Music videos were bad before Rebecca Black - look at Kylie, Kate Bush and Cody Simpson
By Robert Burton-Bradley
Kate Bush in Sat In Your Lap, 1981. Misunderstood genius or just weird?
Rebecca Black's song Friday has racked up more than 88 million hits on YouTube, despite critics panning it as one of the worst songs of all time.
REBECCA Black's global humiliation with her debut song Friday is a reminder that, thanks to the internet and sites like YouTube, embarrassing musical follies don't easily go away.
With a few notable exceptions before MTV, music clips were basically four people from a band standing on a stage looking at a camera - often with bored and confused expressions and limp hand actions.
Then in the '80s a new awareness of the power of the visual medium swept the music industry leading to increasingly elaborate videos - think Michael Jackson's Thriller or Madonna's Express Yourself.
Today stars like Lady Gaga and Rihanna are known for their clips as much as their music.
To celebrate three decades of video hits and misses, News.com.au has compiled some of our favourite "so bad they're good (or perhaps just bad)" clips. We challenge you to find worse and tell us below with a comment.
Kate Bush: Sat in Your Lap, 1981 - From the "she's gone mad album" The Dreaming
There’s "out there" and then there’s this. Kate Bush is undoubtedly a talented and intriguing artist, yet that does not excuse this video. How she got funding to shoot herself dancing with minotaurs and what look like members of the Ku Klux Clan (they are supposed to be dunces) is just another one of the many mysteries surrounding this woman. Despite her bizarre interpretative dancing and the fact most of the cast are on roller skates this somehow managed to peak at no. 11 on the UK Singles Chart.
Jan Terri: Losing You, 1993 - Limo driver dreams of the big time
A graduate of Columbia – Columbia College Chicago that is, Jan Terri released two albums in the early '90s with accompanying music videos filmed on VHS - giving them a low-rent karaoke quality.
Desperate to make it as a singer Terri worked by day as a limo driver and handed out video tapes of her songs to clients. Sadly no amount of VHS and hard work could disguise the fact that Terri had neither the looks nor the talent to pursue a career in music. Eventually Marilyn Manson got hold of one of these tapes and ended up taking pity on Terri, reportedly asking her to sing at one of his birthday parties.
If you enjoyed this you may also enjoy her epic fantasy masterpiece: Get Down Goblin
Soap stars: Kylie Minogue: Locomotion, 1988 - Because being on TV means you can sing, right?
Almost any musical effort by an ex-member of Neighbours, E Street or Home and Away is going to be bad. Think Kylie Locomotion, Melissa Tkautz singing "If you want to wait till later take your hands off my detonator", Stefan Dennis clinging to a wire cage wearing leather or Craig McLachlan singing “Hey Mona” from the back of a ute.
It may have paid off for Natalie, Delta and yes, even Kylie eventually, but for each of those there is a Danni Minogue or Jason Donovan left in their wake and the results are not pretty. Remember Holly Valance or Bec Hewitt nee Cartwright’s forays into music?
Cody Simpon Feat, Flo Rida: IYiYi, 2010 - Making it in the US market Say hello to Australia’s answer to Justin Bieber - 14-year-old Cody Simpson. It seems all an aspiring singer needs to do these days is have an African American rapper mumble a few lines into the background, and hey, you have a hit. iYiYi does nothing to upset the growing trend embraced by artists like Jess Mauboy of trying to convince US audiences they are looking at one of their own.
His next single is reportedly a cover of I Want Candy.
Stevie Nicks: I can't Wait, 1985 - It probably seemed like a good idea at the time
In the '70s Stevie Nicks, the most popular member of super band Fleetwood Mac, reigned supreme as the queen of semi-mystical rock - adored by legions of young women who dug her vaguely medieval outfits and wicked witchery.
Then came the eighties and her now infamous battle with drug addiction. The result is the lost years of Stevie’s career - the mid eighties. In a decade famous for its flatulent excesses this clip shows just how badly things can go wrong. The hair, the boots and the out of time back up dancers. The stairway to nowhere and the fans, curtains and spotlights paint the rest of the picture. What doesn't this clip have apart from production values?
As Rick James told Dave Chappelle: "Cocaine’s a hell of a drug"
Falco: Rock Me Amadeus, 1986 - Cracking the English language market with Mozart
1980s America - meet Falco. Falco was an Austrian pop star, wildly successful in Europe with a string of German language Euro trash hits.
However Falco was desperate to crack the US charts. Realising a grasp of English was needed for this, Falco hit on the idea of creating a song in English and German based entirely around the 1984 Mozart biographical film Amadeus.
Logic dictates this was bound for failure, but it was the '80s and so this went to number 1 in the US and the UK along with several other countries.
Some interesting trivia: This song was the basis for The Simpsons' song Dr Zaius from the episode featuring Planet of the Apes the Musical.
Kim Wilde: Kids in America, 1981 - When female mullets were sexy
Before she was a presenter on a UK garden show, Kim Wilde sang for her dinner, scoring several chart hits around the globe. With her non-threatening '80s looks and nasal wail of a voice she was never going to make it to the '90s.
Interestingly, it took a cropped, bleached blonde from the UK to sum up the feelings of America’s disaffected youth. Getting frightened by torch-wielding guys behind aluminium blinds in this clip remains her best known moment in the flood lights.
Collette: Ring My Bell, 1989 - Leather and lycra
Originally from New Zealand, Collette was a model who after moving to Australia decided being nubile was enough to become a pop star. The result is this video. An excruciating mixture of lycra, bike shorts and too thin vocals no studio could beef up. She later ditched this for a more dramatic look, cutting her hair short and dyeing it black but the hits failed to materialise. She was last seen working as a volunteer at Taronga Zoo in Sydney.
Sabrina: Boys (Summertime Love) 1987 - It's just about the music - we swear
Another model who decided she could carve out a place in the charts is Sabrina. Hailing from Italy; Sabrina became an instant male fantasy when she sang Boys, Boys Boys looking for a good time. The video is largely clips of Sabrina frolicking in a pool with a beach ball while trying not to lose a skimpy see-through bikini.
Armi Ja Danny: Love You Tender, 1978 - What did ABBA do that we didn't?
Say hello to Finland’s favourite national icons from the late '70s - Armi and Danny.
It was a match made in Nordic pop heaven – she was a beauty queen and he looked like someone from an ABBA cover band.
They were big in Scandinavia during the late '70s, but sadly this was not to last. Armi spent the late '80s and '90s singing on cruise ships in the Baltic Sea before dying an early death at the age of 44 from alcoholism in 2002. Danny fared better, scoring the odd hit here and there and is now considered a popular figure on the Finnish music scene.
Venga Boys, Shalala Lala, 2000 - Confused sexuality in the Swiss Alps
It was the late '90s and all things Euro pop were wildly popular in Australia and much of the world. Think Steps, S Club 7 and the Spice Girls. If there was one group that summed up the dance end of the Euro music spectrum it was the Venga Boys. They climbed the charts with a none to tasteful remake of '80s song Boom Boom Boom and were known for other sugar pop dance numbers such as We’re Going to Ibizia, weren’t we all.
Yet when it comes to their film clips Shalala Lala stands alone. Set in what appears to be a Swiss chalet nightclub with a Bavaria meets the Midwest dress code this appears to be the group's take on the battle of the sexes.
Apparently they last year released a song which Perez Hilton co-wrote. It didn’t get released outside their native home the Netherlands.
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