Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon"

Werewolf Ozzy, Spooky! Scary!  

THE VIDEO Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon," Bark at the Moon, 1983, Epic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Those that the beast is looking for / listen in awe and you'll he-ear him / bark at the moo-oon!" 

THE VERDICT Halloween is just days away, so obviously it's — well actually, it's probably well past time to start digging out some great Halloween-oriented videos. "Bark at the Moon" is fantastic because well, 

a) it's sort of a low-budget combo of the plots of many a classic horror movie in a 

b) sort of Scooby-Doo way, plus 

c) the song is meant to be spooky too even if 

d) it mostly just makes me think Jake E. Lee is a really talented guitarist. 

Personally I was tempted to do "So Tired", but that's just 'cause right now I am so tired. But this clip's a much better fit. I mean it kicks right off with some kind of weird Phantom of the Opera-ish dude (the low-budget metal video version that is, which is just putting some guy in a robe and painting his entire face white). 

"Bark at the Moon" also exploits camera effects as much as possible, starting with the quick-zooms of the different band members in funeral garb. And of course, what video would be complete without those old standbys, colored lighting and dry ice. Throughout the whole video, Jake E. Lee does his thing wearing a frilly shirt amidst some reddish fog. 

The plot? Well, let's see. Ozzy is sort of an old-timey mad scientist, with a cool-ass lab full of bubbling beakers and elaborate glass tubing. Though his wife looks alarmed, he is so happy with his latest concoction that he promptly drinks it. 

This seems honestly pretty accurate for the Ozzy of the time, if you've ever read his explanation for why exactly he bit the head off that bat. He's an ingest first, ask questions later kind of guy, though in video as in real life, his snap decisions come back to haunt him.

Horrified, his wife runs out of the room while Ozzy appears to choke to death on whatever he just drank. Next thing you know though, guess who's in the red fog with Jake E. Lee. Yup, it's Were-Ozzy, from the album cover. The way they've pasted all the hair on such that it looks like patchy, grown out body hair (especially on his chest) kind of gives an orangutan-type look to it.

 

His super-sympathetic video wife (a prim blonde who looks nothing like Sharon then or now) promptly has Ozzy put into a straitjacket and hauled off their gated property. The video quality is poor so I'm not 100% on this, but I think it's the other guys in the band who take him away. They toss him into a padded room, just like in a Quiet Riot video. 

Next we see Ozzy being tied into some kind of an electric chair. The lighting is very red, so it's hard to tell what's going on. At first he seems really out of it it, but just when all hope is lost, he makes eye contact with the camera and reveals some giant fangs. Uhoh, looks like we're gonna have Were-Ozzy on our hands pretty soon. 

And we do! There he is jumping around in the red fog again. We then jump to a foggy nighttime scene of horses pulling a hearse — wait, did I fail to mention that about half of this video appears to take place in Victorian England? 'Cause it does, hence all the frilly shirts. 

Anyway, we see the horses and the coffin, then we cut to an overhead shot of the wife — now the widow, I guess — and a vaguely Anderson Cooper-looking priest checking out the coffin. Dead Ozzy's inside, and Anderson points at him. The widow chucks some rose petals onto his body. 

One minute Dead Ozzy is looking peaceful, and then the next we've got some special effects straight out of the Greg Kihn Band's video for "Jeopardy." Yes, Dead Ozzy has morphed into a sort of melted-looking skeleton. Think after the Nazi drinks from the Holy Grail in the last Indiana Jones movie. Or when the ark gets opened in the first one. Your choice. Apparently the early 80s were a big time for melted-looking skeletons. 

Then we're at Dead Ozzy's very rainy funeral. Why does it always rain at heavy metal funerals? The widow, the Anderson Cooper priest, and his band members wearing top hats stand around while a bunch of fog floats by.

 

After some guitar face from Jake E. Lee and some serious drum face from Vinny Appice, suddenly we're back with regular old-timey Ozzy, who I guess is still alive. He's making crazy faces. It's hard to tell where he is, but he keeps opening a door and being blinded by the bright white light pouring through it. He tries other doors, but those are just full of red light. 

Is this supposed to be some kind of metaphor? On his like eighth try you think Ozzy's made it through, but he's just sort of standing there screaming and clutching at the door frame. Is he super afraid of Jake E. Lee? I mean it keeps cutting between Ozzy screaming and Jake E. playing in the red fog. The backlighting and the fuzziness of his hair are making Jake look a little like a Muppet, which though a bit unusual isn't that scary. As Ozzy's struggling around, I could swear they reuse the Vinny Appice drum face footage from like thirty seconds earlier in the video. 

Ozzy finally makes it away from all those lit-up doors, and stumbles into a weird candlelit area that appears to be where his coffin was earlier. Actually it kind of looks like that steam tunnel Paul Stanley's dancing around in in KISS' "Who Wants to Be Lonely?" video. And finally — here's the payoff — he is running from Were-Ozzy. 

So yes, all the lit-up doors stuff — that was just saving some money with special effects that weren't very special. We were meant to believe it was Were-Ozzy frightening regular old-timey Ozzy all that time. This is confusing because I thought earlier we were meant to believe that, a la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, drinking that potion had transformed Ozzy into Were-Ozzy. But then what to make of Dead Ozzy or Melted-Skeleton Ozzy? 

Whatever, at least this video has finally gotten cool again. Even if you do get the impression that the actual tunnel they are in is about six feet long, as they appear to keep running through the same doorway past the exact same candelabra over and over again. 

Suddenly a cloaked figure appears at the end of the hallway. Another Ozzy? No, it's that weird white-face Phantom of the Opera dude from the opening shots of the video. Whatever he's doing there, it's not slowing down Were-Ozzy. Eventually regular Ozzy stumbles and falls, causing Were-Ozzy to make an extra-menacing face for the camera.

 

But then nothing really happens. It just cuts back and forth between Jake E. Lee and Were-Ozzy making faces and gesturing in the red fog. Oh no wait, here we go. Something's happening. 

We see Ozzy's wife standing next to the gates of I guess a sanitarium as the doctor leads Ozzy out. He unlocks the gates, shakes Ozzy's hand, and lets him out. (As a side note, I like that they apparently chose to release him very late at night.) Ozzy hugs his wife, then looks back at the building. And what do you know — up on one of the parapets, it's Were-Ozzy. 

His wife looks mildly alarmed, but Ozzy just laughs and turns away. He and his wife walk away, and then we get repeated quick-zooms back to Were-Ozzy making scary monster arms up on top of the building. 

So WTF happened in this video? Which Ozzy is which? Was it all just a dream — or a hallucination? I'm inclined toward the latter — that Ozzy drinks his potion, it makes him go all crazy, and he has an extended hallucination of being Were-Ozzy/Dead Ozzy/Melted-Skeleton Ozzy. Thus the reappearance of Were-Ozzy at the end of the video is less "was it a dream" and more "was he really cured in that asylum." 

The lyrics imply a different story though — that Were-Ozzy is an undead Dead Ozzy who is screaming for vengeance, if you'll allow me to mix my metal metaphors. Long story short though, I dunno. What do you think? 

One more fun fact about this video: So the guy who did Ozzy's makeup here and on the album cover is special-effects artist Greg Cannom, who has won a bunch of Oscars for this. He's the same dude who did "Thriller," as well as tons of movie work, from MST3K favorite The Incredible Melting Man to A Nightmare on Elm Street III ("we're the dream warriors!") to uhh... Big Momma's House. And Big Momma's House 2. But you know, also lots of other, better stuff that's less funny to mention. 

I read somewhere ages ago that Ozzy got the idea that he would throw on this makeup and wear it every night when he was on tour for this album. But then he realized a) how long it took for it to be applied (ever watch that "Making Of" thing about "Thriller"? They talk about this a lot there) and even more so b) how insanely much it cost to even do like, once. 

Anyway, Ozzy wised up on that one, so this video is the only place to see it in action. This also explains why aside from the beast makeup, most of what you see in this video looks unbelievably cheap! 

P.S.: I debated among several titles, including a bunch that were plays on The Onion's "One Man and One Wolfman" headline, but wound up going with the obvious.

Helix, "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'"

Here She Is, Miss Rock Fantasy  

THE VIDEO Helix, "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'", Walkin' the Razor's Edge, 1984, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Gimme gimme good lovin' / ev-er-y ni-ight / gimme gimme good lovin' / ev-er-y ni-ight (ev'ry ni-ight)" 

THE VERDICT Since I used their distinctive "H" in my new logo, I thought it was only fair that this week we turn our attention to the dulcet sounds of Helix. I was about to do "Heavy Metal Love" (mainly because I wanted to talk about Hell Comes to Frogtown), but once I remembered this utter WTF-fest of a video, I couldn't resist. I even had to add "beauty pageant" as a tag because of it. 

This video takes the conceit of "Hot for Teacher," subtracts the kids and multiplies it by the leotards and underage girls of "Body Talk," then adds the comedic framing of an early Twisted Sister video to come out with a result that is completely ridiculous. And I mean even for Helix, a band that was extremely susceptible to ridiculous videos. 

Helix are sort of like the Y&T of Canada: Like Y&T, they were around forever, worked really hard, and are considered underrated (though less so than Y&T). They've got a similar sound, which I'd characterize as New Wave Of North American Heavy Metal. Think of it as like the NWOBHM, except with way less of an emphasis on the macabre and fantastic, and way more on partying. Oh, and lots of chanting. Lots of chanting. 

Also like Y&T, and importantly for my point here, being a bunch of not-good-looking guys, they are constantly placed in videos that either a) minimize their roles in the action, b) surround them with hot women who provide a visual distraction from them, c) are funny, making them the funny guys instead of just the un-hot guys, or d) do all three. This video does all three and then some. 

The video begins with a couple of sportscasters having some witty banter that seems choppily edited, I'm assuming because something NSFW gets said. Turns out not only is this video ridiculous in its current state. It also has a completely over-the-top (and completely NSFW) unedited version that was created to be aired on the Playboy channel (!) and which doesn't just feature Traci Lords, I mean it features Traci Lords. When she was 16, no less. Way to keep it classy, Helix. 

You can't get your hands on that version, because duh, illegal. Anyway, here's what you get in the edited version: Bald sportscaster: "Well, what can I say, another extravaganza! You can cut the suspense with a knife! I haven't seen so many- boy, the guys in Helix look good, don't they?" Handsome sportscaster: "What can I say?" Bald sportscaster: (nods)

 

It then cuts to a ditzy, vaguely Southern-sounding blond who the screen identifies as "Beth Broadway, Miss Rock Fantasy 1983." In perfect pageant-ese, she says "Gosh, I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be back here this year. All the girls are such fun, and such wonderful friends." 

After this, it cuts back to the handsome sportscaster, who says, "It looks like we're ready, so let's go on down to the floor for the third annual Miss Rock Fantasy Pageant." There's an announcer down on the stage who says, "And now ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, I'd like to present the girls vying for the crown of Miss Rock Fantasy. Girls, take a bow!" before things actually start with the Lady GaGa -slash- post-op Heidi Montag-looking Miss California, who is nearly falling out of her leotard (which is definitely more low-cut than the others), as she pouts and air-kisses for the camera. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this woman is probably from porn. 

We then see a montage of the different contestants either dancing, or in many cases standing still and moving their hair around with their arms, on the lighted walkway. They are all wearing the exact same thing: Black heels, blue sashes, and green and black leotards. The leotards feature a sort of black suspenders look, as if this is possibly two separate leotards and the black is layered over the green. American Apparel, take note. Oh wait, you already have. 

We start with Miss Utah, a spunky young brunette who we'll later see looks like a favorite to win. Let me also mention she's played by Brinke Stevens, who a) is in tons of B-horror movies but also b) is totally from San Diego! She should've been Miss California. 

She's followed by Miss Georgia, a bored blond a very underage Traci Lords, and then Miss Vermont, who has an incredible amount of hair — it's like knee-length! Miss Texas is older-looking blonde who seems to have experience dancing on a lighted catwalk. 

The next two look kind of young — Miss Illinois, a girl-next-door brunette, and Miss Arkansas, an especially high-school-age-looking blonde who looks nervous. Last up is Miss New York, whose dancing and comportment is vaguely Flashdance-esque. 

Ohhh wait. As the song kicks in, here's the band. They've decided to color-coordinate in black and red, all in sleeveless tops with leather pants. Studs are everywhere. Oh wait, I don't mean the guys in Helix are studs. I mean like, they're wearing lots of garments and accessories with little metal grommets attached to them. Don't get it twisted. 

Anyway, there's much synchronized headbanging and guitar waving. As the first verse begins, we see one of the contestants come out to, uh, perform. Is this the talent portion? She's wearing a sleeveless black thing, black booties, sheer stockings, and fingerless black gloves. But it's easy to ignore those given the GaGa-esque halfmask she has on. Half is black and studded, while the other half is just these long, spiky feathers. She carries two coconuts down the catwalk, which she places beside her feet before smashing one of them with a giant wooden mallet. Uhhh oh-kayyy.

 

This causes singer Brian Vollmer to somersault off the drum riser, which is covered in contestants. The contestants basically dance all over the stage the entire time the band is performing, not really moving around or anything, but just sort of bopping back and forth in place. 

The masked contestant smiles and then growls at the camera, which makes the handsome sportscaster sweat like he's in a sauna. I'm not 100% sure about this ID, but I'm thinking this is Traci Lords/Miss Georgia. I'm not very up on 80s porn stars though. 

Anyway, the other girls tease Brian with their dance moves, and before you know it we're onto contestant number 2. She's wearing a very early 80s heavy metal studded black bodysuit with a cut-out that goes down to the navel (and coordinating fingerless gloves!), and sheer black stockings with garters. She does a sexy dance (while smoking a cigarette no less) that ends with her posing on a chair. Hmm, I think the first contestant had a better talent, but we should probably wait for the ballgown portion to judge. 

The chorus features more dancing around, and many, many shots of Miss New York's crotch. Apparently she was right in front of the camera, and apparently they liked it that way. Half the time her lower bits are taking up about half the frame, with the members of Helix in the distance behind her. 

Oh! Here we go. Another "talent." This one appears to be Lady GaGa/Miss California. In an extremely low-cut black thing that makes the last contestant's attire look tasteful and a pair of elbow-length (you guessed it!) sheer fingerless gloves, her talent appears to be catching white feathers that are falling from the ceiling with her tongue. This makes bald sportscaster sweat and say "WOW" to the camera. 

Did I mention before that Brian seems to like Miss Utah best? He keeps leaning on her and pulling her into the frame. In other news, Miss Texas continues to look super-bored. 

The guitar solo consists of a black-and-white shot of Brent Doerner walking down the catwalk — which has been colored in purple for some reason — and kicking the lightbulbs off with his foot as he walks along. Hmm. It doesn't really fit with the rest of the video, but whatever. At least he doesn't have to play the solo from like, behind some woman's butt.

 

Can I also mention that "Doctor" Doerner kind of looks like Bruce McCulloch from The Kids in the Hall? 'Cause he totally kind of does. 

Just when you think it's over, there's another talent portion. This one is Miss Vermont, identifiable by the fact that she has more hair on her head than everyone else in this video combined. She comes out in a totally weird get-up with red heeled boots and a hat, and she's got a red motorcycle on the catwalk. Compared to the others, she's demure — she has on an oversized leather vest over her low-cut bodysuit and stocking/garter combo. Oops, nevermind, she just took that off, causing the balding sportcaster to intone, "What can I say!" 

This also makes Vollmer jump off the drum riser and do a somersault again. Or knowing Helix metal videos from this era, this is probably the same shot they used earlier. Actually nope, it's not -- the girls are gone. 

Anyway, wow, so Vermont's talent includes mounting the front wheel of the chopper in reverse and waving around her truly prodigious amount of hair. Something tells me she's not going to win, even with this crowd. 

The video ends with the band and all the contestants huddled in together, with words across the scene claiming "We'll be back to crown our winner after this..." Some weird dude with a mustache Rip Taylor has made it onto Miss Vermont's chopper, and though he's super-excited to be there, I'm not really sure why he's there. Oh wait, for all the topless porn stars! Duh. 

P.S.: Amongst all this weirdness, how'd I manage to forget to mention this song is a cover? It was originally performed in 1969 by a Canadian bubblegum pop act with the improbable name Crazy Elephant. 

Poison, "Cry Tough"

My 100th Post(!), and Other Milestones  

THE VIDEO Poison, "Cry Tough," Look What the Cat Dragged In, 1986, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "You gotta cry tough! / Out on the streets! / To make, your dreams ha-ah-pen / You gotta cry out! / Out to the world! / To make them all come true, yeah-ah" 

THE VERDICT There's a very good reason that this song gets played over the montage at the end of pretty much every heavy metal retrospective-type special. You know, the part where they've just finished talking about grunge, and Nirvana, and bands cutting their hair or trying a new sound, and now they're all remembering the good times, when these guys were on top of the world? You'll get clips of guitars being waved at the camera, and fans screaming, and guys backstage spraying beer on each other. And over it all, this Poison song will blast. 

Why? Because it is one of the most inspirational heavy metal songs pretty much ever. (Also, the way it builds at the beginning — with the drums, and then the guitar coming in — makes for an easy edit into a montage if you go straight from the big guitar punch at the end of the intro and just transition directly to the chorus.) 

Seriously though, you hear this song, and you just know: "I can do it. I can do it." I picked this song this week because you know what? I can do it. And I did do it. This is this blog's 100th post!! It's come a long way since I first started it back in 2004, working on a clamshell iMac laptop with a 10 GB hard drive. In this past year (September to September), I've kept my pledge and done a post a week. 

And now — miracle of miracles — it appears there are people who even read this! Yes, many are just hoping to see videos with a lot of sideboob (or in some cases, side ass), but whatever. I will lead you to the videos with the sideboob! 

In other transitional-type news, I just turned 30. In other words, I am older than I ever imagined I would be. Per Rolling Stone, I can no longer be trusted, but whatever, they're way older than me. And face it, since they switched to that smaller, glossy format, and really even before then, when they started putting people like Zac Efron and reality TV stars on the cover, it's not like we can really trust them either.

 

Anyway, I'm 30. (Yes yes, do the math, I was like 5 or 6 when this song came out.) And yet, here I am, still plugging along. This blog is kicking ass. I am, as it were, crying tough, and making my dreams happen, or trying to anyway. 

And seriously, this is what Poison are all about. In Decline II when Penelope Spheeris asks C.C. and Rikki if they ever thought they wouldn't make it, they just laugh. Though they tell us that things may be hard, and "sometimes a rainbow, baby / is better than a pot of gold", they also remind us that "when you get to the top / you gotta get off and go right back down again." 

So yeah, life is sort of a Chutes & Ladders type scenario (god that is a stressful board game, give me Candy Land any day!), but you've just got to keep aiming for those ladders, people. "You gotta aim high, baby / whether you lose or wi-in." 

This video further expands on Poison's utopian yet utilitarian vision. The band perform in a small, club-like space before a very packed-in crowd of Poison fans. As per always, things are very, very colorful. They've got their awesome, Warhol-esque risers with the album art on them (what I wouldn't give for one of those). 

But even more than that, they've got what they're wearing. The band look ahmazing. C.C. possibly wins: He's got on a purple and black leopard-print coat over a frilly scarf and some kind of crazy-patterned shirt, with tiny skinny black pants. The piece de resistance is the pink maribou boa tied around his head. This is an incredible look. I want to think he thought of it himself, but I would guess Rikki helped him.

Bret looks fantastic, if a little too girly rather than glam. His hair is super-teased, and he's got really sort of natural-looking makeup — it looks less glam and more just like the kind of makeup someone like Olivia Newton John wore around the same time. 

Bret does however have awesome gloves on — red and black sort of cheetah print. He also is really well dressed — lots o' necklaces and bracelets, but for most of the video he's wearing a paisley tuxedo vest that he has wrapped around himself, emphasizing that circa 1986-1988, Bret Michaels had a seriously enviable physique. 

If he looked like that now, I'd be clawing my way onto Rock of Love regardless of the costs to my dignity and self-respect. (And trust -- no matter what Bret claims, that Billboard cover is not even reflective of the way he looked then, let alone now.)

 

Rikki's a little hard to see, in spite of his habit of drumming standing up. He's actually a little drab for him — long black leather-looking coat over a band tee. However, he did make his hair extra poufy, and wrap a maribou boa (see!) around his mic stand, so kudos for that. 

Bobby as always is a little more understated than the rest of the band. He is wearing a coordinated white pleather outfit — sort of a biker-style jacket over skinny pants, which he has tucked into white cowboy boots. He does however get bonus points for the red lipstick and armful of bangles. 

The shots of the crowd really emphasize the sort of utopian vision of Poison. We can only ever really see the people who are at the very front, but it's a diverse bunch. For one, we actually have several people who aren't white, which is genuinely impressive for a glam metal video of this era (really of any era). But we also see a lot more range with the white people than we usually do. 

There's a long shot of a female fan joyfully singing along while holding a drumstick, and — you won't believe this — she's not thin. She may possibly be the one woman over a size 6 who is ever shown in an 80s metal video without a) playing someone's mom or b) being the butt of a joke. 

In another of my favorite shots, we see a giant, sweaty dude (with a mustache!) in an AC/DC tee going nuts. He's next to a totally preppy Tom Cruise wannabe in Wayfarers. It's kind of amazing. They actually have a long sequence with another sweaty, short-haired dude earlier in the video — who knew all these short-haired guys were into this stuff? Then again, Poison did sell a lot of albums.

 

I'd be remiss not to mention the behind-the-scenes footage at the beginning of this video. We get some really beautiful shots of the band members' faces, particularly C.C. and Bobby. We also see Bret goofing around backstage with a sort of Jennifer Beals-looking woman in a truly bizarre ripped-up catsuit thing. I wish they showed more of this, 'cause I really like it. 

At the end of the video, we see footage of the band being thrown out of an elevator, but it looks extremely staged. (Unlike, say, the footage of David Lee Roth wearing nothing but a towel and cowboy boots being hauled out of a hotel by a cop, which looks way more verite. If you aren't familiar with this, click the link and give it about 50 seconds.) 

The other amazing part of this video is the "meet the band" sequences. The one at the beginning (toward the end of the instrumental buildup) is my favorite. The boys appear to be jumping on a trampoline, with the L.A. skyline at twilight behind them. It's smoggy, but you can see the lights of the buildings, and it just looks gorgeous. These are just the perfect "we made it" shots. 

Following the guitar solo, we get a second "meet the band" sequence. They're in front of L.A. at night, but now each band member's face is revealed in turn through some flames. It's pretty badass, but given the large number of "meet the band" sequences in Look What the Cat Dragged In Poison videos, I can afford to be picky and say it isn't my favorite. The fire makes them a little hard to see. 

The video ends with yet another "we made it" moment — a freakin' balloon drop. Balloons and confetti come busting onto the stage, and everyone just goes nuts. Someone gives the band silly string — silly string! — which they begin covering the crowd in. Bobby plunges into the crowd so headfirst that it's worrisome, but luckily they pull him out and he seems okay. 

This whole sort of organized mayhem sequence makes the video feel like a birthday party for the band. In fact, you could start playing the beginning of the song over the end of the video, and it would feel like a "remember the good times" montage. 

It's just a perfect song, and the video — though staged — captures the sort of exuberance and hopefulness and "we're really doing it"-ness that characterized Poison at that moment. There's a reason this was the opening track on the album. I love it!

Lita Ford, "Kiss Me Deadly"

Spandex and Pleather

THE VIDEO Lita Ford, "Kiss Me Deadly," Lita, 1988, Dreamland

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Come on, kiss me once! / Kiss me twice! / Come on pretty bay-beeee / Kiss me dead-lyyyyyyyyy"

THE VERDICT I want to like Lita Ford. I really, really do. The Runaways kicked so much ass, and deserved so much more than to have their legacy besmirched by a crappy Dakota Fanning vehicle. In the end though, I'm always more drawn to female metal acts that sound, well, more like the Runaways -- think Girlschool, for example.

Lita's just so -- how to put this. Okay. You can either talk about how important it is for women to be taken seriously as musicians, or you can dry-hump your guitar in your videos. But you really can't do both. Lita's a competent vocalist and a talented guitarist, but the ridiculous lengths she goes to in this video to convey some bizarre version of heavy metal sexuality put her on par with an obvious eye-candy group like Femme Fatale.

'Memba them? Like Lita, they also have song called "Falling In And Out of Love," though their female lead singer looks like Carly Simon trying to dress as Like a Virgin-era Madonna.

Anyway. What goes on in this video that I find so unappetizing? Well, really nothing much happens. What does happen is we find Lita playing in I don't even know what. An empty loft space? A parking garage? An enormous meat locker? It's hard to say. Either way, all that's in there are a bunch of large blocks of ice, which in some shots are augmented by a bunch of random small fires. Like I always say, nothing says "this equipment is plugged in" like having the band play in standing water.

It's mostly just Lita singing and playing the song, with frequent clothing changes. When we see a close-up of her face and shoulders, she's wearing a black leather strapless bra top, all the better to show off her shoulder tattoo and half-and-half hair. It's no early George Lynch half-and-half hair, but whatever, it's close enough and it's a good look for her. However, in most of these shots she's making sort of furious porno faces while frantically running her hands through her hair, which is less alluring.



When Lita's furthest away and the rest of her band is there, she puts on more clothes. It's hard to tell because it's not very well-lit (lord knows what the guys are wearing), but she appears to be in a black sleeveless cropped top and very shiny (possibly pleather?) high-waisted black pants.

In her super-close ups, where it's really just her face (though we see the rest of the outfit later), she's really metaled up, notably in a very heavily studded black leather motorcycle jacket. She also puts on a pair of shredded, high-waisted jeans.

Isn't it weird how none of that stuff seemed high-waisted at the time? I mean back in the 80s, no one would have said she was wearing Mom jeans. But to look at her now, it's "omfg mom jeans." They probably come to just below her navel. Toward the end we see some shots of the ripped jeans with the strapless top, so we can assume she's layering.

In the most famous shots though, she's wearing a ridiculous costume that looks like it's straight out of Heavy Metal. She's got on a cropped black tank top, and has layered a very high-waisted black thong over some silver spandex tights. A giant belt with lots of hardware, weird studded kneepads, and black boots further contribute to her sexy-heavy-metal-robot look.

It reminds me of the scene in Wayne's World (I know, I talk about Wayne's World way too much, but whatever) where Wayne goes to find Cassandra at her music video shoot. Wayne complains about how the video is clearly all about showing her in a sexualized light, and when the other members of Crucial Taunt walk by, he says, "Oh, hey guys, didn't see you there." (How could he have missed Marc Ferarri!? Anyway.)

Point is, if Tommy Iommi or Nikki Sixx or Chris Holmes or whoever she was involved with at the time had showed up to this video shoot, the same dialogue could have happened. Yeah, in some of the shots you can see the guys in the band, and sometimes we even see the guitarist or the drummer (who's on a weird moving pedestal) on their own, but barely.

This video is really starring Lita's hair and ass cheeks. I mean I did tell you the other week that I'd help you find the metal videos with side ass, right? It might be covered in spandex here, but this video's got loads of side ass.

And not a lot else, honestly. They backlight the guys so that even when they're on camera, you can only really see their silhouettes. There's more backlighting, plus dry ice fog, when we get close-ups of Lita singing. Occasionally there are random extreme close-ups of the ice -- we see Lita acting like she's going to nuzzle it with her face, then with her butt, and at one point one of the blocks gets hit with a sledgehammer.



I'm not the biggest fan of this song, either. I really like the pre-chorus, which has a great sound, with the guitar motif sort of amping up the vocals ("but I know what I like / I know I like dancing with you"). Most of it though, I can leave. It feels overproduced in a bad way, and very keeping-up-with-the-boys, which is unappetizing. Even though Lita's growls of "it ain't no big thang" have a lovely twang to them, I can't really get past the triteness of most of it.

'Cause like I was saying at the beginning of this post: You can either talk about how important it is for women to be taken seriously as musicians, or you can dry-hump your guitar in your videos. But you really can't do both.

It's hard to be a female musician in any genre, but particularly in male-dominated ones, I know. Hell, it's hard to be a female anything! But to stick with music: It's rough on these gals. People objectify you, people don't think you really play your instruments, people assume you engage in all kinds of sexual debauchery... the list goes on.

I feel like this video is a sort of "Let's get out in front of this" strategy -- in other words, I'm going to be objectified anyway, let me just objectify myself. I don't know how much it works. I mean, if you're in your video mounting your mic stand while dressed as a metal fembot, I don't think viewers (male or female) are going to be thinking to themselves, "My, she's very musically talented." They're probably more likely to, if they think about it, assume the latter ("she must need to distract me from the fact that some male guitarist is really playing this solo", or some BS like that).

And I mean yeah -- it'll get more guys to buy your record. (See Chuck Klosterman's revolting analysis of Lita in his memoir Fargo Rock City -- or don't, it was repulsive enough to convince me to never read another word of his writing regardless of subject.) But here's the thing: Even if in the short term, sexing it up is making it easier for you, it's a) making it harder for other female musicians and b) a crappy strategy in the long run.

Think about it: If you not only play well, but you also tart yourself up a la Femme Fatale, you're basically perpetuating the status quo not only for yourself, but also in that other women musicians are all going to be expected to show a lot of side ass and get freaky with inanimate objects too. And this strategy also entails long-term losses: Watch any history o' metal-type show on Vh-1 or wherever, and you'll find a zillion (male) talking heads reminiscing not about Lita's musical abilities, but about that time she humped an ice cube. SIGH.

The biggest twist to all this: If there's one woman out there who probably doesn't give a shit about all this criticism, it's Lita herself. Read any interview with her. This is a woman who sticks to her guns (sometimes, uh, literally), and has no regrets. While I suppose sticks and stones may break her bones, blog posts like mine definitely won't hurt her.

P.S.: Don't get the title? Come on, sing it! "Spandex, and pleather / brought us all together!"