Your Dose of Pure 80s Music Video WTFery for Wednesday
Posted on July 16, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 22 Comments
The video for “Dancing in Heaven” by Q-Feel:
I actually really like the song, but I did not know the lead singer (Martin Page) looked like a stretched-out Oompa Loompa with a John Waters mustache. This video makes me question everything I knew about the 80s.
And what’s with the Mickey Mouse gas mask at the beginning.
I dunno. It kind of affirms everything I knew about the 80s.
Though I think the Oompa Loompa look was actually a bit ahead of its time.
Wow…I always thought this song was horribly dorky (even Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy” wasn’t this painful to listen to), but the video somehow surpassed my expectations. O_O
You might recognize the front man, Martin Page, as having a mid-90’s ‘soft rock’ hit with In the House of Stone And Glass.
Jeff C:
He also apparently co-wrote “We Built This City,” a crime MOST HENIOUS AND FOUL. Although I’m sure the hot tubs of money he’s earned from the song make up for it just fine.
… I don’t remember orange tan in the 80s. I always assumed that was just the result of bad technicolor filming. Though it could be that whoever invented orange tan did so because he missed bad technicolor filming.
in the ’80s, everyone took all the crap drugs left over form the ’70s, and you got this kind if thing.
The backup singers/aerobics instructors/airplane directors/vampire slayers brought back memories. Not good ones. I think I had that hairstyle briefly.
I do remember orange tans in the 1980s.
By the way, (off-topic), the bookstore staff at Copperfield’s in Petaluma are *jazzed* that you are coming there.
So does the video blur out at the end for everyone else?
Maybe the universe is granting my wish for oblivion…
…I listened to this on headphones. The audio isn’t original. It’s from vinyl, not VHS – not even VHS HiFi. There are vinyl noises in the sound that – in my experience, anyway – just don’t happen on tape.
Which means this is a _fan remaster_. I wonder if that’s why the video blurs out when it does – maybe the fan had a radio mix (note the 3m runtime – classic old-school Full Service Popular Music Station radio length) on vinyl, and the music video on VHS, and merged them together to make the best possible restoration.
Or maybe that’s just how long it ran and how it ended, you never know. Either way, it means someone loved this video (and song) enough to put in all that work.
So, wow, yeah. Go you, crazy 80s music fan. Go you.
Argghhh. I only knew Martin Page from his solo albums, which I think are pretty wonderful.
*I did NOT need to see this*. Now it can never be unseen.
You are a bad, bad man.
Yeah, hate to tell you, but that is 80’s through and through. I thought the alien women with probes was a nice touch…
Well, Page shares the writing credits for “We Built This City” with Bernie Taupin (who put words in Elton John’s mouth), Dennis Lambert (who committed the even worse music crime of “One Tin Soldier”) and Peter Wolf (of J. Geils Band), truly an All Star Clusterfrak.
But Page also co-wrote “These Dreams” for Heart and “The King of Wishful Thinking” for Go West, as well as played keyboards for Ray Parker, Jr., on the Ghostbusters theme song. So he shares some blame for ALMOST EVERYBODY’s worst ’80s musical nightmares.
I actually have this record and recall liking a few of the other songs. I may have to pull out the vinyl. I have to say, this one reminds me if Real Life’s “Send Me an Angel”. My mind wanders between the two easily. Slow slow quick quick slow.
I remember when Starship sang “We built this City” and how I cried! Such a long drop from “Blows Against the Empire” but of course that WAS A 70’s album. The 80’s to me will always be B-52’s, Robin Lane & the Chartbusters, and the Pretenders when I wasn’t listening to the Grateful Dead…
*timidly waves a hand*
Am I the only person on the planet who likes “We built this CIty”? (And surely, SURELY, it’s better than “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”)
Yes, dear, you’re the only one. :) Oh, lord, Jazzercize.
OH MY…. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Brain bleach! Brain bleach. I hope I’ve been vaccinated for ear worms.
John. that video and ummmmmmmmmmmmm whatever the noise was that accompanied it was uncalled for. :-P
Oh, the hair, the hair. 1980’s s known for embarrassing haircuts. Lest we get too smug, though, I suspect the most recent decade will take even more grief in the future for men’s haircuts. I’m mean, seriously? http://hairdelights.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/men's-hairstyles-2012-over-40trendy-men-s-hair-styles-with-side-parting-045vnm5g.jpg
I guess I am the only one here to associate this song with a teenaged Sarah Jessica Parker and her turn in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. That’s a chunk of my brain I could really use for other things.
Nope, I did as well. Love “Girls just wanna have fun” in all its brainlessness! And Helen Hunt and Shannon Doherty were in it as well. All-star cast!