2019 Top 100, Part 10.

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10:

Holding Out For A Hero – Bonnie Tyler

As you’d expect from this attractive roofer, the video for this is batshit mental. Now, it’s a lot more tame than the video we looked at for Total Eclipse Of The Heart, and it definitely has a stronger theme running through it, but dear god, what a hellscape. I think its main downfall is the fact it puts a face to the “DO DO DO DOOOOOOOOOOO… AHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH”. When you don’t see them singing it, you don’t really notice how much of an oddity it really is. Yeah, we’re gonna devote like a quarter of the overall song to some women going “Do do do doooooo”. When you put the faces to it though, it highlights. Also, at the 30 or so second mark when Bonnie runs out of the house and drops to her knees, isn’t just badly acted, it’s badly acted by music video standards. That’s a pretty low bar. A low 80s bar no less! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

9:

Synthetic – The Midnight

Whomever thought to mash together some clips from Mannequin to make this video, I salute you! How hot is Kim Cattrall! Schwing! Andrew McCarthy was a great actor, you know, very underated. Still is, to be fair, don’t know why I said was. Anyway, this is song 3 of 4 for The Midnight. Also taken from Endless Summer, this is one of their slowest most chilled out tracks.

8:

Never Enough – Loren Allred

I love a good musical. I hated The Greatest Showman. The problem was that it was super overhyped and hugely overrated. It’s fine. It’s nothing special at all. The standout of the whole thing is Loren Allred’s criminally great voice on Never Enough. I like a song that builds and this is textbook when it comes to layering it up to hit the highs at the end. Tell you what… Lewis Capaldi could take some pointers from Rebecca Ferguson. That’s some A-List lip syncing going on right there. If you’ve never seen the film, it’s about more than just Zac Efron getting into trouble for touching black MJ. The other MJ.

7:

Lovers – Timecop1983 feat Seawaves

Blah blah blah. We’ve been over this.

6:

What’s Up Danger – Blackway feat Black Caviar

Blackway featuring Black Caviar… Isn’t all caviar black? Does it come in different colours? You live and learn! The best song in the Spider-Verse soundtrack by a country mile. What’s up, danger? Cos I like the beat, I like the lyrics and what they do to me, I like the arrangement and how it empowers the visuals. What’s up, danger! Is there supposed to be a comma. What’s up danger, doesn’t seem as correct. YOU CANT STOP ME NOW!

5:

Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen

Top 5 time. Gotta admit it, this is pretty accurate and on brand this top 5. Not really gonna say too much about Hungry Eyes. I will however paste in what I wrote about it when I went over the music video!

We’re vastly in danger of a video deconstruction here. It’s no secret that I love this song. I’ve talked about it before. One thing we haven’t done though, is discuss the MENTAL music video it has. Now… *sigh*, here we go. So, one thing that really helps a song is being attached to a big film. Obviously, as we all know, this is from Dirty Dancing, a huge film that happened to turn 30 years old this year [2017]. Let’s take a look at the video then…

Camera reel. Good opening. The classic trope of having a dude sit in a chair in a dark room watching some old home movie on a wall to remember a lost love, kind of thing. Only, they’ve taken the opportunity to sneak in some Dirty Dancing footage. Good move on the whole, and something that’s widely done in music videos from films. They’ll often have the film on TV screens in the background or projected onto a wall. The only problem with what they’ve done is they’ve just made it look like Eric Carmen likes to sit in the dark, watch Dirty Dancing and whack off to the three-way dance screen.

Eric gets up and moves to the window, opens it and looks out to find a woman in a corset kind of thing fucking up his flowers. She then sticks them in a vase or something and instantly changes into a red top and starts rubbing her cleavage. Then, all of a sudden, she’s on the wall, being projected, THEN SHE’S JUST THERE! She strokes his face and leaves. I say leaves, she dematerialises.

Now we’re outside and Carmen is on the wall singing. The woman in red shows up and rolls down a wall. DON’T FORGET THIS IS FROM DIRTY DANCING SO LOOK, HERE’S SOME FILM FOOTAGE!

Back to Carmen for a pull away camera shot that blends into that woman again, now dancing on an entirely white background like they forgot to photoshop something in. Back in on Carmen so he can give us the chorus. Back to the woman because they’ve remembered they were supposed to make it rain in the background of her dancing. Back to Carmen, for the same pull away camera shot, only this time the woman is now there, and she’s wearing gold. Now she’s dancing in gold in front of the rain. WHAT THE FUCK IS ACTUALLY GOING ON!?

Back to Carmen and he’s doing the classic move that people do to scratch their backs when no one else is around. The woman in front of the rain has changed clothes again. Back to Carmen before we get some…. REMEMBER THAT THIS IS FROM DIRTY DANCING! LOOK! MORE FILM FOOTAGE! ONLY IT’S THE SAME FILM FOOTAGE WE JUST SHOWED YOU MORE OR LESS! A quick interjection of Carmen, NOW BACK TO THE SAME FOOTAGE!

Wondering where the woman went… they’ve got you covered! NOW SHE’S GOT A SAXOPHONE. Don’t know where she was keeping that, although given the cut of her dress, I have some ideas. All of a sudden, we cut to a clearly made up café in an alleyway and that woman is back with a dude that looks like he walked off a porn set. She kisses said man and turns Asian. Carmen is back in his whacking off chair, and his video ends.

Answers on a postcard.

4:

I Don’t Care Anymore – Phil Collins

*airdrums* I’d search my own site for “Phil Collins” to see what I’ve written about this before, but sweet jesus, I don’t want to be horrified by how many posts come up. Unlike Phil, I do care! This probably isn’t his best song, but it’s the one I like the most and it will be that way for the rest of my life (like a handful of years). I know what I like about the song, as with any song I can pick out the exact reason why I like it, but I’ve never been sure what it is that keeps me coming back to it. I kind of lump it in with gin loving Kenny and I’m Free (Heaven Helps The Man). It has the same effect on me that has. Some of Phil’s best vocal work appears on here as well. He sounds a lot more emotional during the shoutier parts of this than on almost any of his other songs. He sounds like he really cares. Tee hee.

3:

Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

WHERE IS OUR DESERVED NIGHTCLUB FIGHT SCENE IN A FILM SET TO THIS!? If anyone knows of a film where it’s happened you need to let me know as soon as possible, I am living for that shit. If the 80s had an overall anthem, this might be it. Take note, everyone, this is how you open a song… Did her tit just bounce out of her top?… Slow fade in with some synth, bit of vocal and drop that beat in. Perfect. We also get to see the number one rule for 80s videos, at some point there’s a trumpet type noise and you need to pretend to play it on something that clearly wasn’t used to make the original noise. Boom. It’s covering all the bases. FYI though, don’t get hit by laser beams.

2:

Jason – The Midnight

The last of the four tracks by The Midnight, and whomever put this mashed up video together didn’t really have any other choice did they! Had to be Friday The 13th. This is definitely up there as a strong contender for my fave Midnight track. There’s a handful that I can’t decide between. One day, maybe, I’ll make a decision. I’ve only been listening to them a short while, so it’ll happen at some point. It’s definitely one of their most pop tracks so far. Ace sax work, brilliant beat, sublime guest vocals. I love it. I’ll you what, actually…. There’s something about the way it’s duetted that almost seems different to duets today. I’m not going to be able to explain this very well, but the way they sing it makes it sound even more 80s. I don’t mean the tone in which they do it, or the lyrics, or the music. I literally mean the way it’s divided up. It’s very 80s. Duets aren’t sung that way very often anymore. I knew I wouldn’t be able to explain it very well. Ha.

1:

Kitsune – Gunship

Numero Uno! Didn’t really expect this to be honest. I expected The Midnight. I did listen to this a fuckton though. Firstly, let’s just address that this is an “official” video. Now, I know they’re using it to mean that they’ve adopted it as the “official” video of the song, which is fine, but some part of me doubts they paid to licence fucking E.T., Flight Of The Navigator, and Short Circuit footage. I do think it works though, for the same reason as earlier mentioned. This track features my fave lyrics I’ve heard this year I think.

You set it alight with your fingertips
As the ice forms around your lips
Try to breathe in

They just really work for me. The whole song does. I love how it builds, I love how it’s sung, I love what he says. It’s synth at its fucking best and one of the reasons I’ve fallen so madly in love with the whole genre.

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