THE VIDEO W.A.S.P., "I Wanna Be Somebody," W.A.S.P., 1984, Capitol
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Ohhhhhhh / I jest got ta beeee / up hii-iiiiigh where the whole world's watchin' meeee / 'cause I / I got the guts to be somebody / I! / wanna be somebody, be somebody soon / I wanna be somebody, be somebody SOON!"
THE VERDICT There are so many awesome things going on in this video I don't know where to start. I know, haters will always hear the title for this song and say something along the lines of, "well, I see that didn't happen," but for me W.A.S.P. are total freakin' rock stars in this video. Minus women in bondage, it's basically every element of W.A.S.P. distilled into one video. Oh and plus a skeleton hand opening the door that for some reason W.A.S.P. is playing right behind.
Let's begin with the outfits, because even if W.A.S.P. has in my opinion an amazing sound, their look is what really hits you over the head. Seriously, if this album came out now, they'd be opening for Lady GaGa. Blackie Lawless has his crazy white streaks in his hair, his circular saw cuffs, and ridiculously high-heeled boots on. Randy Piper is also in heeled boots which are thigh-high, and attached to some kind of leather panty by full-size chains. I mean really W.A.S.P. Really. You have out-KISSed KISS with that one.
Chris Holmes is dressed the most normally (all black leather, chains across chest), and honestly we don't see drummer Tony Richards stand up really at all in this video so I don't know what he's wearing (except a lot of eyeliner). But whatever, Blackie and Randy's outfits are more than enough for me.
Now we move on to the set, which is vaguely similar to the arrangement they have going on their album cover. The guitarists are all arrayed on these long platforms, with torches set up in between them and dry ice smoke everywhere. At various points they jump from platform to platform. Blackie in particular really gets some serious vertical, which is impressive given that he's a quite tall man who is also wearing quite tall heels.
They all also straddle multiple platforms at various times, which is awesome. I feel like W.A.S.P. spend a lot of time figuring out how they'll look cool standing. I mean when Blackie gets up on the middle platform with his legs splayed and knees bent, he really looks like some kind of bad ass demon. Somehow the high heels give the impression of him being a satyr (i.e. having goat legs).
When they aren't on set, we get these little sequences that imply W.A.S.P. (or at least the better-known members there of) lead an awesome, rock star lifestyle (remember, this is a few years before Decline II came out, so we can just ignore the whole dark side of that for now). Chris Holmes is seen standing astride several bikers' Harleys, pouring beer into his mouth, and spitting it out everywhere.
Blackie gets an even cooler sequence, acting out the "I want shiny cars / and dirty mon-ay" lyrics (though this part of the video is especially hard to see). He's in the back of a limo with a bunch of blonde women, who are all throwing piles of money around. Blackie (who I should also mention is wearing giant 70s-style sunglasses) swigs from a bottle of champage and also spits it out everywhere. And people think "Space Lord" was the first metal video to showcase living large!
The video also features a getting-to-know-you sequence at the end, which I love. We see photos of each band member float toward the camera. Interestingly, they let guitarist Chris go last -- I feel like every other one of these I can think of, the lead singer gets to go last.
W.A.S.P. finish off the video with complete awesomeness (and also elements of their stage show). Blackie lights the ring around the W.A.S.P. logo on fire, and then proceeds to headbang in just a perfect, textbook circle. Honestly, it's got to kill his neck, but it looks unbelievably great. He then finishes things off by lifting a skull above his head, and then dumping a bunch of blood from it onto his face (and into his open mouth). It really doesn't get much more badass than this.
My one complaint? Seriously, I don't know what is going on with the camera in this video. At some points, the band appears to be being filmed through chicken wire; at other times, a fishnet stocking. Sometimes it reminds me of those little looking glasses they sell at museum shops where you can see how insects see, with like all those tiny little facets of glass. Honestly since it's W.A.S.P., part of me is like "Chris Holmes probably threw a beer at the camera, and they didn't bother to clean it off, knowing he'd just throw another one." But honestly, the camera's not helping the legibility of this video (which it's im-frickin'-possible to find a decent copy of anywhere).
But getting back to the good stuff, let me also mention this is a great song. Yes, I do feel like they kind of just reworked the guitar solo in this song for "Wild Child," but whatever, that's also a great song. I just realized in retrospect this is my second week in a row doing an inspirational song -- okay, this song isn't inspirational per se, but it is certainly aspirational. I mean, I do wanna be somebody, be somebody soon. I mean I guess I don't want the "nine to five" but in a technical sense my dissertation will likely work my "fingers to the bone," so I don't know. All I do know is Blackie Lawless + great costumes + fire + money + Chris Holmes + booze + skeletons = awesome.