Seriously -- forget the ripped t-shirt/crawling across the floor Flashdance stuff. But the skipping/aerobics?/wrist-waving moves Squier does here are SOOO sexy I can't imagine why guys all over the country aren't trying to do them in front of their bedroom mirrors to this very day.
Okay, actually I can. Two words: Ed Grimley.
And this, from Squier's Wiki entry, is particularly delicious:
"Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest Pop hit. It reached #15 on Billboard's Hot 100, as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega), which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, was named by Video GaGa as one of "The worst videos of all time". On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard's "Pyromania" episode), Squier blamed the end of his career as a chart-topping rocker on the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video.
Heh.
[h/t Laura G.]
I liked him better when was with Piper. But he must have made a few bucks doing the solo crap. Actually, one, maybe two songs were tolerable. Not this one.
ReplyDeleteI loved (and still do, actually) the Don't Say No album.
ReplyDeleteEmotions In Motion was a decent foliow-up, but I have to say that video for Rock Me Tonight really *did* kill my enthusiasm for his music.
He might have been better off being one of those artists who was slow to the video revolution.
I got through 1:29. Utterly horrifying. Creepy. Cringe inducing. Was MTV a terrible mistake?
ReplyDeleteMaybe.
Here's a video worth watching:
"Rubber Johnny" by Aphex Twin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy6W9Ko9VlQ
It strikes me that it's all the things I said about "Rock Me Tonite", except in a good way.
As you are wont to say, Simels: "Wow.
ReplyDeleteJust wow."
Where in hell do you get these things? This is the strangest of all. Puzzling: He keeps ripping off his tee shirt, the picture dissolves, and then he's wearing TWO tee shirts, layered. I couldn't watch it all the way through.
ReplyDeleteThe irony -- if that is the word -- is that the song itself is not completely terrible. Okay, that "guilty of love in the 3rd degree" line ain't so hot, but the thing is undeniably hooky.
ReplyDeleteIt does really suck as a video, but there is a bigger problem: dude can't move without looking overly twee.
ReplyDeleteNow this would not be a problem in another world. Jerry Garcia was not a great dancer, Page can't sing, and Robert Wyatt can't even walk. But none of them let some producer talk them into doing something that they can't and then putting it on video.
So it all comes back to Squier as I see it. Maybe it was too much cocaine in his brain telling him that everything he did was fabulous, but he should have never, never allowed this released in the current, ghastly form.
No loss from my perspective, I thought he looked like a huge asshat in all his videos.
Trey
Learned all his moves from Jerry Lewis, apparently ...
ReplyDeleteThe moves remind me of Freddie Mercury. And I don't mean that as a compliment.
ReplyDeleteThe video ruins what is really a very good song. I always liked the record (having never seen the video); but now...
way too funny - LOL LOL LOL
ReplyDeletethe guy is an asswipe
Creepier then Ed Wood Jr. movies.
ReplyDeleteThe popular culture of the early eighties really sucked.
ROTP(lumber)
That video always was a head-scratcher. Lots of people involved must have gone temporarily insane.
ReplyDeletedefinitrly a case of video killed the radio star.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever seen any of the early unreleased videos that Springsteen did for Dancing in the Dark, you have to assume he was aware of the dangers of poofy video dancing.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, look it up for a laugh - I'm pretty sure they're out there somewhere.