In the spirit of the Red Man's blog about piss-poor music videos, I thought I'd upload Van Halen's version of the Roy Orbison classic, (Oh) Pretty Woman. It's not good.
As much as I love VH, this one was a real head scratcher. I think this video, more than cancer was the reason why Roy is now taking a dirt nap.
Check out this description of the video from "Sounds" magazine from 1982:
The music video for "(Oh) Pretty Woman was one of the first banned by MTV although VH1 has consistently aired it in recent years. In 1982, Dave explained the ban as the result of complaints that it made fun of "an almost theological figure" the Samurai warrior (Mike Anthony in the video) and also because two midgets appeared to molest a woman (actually a man in drag). The video, directed by Roth, was, he said: "rather like a surrealistic art project ... where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant." The track "Intruder" on the album, which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written specifically in order that there would be enough music to cover the length of the film that was edited down for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" video. In his 1982 interview with Sylvie Simmons, Dave takes credit for "Intruder", stating: "I wrote that ... When we finished the movie (i.e., the video) it was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won't cut any of it; we'll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together."
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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5 comments:
There was a documentary out a while back called "Out of the Celluloid Closet" Go rent it, and you will probably get a better understanding of why this video was banned. Plus, I never realized how much David Lee Roth looks like a female version of Martha Plimpton.
Yeah, Doctor, like "Jump" and "Panama" were such rocknroll classics that they made everybody forget about Chuck Berry! I haven't played your video yet, but it's only because I'm not into Huey Lewis and the News soundalikes that "rock" like Celine Dion.
Of course not R-Lo...why be into pop culture music and video that we've all heard about when you can dig Arthur Anderson (related to Loni?), some Chinese movie named "Election" (pronouned "Erection" in Shanghai), and Mareva Galanter? If you want to bore people into committing mass suicide, those are three subjects that you can start with.
And who is Chuck Berry? Is he related to former New York Mets legend Darryl Straw Berry?
Doctor, you're pretty defensive for a lemming! However, I have to give you credit for your argument that Van Halen is "good" because "we've all heard about them." I just thought you liked their tinny guitar sound.
I'm not being defensive...you're the one being defensive!!!
Your denial of their greatness confuses me. Why are you threatened by them R-Lo? Why do you continue to live in a world of b-sides and artists who can only fill up 200-seat capacity clubs when there is so much out there? Open your eyes, embrace the mainstream! The weather is wonderful here.
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