THE VIDEO Winger, "Can't Get Enuff," In the Heart of the Young, 1990, Atlantic
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SAMPLE LYRIC "I can't get enuff of you baby / I can't get enuff, it's neverrr enu-uuh-uhhh-uffff / I can't get enuff, I'm still hunnngrrraaayy / so baby give it up, cuz I can't get enuff!"
THE VERDICT The high here today was supposed to be in the mid 60s, but instead its in the 80s. Burning sun, dripping sweat, exposed skin ... ew pervs, I'm not describing my life, I'm talking about this Winger video!
Winger is a band I'm constantly on the fence about, and "Can't Get Enuff" is one of the songs that I place on the "Cons" side of the ledger. It does little to disabuse one of the notion of Kip Winger as more than vaguely sleazy, and their songs as overproduced. I know, I know, musicianship, training, blablabla, but can't you feel like if they're really that talented they'd be able to get away from making songs like this?
That said, this isn't their worst song (to my mind, that's actually "Seventeen"), it's just far from their best. Though it does have some elements I like (especially the "Hey hey!"), it has many bits that are pure cheese (whatever those weird chimes are toward the beginning, the parts of the chorus where it sounds like they've slowed Kip's voice down a half-step, the actual lyrical content).
And what is it with metal bands and spelling "ough" as "uff"? I have an amazing Winger t-shirt from their tour for the first album, and on the back it announces them "Too Tuff To Tame" (this shirt is so awesome no one's even selling one like it on eBay so I can show you a picture -- but suffice to say I have the one with pictures of the band members on it, not the tour dates one). But it's not just Winger -- you've got Enuff Z'nuff (lord knows I always harp on them), Tuff, etc. I guess it fits in with having egregious double letters in your name, which lord knows metal bands like too (e.g. Ratt, Rough Cutt, etc).
Back to the video! Okay not back, because I've barely talked about it. To the video! This video is basically an incredible time capsule of everything white people thought was sexy in 1990. We've got shirtless guys in mirrored sunglasses and mullets, women in halter tops and high-waisted bottoms, and motorcycles. Look at any man in this video, and you can be pretty damn sure those are Bugle Boy jeans he's wearing. Look at any woman in this video, and you can't be sure whether that's meant to be a shirt or a bra. And we've got all these seduction scenarios going on that are straight out of a made-for-Cinemax-after-10-pm masterpiece -- people eating fruit, in a boxing gym, playing pool, etc. while constantly throwing the bone eye at each other.
I also like how nothing in this has continuity or makes sense -- kind of reminds me of a perfume ad, but I think this would be an ad for Designer Imposters. Why do those guys have surfboards when everything in this video leads us to believe we're in the desert? If that woman is sweating so darn hard, why is she wearing a leather jacket with her bra/top? Also what is up with exhaust fans in like every video ever in the late 80s/ early 90s? Seriously, from Tesla to Milli Vanilli, y'all.
Compared to other Winger videos, this is almost all Kip Winger. The rest of the boys are barely visible, as we're too busy with close-ups of Kip's face, or of him walking around putting the smallest amount of effort possible into pretending to play his bass (e.g., using only his right hand). He also gets to show off a lot of that ballet training, with a number of honestly quite graceful spins and swoops, as well as the requisite arching his back absurdly far. He even puts in some David Lee Roth-esque high kicks. I bet he's good at yoga. All the swinging and flashing lights don't make it any easier to tell what the heck is going on -- backlit, everyone in Winger is the same curly-haired dude.
You'd think the strobe-lit woman crawling on a pool table would be the pinnacle of cheese in this video -- we can't even see Reb Beach's guitar solo, because we're too busy getting something that looks like a cross between "Enter Sandman" and a Slaughter video. Is the strobe light meant to imply this is a fantasy sequence? This entire video is made up of fantasy sequences!!
But if you're thinking this, you obviously haven't made it up to the "sexy photo booth" scene. That one really takes the cake, as the guy has to mimic emotions from "disbelief" to "flustered arousal" while the woman makes exactly one face ("sexy pouting") throughout. Also, if it's that darn hot, why on earth is she wearing stockings? Ugh, just contemplating all that thigh sweat is grossing me out.
I don't know if it's warm enough here for me to want to tackle my boyfriend on top of a bunch of grapes (are those people vintners? Why on earth would anyone buy that many grapes at once?), but suffice to say it was warm enough for me to think of Winger. And while I often feel I can get enuff of this song, I will say the video has brought considerable amusement to my afternoon.