THE VIDEO Pretty Boy Floyd, "Rock N Roll (Is Gonna Set the Night on Fire)", Leather Boyz with Electric Toyz, 1989, MCA
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Let me take you one step higher / rock 'n' roll is gonna set the night on fire / rock 'n' roll is gonna set the night on fire / yeah"
THE VERDICT Why is it that ever since "Rock and Roll All Nite" (personally one of my least favorite KISS songs), every band has to make a song that is a tribute to, well, rocking? Think about it: "The Right to Rock" (Keel), "I Wanna Rock" (Twisted Sister), "Rock Rock! ('Til You Drop)" (Def Leppard). And generally, the weaker the band, the goofier the song, and the harder they seem to feel they have to convince you of their ability to rock -- viz. the Vinnie Vincent Invasion's "Boyz Are Gonna Rock."
Pretty Boy Floyd is one of those bands where you know a label thought "well we'll just sign ten of these and see what sticks." They managed to make a surprising number of videos from this album before being unceremoniously dropped by MCA, and this near-success may have helped them to reunite nearly ten years later for album #2. In spite of giving their first effort three stars, All Music describes Leather Boyz with Electric Toyz as "definitely a CD to avoid." (Though let me also mention it doesn't have their one pretty good song, "Shut Up," which is too bad.)
Like Trixter, Pretty Boy Floyd suffer from the disjuncture between the Good Guy and the Bad Boy. However, they have the opposite version: Bad Boy image, Good Guy lyrics. Gangster references and black leather aside, PBF have Good Guy lyrics -- just listen to "I Wanna Be With You." It's about dating a girl in high school, for pete's sake! And to clarify, this is not in the Winger sense -- this is while you yourself are in high school. Again, this is not a Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused situation.
And yet, right around this same time, guitarist Kristy 'Krash' Majors appeared on Donahue in an amazing "Rockers and Their Moms" episode (that sadly, PBF themselves have had yanked from YouTube!). I mean check out all the eyeliner on these guys. In terms of style, they are somewhere between the glam and biker quadrants (gosh, I think I need to chart this out somehow). PBF are not cute n' cuddly Bon Jovi types.
But at the same time, they're so... pretty. And shooting all their videos with all these saturated, high-contrast colors is doing them a lot of favors. If anyone should have learned a lesson from LA Guns videos, I mean, that was it. It makes the pale skin pop against all the waving ebony tresses and eyeliner. Also Steve 'Sex' Summers' hat is straight out of Phil Lewis' closet.
This is particularly the case with our vocalist Steve -- approximately half the shots in the video are close-ups of his face, hair, and lace-gloved right hand. Even though bassist Vinnie Chas is blond, it's really the instruments that allow us to tell the members of Pretty Boy Floyd apart from one another. Otherwise, for all four, the ingredients are as follows: Super-shiny hair (a lot of hot oil treatments for this band I'm thinking); tight black leather (though Steve gets some red); eyeliner (black); lipstick (red); hoop earrings (silver and large). They kind of come off less glam and more drag, since it's not that over-the-top -- PPF are probably closest in appearance to Lizzie Borden, whose vocalist was actually going for a drag look. Also worth mentioning is that minus the clean hair, this is pretty much how they dress Jenny on Gossip Girl.
The parts of the video that aren't close-ups of Steve's face are more or less a shot-for-shot remake of VVI's "Boyz Are Gonna Rock." Weirdo opening? Check. Increasing levels of guitar face and vocal histrionics? Check. Does the guitarist burn and smash his guitar? Check. Do we have a lot of pyro for the finale? Indeed we do.
The only real differences are less colorful outfits, as noted above, and a set that is more reminiscent of -- okay bear with me, but it reminds me of a combination of a Warrant stage set (platforms, band's name written really big) but with the band's name written more in the style of the vulgar tee shirts favored by the band's members (Jerry in "Big Talk," Jani in "Down Boys"). (On a related note, since no one in the fashion world can come up with anything new, this "Frankie Say Relax" / Wham! look has actually become a popular t-shirt style again thanks to the UK's House of Holland.)
Anyway, the stage is covered with the band's name written in big, white on black block letters. Someone should have thought harder about this set design, because since the word "Floyd" is on the actual part they can walk on, unless it's an overhead shot, all you can see is "Pretty Boy." This makes me think not of gangsters but of parrots. And yes, while obviously the main definition of this word involves colorful birds, "parrot" also means to "repeat mindlessly." Touché, set designer, touché.