THE VIDEO Krokus, "Our Love," The Blitz, 1984, Spitfire Records
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Owww-owwww-our / our love will never die / (nev-errrr die) / don't know why-yyyyyy-yyyyyy / it's a feelin' / in-siiiiiii-iiiiide"
THE VERDICT I was originally thinking hey, it's spring -- trees are budding, flowers are blooming -- and what better symbol of spring than the humble crocus? Or in this case, the hubris-filled Krokus. But in retrospect, what was I thinking? Good god is this a horrible video. Honestly, I feel like I need to go use one of those eyewash stations that they put in labs every time I watch it. The song is actually probably one of Krokus' better ones -- or okay, at least it's not a cover -- and still it's pretty brutal. But it's really the video's constant barrage of things I never wanted or needed to see that gets me every time.
It's a pretty narrative-heavy video -- and not just because Marc Storace literally sings almost every single lyric straight into the face of the woman in the video, as if this were a musical and he was singing dialogue. The video begins with Krokus' tour bus (bedecked in Christmas lights), a few vague concert shots, and a woman peeking out from behind some blinds. She looks pretty smug about the return of the Krokus bus.
Next comes a bizarre shot that's repeated a bunch of times, makes no sense, and never needed to happen: Storace and the woman are lying in bed, with the woman closer to us and the camera very close, almost from the point of view of her shoulder. She either starts laughing, crying, or gets very suddenly aroused, arching her back and making a weird face, and this causes Storace to sit up in concern. What the heck is going on there? They show it like three times in the video, so you'd think it'd be clearer.
The whole beginning actually is mostly these weird atmospheric shots foreshadowing crap we'll have to sit through in full later -- Storace walking in a dark alley, Storace and the woman in a red convertible, blurry concert footage, etc.
Once Storace has unlocked the door, it gets a lot more straightforward, as he starts singing all the lyrics at the woman as if they're having a conversation. Ugh this dude is lame. Cut the lectures already! Since she doesn't have any "lines" in the song, all she gets to do is blow smoke at him. It keeps cutting to shots of them in bed, and of him kissing her neck, which are making me -- let's just say I should have made a reaction video of me watching this video, and that I hope my face doesn't get stuck that way.
Now their argument has moved to in front of what appears to be some kind of neon shelving housing tons of VCRs and cassette decks. Honestly, who knows what it is except for something a set designer on a music video in 1984 would have thought looked super rad.
Speaking of things that seemed like a cool idea in the 80s, different frames keep being cut into what's being shown on the screen in stripes. I'll take whatever as long as it gets Storace off my screen for even a second! More than a minute in and all it is is him singing at the camera. How is it even possible that he simultaneously has a mullet and a rat tail?! It's like someone shaved down John Oates and the lead singer from REO Speedwagon, and made some kind of weird curly Davy Crockett hat out of the results.
Oh god, now they're rolling around in bed together. Thank god she's on top so we don't have to see Storace. Why the camera appears to be filming them through a chain link fence (on their ceiling?) is a total mystery. Gahhh now he's rolling onto the top! Please let this scene end soon.
Nooo!! No!! The last scene ended, but now it has cut to Storace SHAVING. This is far atop my list of things in this video I never needed to see. He spots something behind him -- it's the woman in the shower. And damn, for a music video, she looks pretty naked. Storace seems super surprised by this. Ughh, and then we get an eyeful of his gross hair.
Somehow a shot of a hand gripping a bed sheet transitions us to the woman in the same bathroom, putting on lipstick. Over her shoulder, we see what appears to be Storace and the woman together in the shower, but when we see a shot of just the shower, he's on his own. And thank heaven for small mercies -- he is wearing briefs in the shower.
Then more boring sexy time stuff -- she's smoking while they're lying in bed, she's putting her hand over his while he works the gearshift in the car (ew). Storace seems super-frustrated all of the sudden, and boom, next thing you know he's singing at her again, this time in the car. And then it turns into a montage of all their arguments thus far. Snoozeville.
No! No! Nooo!! They're going at it again. Oh god, and she's running her hands through his carpet of chest hair. Ew, ew, ew. All I can say for this sequence is because they keep fading and layering the shots on top of each other, it's not super-easy to tell what's going on. A shot of her butt fades into that weird shot from the beginning -- are we meant to believe she's having an orgasm just from laying in bed next to Storace?! I can't even begin on what's wrong with that picture.
With the guitar solo, someone involved with this video suddenly remembers -- Krokus is a band. So not only do we get to see them in fake-concert, we get to see other band members. Well, really we only get to see Fernando Von Arb. Everyone else pops up, if they do at all, in still images layered in stripes across the screen.
But before we know it, we're back in the car. Images of just the woman's face keep flashing on the screen for like a single frame, breaking up most of what we're seeing, which is just Storace and the woman sitting in the convertible. Then we're with Krokus in concert, but again really only showing Storace and Von Arb.
The video ends back in the car, with the woman popping her head up suddenly, and Storace breaking the fourth wall to make a shocked face at the camera. Seriously, a blowjob joke? You put me through that entire horrible video, and that's the payoff? Oooh-weee Krokus. You needed to think before you made these horrible, horrible videos. Bokay?