental, but music scholars can debate that between contrasts of Beethoven and Rachmaninoff. More importantly, I want to point out an incredibly key metric in assessing the cringe level of any video: writhing. In “Rock Me Tonight,” Billy writhes like…something that writhes a lot. He writhes on the floor. He writhes on the bed. If he had a bike, I’m pretty sure he would have been writhing on the bike. And…he writhes his way into his girlfriend’s shirt. When he’s not writhing, he’s prancing. Even for the 80s it’s pretty horrible. It’s like Kenny Ortega was told, “You’ve only got a single bedroom set and Billy, what can you do with that?” and Kenny said, “Writhing and prancing. And get me a pink tank top!” Interesting side note, I’m pretty sure Kenny Ortega also directed the video for “She’s A Beauty…”
Self Control
Laura Branigan…Queen of the Italian Covers, and “Self Control” is one of them. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., despite MTV’s reluctance to play the video. Why where they reluctant? Because William Friedkin apparently regretted the lack of cringe in his movies (like, The French Connection) and decided to pour every ounce he could muster into “Self Control.”
Right off the bat: there’s a creepy doll in Laura’s bedroom. I’m an avid estate-sale shopper, so when I tell you a doll is creepy, you can bet I’m an expert on creepy dolls. Second, I’m pretty sure the entire set was created using one hallway, one room, and different colored garbage bags to dress things up. But most important: writhing. Laura writhes. The dancers writhe. The weird dude who embodies “night” writhes. Then they all writhe some more while wearing sheer body suits and unsettling masks. Mr. Night writhes his way into Laura’s bedroom and in super close-ups pulls off pieces of her clothing. Everyone’s writhing, except the dude who sleeps facedown on Laura’s bed and never even twitches through the entire video. (Spoiler alert: it’s Billy Squier, who’s going to wake up and writhe in a pink tank-top later.)
Into The Night
It’s one of the best one-hit wonders of the 1980s, in my opinion, and a music video that should never have seen the light of day. For some really entertaining trivia regarding chart performance, look up the history of this song. But don’t watch the video.
You’ll can certainly get the gist from the opening lyrics: “She’s just 16 years old / leave her alone / they say.”
Okay, fine. It’s one of many 70s and 80s songs that reference a disturbingly young girl. It’s not THAT disturbing when you realize the singer was probably 18 or maybe 20 when he wrote the song, right? Except that in the video, Benny looks like he’s 40. Why? BECAUSE HE IS. (Actually, he’s 34 in 1980, when the song came out. But he looks even older than that.)
Worse, the girl in the video looks all of 14. Add the music video lip-sync equivalent of interpretative dance and the best special effects 1980 had to offer (in the way of a magic flying carpet for make-out session over New York City) and…yeesh. Enjoy the song, enjoy the songs Benny wrote for other artists, but absolutely skip the video, except for those late-night moments when you want to totally creep out your friends.