July 2009
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Watch#417: nancy sinatra - sugartown (1967)
sugartown is either about sex, schizophrenia, or very strong cocaine—or it’s about nothing at all, and only exists to allow for synchronized sashaying. either way, cave-voiced lee hazelwood should be praised for writing it, and for his mustache.
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Watch#414: electric light orchestra - mr. blue sky (1978)
if livin’ thing tasted like a packet of sugar emptied onto the tip of the tongue, mr. blue sky is a bathtub of fresh-squeezed orange juice with pulp. the hair is big, the dual cellos are bigger, the hook could kill a very large fish, and the guiding idea is that paul’s parts of a day in the life were better than john’s. the...
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Watch#413: the temptations - ain’t too proud to beg (1966)
look at how these men slither, sidle, shirk, slink, skitter, shake and slide in their matching cream suits, making synchronized crouching and punching look like balanchine. this is gesticulation at its finest: the temptations were made of putty.
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Watch#411: a tribe called quest - i left my wallet in el segundo (1990)
music video history’s best use of over-colorful pants, sombrero-wearing little people, ‘74 dodge darts, sad cans of fruit punch, and early-90s african-american hat styles.
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Watch#408: bob dylan - one too many mornings (live, 1966)
the only thing better than a tender and heartbroken bob dylan song about dusk, eyelids, street signs and empty rooms is hearing it played boozily and scowlingly with johnny cash, although dylan’s hung-over, dry-mouthed, half-nauseous version has its advantages too. but the most brutal recording of one too many mornings is the version that...
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Watch#407: beyoncé ft. kanye west - ego (remix) (2009)
one of the great tragedies of modern history is that sigmund freud couldn’t have hung on 70 years longer to watch this video, which includes some of the world’s most profoundly triumphant and mind-warping phallic references. the chorus goes: “it’s too big, it’s too wide, it’s too strong, it won’t...
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Watch#405: barrington levy - here i come (1985)
what’s going to happen to me and you and music and the world in this era of michael jackson misery, economic devastation, sociopolitical uncertainty, and international unrest? lo, i have the answer! we need more things likes this clip from a 1985 telethon: more shiny suits (with more matching shiny hats), more stage-wide sauntering, more...
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Watch#404: james brown - hell (1974)
making michael jackson’s 11-year-old daughter speak in front of 20,000 people at her father’s televised memorial service was probably the ickiest show business move since a long-haired, bell-bottomed, sequin-suited mini-james brown was made to dance to a song about misery—only this was a lot less amusing. and when janet jackson said, “speak...
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Watch#401: paul simon - boy in the bubble (1986)
if the prettiest, sharpest, most sparkling american pop album of the 1980s wasn’t thriller, then it was graceland. it just so happens that paul simon and michael jackson shared a music video director, jim blashfeld, who made a clip for boy in the bubble that looks like james rosenquist making out with claes oldenburg (in a room decorated with the...
