Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 Fluke 8/7/84; site fluke.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!moriarty From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) Newsgroups: net.tv,net.music Subject: A Video Novice reviews MTV (Like, I'm still stuck in the 60s...) Message-ID: <1374@vax2.fluke.UUCP> Date: Sun, 23-Sep-84 19:37:43 EDT Article-I.D.: vax2.1374 Posted: Sun Sep 23 19:37:43 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 08:09:26 EDT Distribution: net Organization: Graveyard of the Folk Music People Lines: 120 "Picture the following individual; a man who has listened to almost no music since 1972. His entire musical tastes still lie in the areas of folk music, classical, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkle, The Limeliters, and other 60s and 70s groups, with an occasional Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel Album thrown in." "But tonight, he is about to enter a new dimension; he is going to be thrown, like a Ford Crash-test car into a brick wall, into the 80's, through the latest technological advances known to mankind. He will visit a land beyond space, beyond time, beyond all the standards of good taste." "In short, he will enter.... The MTV Zone" ------------------------------------------ Well, having just gotten cable, I realized it was out there; but the rumors I'd heard about it had been pretty evenly divided. Some friends told me that it contained videos that reached new heights of absurdity and visual acumen. Others told me it was garbage, built for morons and lacking anything to set it apart from the PEOPLE magazine age. So I spent a few days watching MTV, and have found it... interesting. Not too surprising, but interesting. OVERVIEW: If I had to give a percentage rating of the things I saw on MTV, I would have to say that about 80% of it appears to be crap. However, this was to be expected; when overviewing the type of fiction that is placed on the printed page, or the music produced by any type of musical genre, most of this is also crap (think of all the books on sale at the Safeway reading section, for instance). Art forms, at least those with commercial basises, produce a relatively small percentage of material that I find competent, much less stimulating, interesting, or entertaining. So video seems to be keeping up with other forms of artistic communication. Saying this means I also found some work put on MTV to have been of interest to me, which is true; there are, in fact, two or three cases I found to be of very great interest, which I have watched and listened to several times. However, of the "crap portion" of MTV-broadcast video, I also found a great deal of it offensive, particularly in its portrayal of women; there really are some disturbing images put on some videos. I noticed most (but not all) videos which seemed to have the worst portrayal of women were the Heavy Metal bands; I've always considered this image of women to be part and parcel of their type of music (or at least the image the band tend to portray). But there were some surprises: I particularly noted a Carly Simon video with Simon being chased by a faceless man, in the dark (and eventually, the forest), who finally grabs her and apparently forces her to make love; she then stops struggling and begins to enjoy it. Much of this takes place with the camera taking the point of view of the man chasing her (rather like the "Friday the 13th" series of movies); it surprised me that Simon, whose music I've always liked, would do a video like this -- I guess I thought, after listening to so many of her songs, that she thought differently than this. On the technical side, I was VERY impressed by some of the work going on here, especially with computer animation, stop animation, and video effects. Much of the cinematography was excellent (ironically, much of it in jeans ads), and the blend of music, camera work and editing could create really effective images "on screen". There is obviously quite a bit of expansion going on here in the way of computer graphics. Below are some groups I found particularly good, followed by some I found correspondingly bad; I've tried to rate them more on the quality of the video (the images, matched with the audio portion of the video) than on my prejudices about music. GOODIES: The Cars: I think I've watched "All I Want is You" about 20 times... fantastic special effects, wonderfully absurd (as you may have noticed, rampant absurdity rates high in my book). Also, the video (the name I have forgotten) with the Car's lead singer walking on water is hilarious. Good stuff. The Police: Every time I see "Every Step You Take" I stop everything and watch. This, I think, is about the only thing I've seen on MTV that could compete in a national film festival... but this could go head-to-head with almost any other short I've seen this year. A work of great skill and imagination: true excellence. Cindy Laupner: Anyone this wacky deserves credit. I hope she really is like this, and that it's not a put-on. "Shee Bop" is great (the blind tap dance routine at the end made it for me -- black humor all the way!). Huey Lewis and the News: Corny, but reminds me of the stuff Lester & the Beatles used to do. "This is it" is so full of scene-jokes that it tends to carry the video, as did "Airplane". Bruce Springsteen: I've only seen the "This Gun for Hire" video, which has no special effects, theme, or settings, just Springsteen on stage... but it is fantastic, due 99% to Springsteen. Anyone who can carry an audience like that.... BAD NEWS: Carly Simon: Already mentioned. Tina Turner: Her new image... it reminds me of an old Tom Leher lyric: "Isn't it marvelous what they're doing with plastics nowadays..." Billy Squiers, Sammy Hagar: If these two men were to suddenly perish, I believe that the average I.Q. of living rock stars would jump 60 points. Ratt: Hard to believe any video with Milton Berle could be bad. This one is. I particularly dislike the deb's transformation to a sniveling creature crawling at Ratt's feet. Blech. ------- Comments? Other recommendations for good/bad videos? Flames (uh-oh)? "...in an iron coffin, with spikes on the inside!" Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc. UUCP: {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver \ {allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA