Bon Jovi, "Always"

I Love the 90s  

THE VIDEO Bon Jovi, "Always," Cross Road, 1994, Mercury 

SAMPLE LYRIC "And I will love you / bay-ay-bayyy-ayyy, ah-all-ways / I'll be there forever and a day-ay / ah-all-ways" 

THE VERDICT I know I don't usually do videos from this late in the game. But don't you ever just think to yourself, hey, I'd like to talk about a video that's extra-long, extra-soap-opera-y, and stars multiple 90s "stars"? Well, that's what I said to myself, so I guess you all have to deal with it. And get ready, people, 'cause this is gonna be a long one. 

Let's get something out of the way first. "Always" is a very uneven song. Some parts of it are great (the "I made mistakes, I'm just a man" verse and the pre-chorus after it, par example). Other parts of it are brutal (the actual chorus, the freakin' strings). 

I have a pretty high tolerance for maudlin Bon Jovi, but this song pushes the limits. It's really wordy and a bit sludgy in places. A lot of it feels like the zillionth chorus of "I'll Be There for You", the one where they sing it a bit higher, and you're kind of just like, "Damn, they're still going?" 

Also, just for the record, what do I consider to be fully over the limit? "Bed of Roses." So see, even I have a TMBJ limit (Too Much Bon Jovi). I guess technically though I should also mention that I consider everything from this album on to fall into that category too — I can not abide "It's My Life" or especially (shudder) "Have a Nice Day." 

But anyway. This song was apparently originally written for the soundtrack of the 1993 film Romeo Is Bleeding, which explains the weirdo beginning ("this Romeo is bleeding / but you can't see his blood"). JBJ bailed on putting it in the movie, but he was later convinced to dig it up for their greatest hits anthology. I'm glad he did, because you guys, this video is ahmazing!! 

I'm too excited to talk about them as they appear, so let's just lay out now the stars of this video. Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora? Hah, I think not. No. This video stars Jack Noseworthy, aka star of MTV's utterly forgotten Dead at 21 and the villain from The Brady Bunch Movie. 

Full disclosure: I thought Jack was soooo hot at the time. I mean so hot. Face facts, I love guys with big, pouty lips. Apparently always have. And I watched the bejeezus out of Dead at 21, which was a bizarre attempt at a scripted action-drama by MTV — Jack had been implanted with some science-y thing as a baby, and he just found out about this, and has to foil it with the help of some woman who looks like Duff (not from Guns N Roses, I mean then-VJ Karen Duffy) so he won't die. I remember finding it really exciting, but being disappointed by the ending.

 

Here, I think he's been cast due to his passing resemblance to Jon Bon Jovi. Longish blondish hair? Check. Pouty lips? Check. Killer cheekbones? Check. All they needed to do was slap some temporary tattoos on him (Superman logo and cow skull with some feathers) to make the transposition complete. In any event, villain-from-The-Brady-Bunch-Movie is too long of a name, so we will call him Noseworthy. 

Noseworthy's girlfriend is played by Carla Gugino, who has been in just a huge amount of stuff. I didn't recognize her from anything in particular, but she's been in lots of TV, including long stints on Spin City, Chicago Hope, and Entourage, as well as all the Spy Kids movies. But what has she been in that I've seen? Um... uh... well... Son-In-Law. We will call her Son-In-Law. 

Son-In-Law has a roommate/friend staying with her or something like that (more on that when we get to the plot) played by Keri Russell, aka Felicity. Um yeah, we're going to call her Felicity. 

Last, we've got possibly the most far-fetched character in an already quite far-fetched video, the artist. And he is played by (drumroll, please!)... Colin from 90210!! I know, I know — in this video he still has his longish hair as he does when he plays (drumroll, please!) Skippy in Kicking and Screaming! 

But whatever people. It's Colin from 90210. I hope I need not have to say more, and that you understand how awesome this is. We will call him Colin from 90210 (oh by the way, this actor's name is Jason Wiles). 

The video begins all verite, with no music, just a street scene that looks like it's in Mexico but based on the rest of the video I'm going to say is in some magical hybrid of Mexico, Los Angeles, and who knows, possibly New York. We'll call it New Los Mexico. 

Anyway, the camera pans up from the street, through a wall, and into an apartment, which is when the music actually starts. Noseworthy is sitting there shirtless (yeah baby!) looking at a picture of Son-In-Law. He reminisces via a flashback about the good times they had when he took that photo, making out and driving recklessly. Aww, they almost ran that Jeep Cherokee off the road! Young love. Sigh!

 

We also start seeing Bon Jovi. They're playing in a weird empty-ish warehouse space, and they look all 90s. You know, shoulder-length hair. Jon is seen mostly in extreme close-up, while everyone else is far away and poorly lit. They appear to have all picked out their wardrobes together, settling on black tees and choker necklaces with big silver crosses and such hanging from them. Real creative, guys. 

Now Noseworthy and Son-In-Law are back at her place. It looks like every chick's apartment in every 90s movie ever — gauzy patterned curtains, elaborately unkempt-on-purpose bed, vanity table covered with photos and crap. Noseworthy is filming her with a camcorder, and of course, since it's a 90s video, Son-In-Law takes this as her cue to perform an impromptu exotic dance routine. 

I should also mention that this woman does not seem to know the difference between a slip-dress and an actual slip. Who says that's a dress? "Calvin Klein!" Anyway, Noseworthy can't resist, so he goes for her, leaving the camera on. 

With the first chorus, we already get to one of the most amazing parts of this video — Noseworthy and Son-In-Law go to a rave. Okay, maybe it's just supposed to be a club, but it's so ginormous it appears to be in a freakin' airplane hangar, so we're going with rave (there's also further rave evidence later). There are women swinging from ropes of flowers, and many of the partygoers appear to be male extras who have been instructed to more or less stand around and gape at Noseworthy and Son-In-Law. 

I can't blame them. These two have both twisted their hair into impromptu dreadlocks. Son-In-Law is wearing some crazy sheer thing, and Noseworthy has on a choker necklace and a shiny jacket. They keep wriggling around on each other, and at one point he pours champagne into her mouth. Allow me to also mention the part where suddenly it's a foam party. 

All their frantic making out is a weird counterpoint to JBJ singing really, really slowly. Noseworthy and Son-In-Law stumble back into her apartment wearing enormous novelty hats — boom! See? I told you it was a rave. Noseworthy is wearing a Mad Hatter type thing, and Son-In-Law has on a like three-foot-high furry Cat-in-the-Hat hat. 

She gestures to him to be quiet — Felicity is asleep on the couch! Why? Who knows. I mean, Felicity's wearing a t-shirt and jeans. So is she Son-In-Law's roommate? And she just fell asleep on the couch? I know this seems obvious now, but trust me, later this will be called into question.

 

Anyway, Felicity decides to turn on the TV since she's awake, and what, what, what?!? Apparently Noseworthy's camcorder is hooked up to the TV in the living room, 'cause Noseworthy and Son-in-Law are getting it on in living color. Felicity appears more amused than repulsed by this, because, you know, it's a metal video. If this weren't a metal video, it'd be either a) a roommate horror story or b) prn, I guess. 

The next morning, Noseworthy and Son-In-Law leave, and Son-In-Law kisses Felicity on the cheek all "See you later!" But then as they're leaving, Noseworthy looks back at her and winks, all "See you later." What is up with that wink!? "Yeah I know you saw us getting it on last night"? "I think you liked it"? "I left the camera hooked up on purpose 'cause Son-In-Law is turned on when I casually exploit her"? Who knows. 

Anyway, there's a jump in time with the beginning of the second verse, which is the strongest of the song in my book. Noseworthy and Felicity are sitting around, and she's wearing a low-cut top and throwing him the bone eye. It takes him a long moment to realize what's up, but once he does, Noseworthy acts fast. 

After a while of watching Bon Jovi sing, we see Son-In-Law come home carrying two bags of groceries. She looks around the apartment but no one's there. We then see that the TV's on (um, why?) and of course, the camcorder's also been left on (here's why). 

We see Son-In-Law's bedroom, where Noseworthy's lying on the bed. Felicity walks in with no shirt on (just the ubiquitous-in-the-90s Victoria's Secret Second Skin Satin bra), and Son-In-Law rips off her sunglasses all shocked as she watches it all on the TV. 

Noseworthy pulls Felicity to him by her mom jeans, and as they start going at it Son-In-Law runs into the room and throws a sack of groceries at them. I kind of love that she does that — it's like turning a hose on some dogs or something.

 

Felicity rolls around on the bed while Noseworthy watches Son-In-Law run away down what suddenly appears to be a suburban street. But before we get too far, see, this is what I was talking about before. If Felicity is Son-In-Law's roommate, why the hell were they hooking up in Son-In-Law's bedroom?!? Either a) dang, this really is a roommate horror story, just not the way we thought or b) Felicity is still in the wrong, but she's just a guest. 

Son-In-Law trudges through the back alleys of wherever-the-hell-this-is-supposed-to-be, ditching her obligatory it's-the-90s Steve Madden chunky black heels and sitting artfully on a random doorstep in a suddenly-very-urban-looking area (think NYC SoHo). The way she's put up her hair and draped that scarf around herself, it looks like she's about to start doing some ballet. 

But Son-In-Law is in luck — who should happen upon her but Colin from 90210! He offers her his coat and brings her up to his preposterously gigantic loft. I know everyone on TV has apartments that are way, way bigger than people can afford in real life, but his apartment is huge. 

Between the giant crappy paintings everywhere and his black mock turtleneck, we quickly learn that Colin from 90210 is an artist. Son-In-Law is way impressed by this. She's quickly seduced as he pours her champagne in seriously the ugliest champagne flutes imaginable. They look like they came from either Big Lots or the SkyMall. 

As per the inevitable, during the guitar solo Colin from 90210 paints Son-In-Law. And as per the even more inevitable, he takes off his shirt to do this, prompting her to likewise reveal herself. As the sort of second bridge begins, Son-In-Law wakes up alone in Colin from 90210's absolutely ridiculous Star Trek bed. 

Where has he gone? I don't know, but I really, really hope it involves... Ding! A low-speed chase. Ding! Getting Kelly Taylor back into drugs. Ding! Erin Silver nearly drowning in a bathtub. Oh snap, I bet he is at the Peach Pit. Ding! Peach Pit After Dark. (Anyone who simultaneously got the Beverly Hills, 90210 references there as well as the Kicking and Screaming reference wins at life.) 

Son-In-Law goes and looks at her painting. Aww, he painted her as Alice Cooper! For some reason, this prompts her to call Noseworthy. He comes right over and they begin making out immediamente. 

She starts to show him all the weird crap in Colin from 90210's loft, and he quickly finds the painting. I guess he can tell she's topless in it even though it's pretty — well, to be generous we'll say it's pretty abstract. 

In any event, Noseworthy goes ballistic. He topples over what appears to be a shopping cart full of art supplies, then throws a speaker while Son-In-Law tries to hold him back.

 

But nothing can hold Noseworthy back from his final act of destruction — yup, the ugly painting. He stabs the painting repeatedly while Son-In-Law looks on in tears. Once done, he's all smiles, but Son-In-Law just looks at him all teary and does an awesome "talk to the hand." 

Now for the most improbable part of the video. And I mean more improbable than all these women letting Jack Noseworthy videotape their sexcapades, more improbable than Colin from 90210 owning that giant apartment, more improbable than Son-In-Law appearing to walk from a favela to the L.A. suburbs to Manhattan. Even more improbable than the fact that it's suddenly night again. 

Noseworthy blows up Colin from 90210's loft. Yup. I know. Okay, we don't see him do it, but we do see flames explode out of its windows, and then we see Noseworthy walk out of the building past the firefighters like it's all NBD. 

He passes Colin from 90210, who's on his way home and probably wondering WTF happened, and they give each other a long, hard look that says a lot without actual words. But if there were words, they would be... Colin from 90210: "I banged Son-In-Law, and I painted her naked." Noseworthy: "I blew up your apartment. And besides, I still have hours of our sex tapes." 

The video concludes back in Noseworthy's apartment. He's still staring at that photo of Son-In-Law when suddenly he sees her, dressed just as she was that day in a slip dress (that for once actually is a slip dress) and a floppy hat. 

He walks up to her, but you can already tell from how totally artificial and green his computer-generated shadow is that she's not really there. She dissolves when he reaches out to touch her though, in case you didn't get the idea already. 

Morals of this story? Don't let Felicity sleep on your couch. Don't paint strange women you meet on the street lest your Star Trek bed and all your crappy paintings wind up in flames. Don't go to raves, they are hella lame. Or really, the most obvious lesson, and yet one celebrities seem to forget all the time — sex tapes are always a bad idea. Ah-all-ways! (Sing it!)

Europe, "The Final Countdown"

Ground Control to Major Tempest  

THE VIDEO Europe, "The Final Countdown," The Final Countdown, 1986, Epic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "It's the final kee-yount-down / [lots of signature keyboard riff] / the final kee-yount-down / [still more keyboards]" 

THE VERDICT Okay people, I'm warning you now: This post goes severely off-topic, even for me. 

Well, actually technically it's not off-topic — I mean, it is all relevant to "The Final Countdown" in one way or another. But do I actually talk about the video? Umm... let's see. 

I honestly could not be happier that at this point in history, this song is firmly associated with pompous weirdos. Seriously, there could be no greater tribute to Joey Tempest et al. but for this to be more or less the theme song for Gob Bluth, as masterfully played by Will Arnett on the dear, departed Arrested Development. 

If you are the one person left who hasn't seen this show, what are you waiting for. Do it before the movie comes out and inevitably leaves us all with a funny taste in our mouths. I'm not saying it's going to be Sex and the City II bad, just that with this much build-up, it's going to have to be like, well, I don't even know what in order to appease the fans. 

Then again, oh snap — "The Final Countdown" was also Bryan Danielson aka Daniel Bryan's intro music in ROH. What, WWE wouldn't pony up for that one? Then again, I guess "The Ride of the Valkyries" is a little more, you know, classy. But still, I would sing along with him! Plus I feel like it would allow them to play up his awesome angle as sort of an accidental ladies' man. 

Anyway. "The Final Countdown." Why are we here? I had kind of wanted to save this one until I had something I was counting down to, but eventually I didn't feel like waiting. This is mainly because I recently purchased Singstar 80s — yes, the karaoke video game — and it's got "The Final Countdown" on there, and so now I have it pretty much permanently stuck in my head. 

Sadly, this is more or less the only metal or even metal-ish song on that game— there's no Poison or anything (that said, I think I have "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" on not one but two other karaoke games). They do a weird job with it, too — there's not enough singing at the beginning, so they make you sing along with the keyboard. "Da da da da, dadadadat-da!" over and over again. 

But singing "The Final Countdown" does force you to remember what a totally bizarre song it is. You sometimes forget when you're listening to it, 'cause Joey's weird screechy voice is really easy to hear as nonsense syllables, but this song actually has a plot.

 

It's about a manned space mission to Venus. I guess you could see it as a sort of internal monologue for the astronauts. Supposedly Joey Tempest copied the premise directly from was inspired by "Space Oddity." (Which was inspired by 2001 — how far back can we trace this thing?) But trust, this is no heir even to "Major Tom (Coming Home)". Possibly though it is an heir to First Spaceship on Venus. 

Okay really though, this is interesting. So Stanley Kubrick directs 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is written by Arthur C. Clarke, who based it partially on various pieces of short science fiction he'd written. That film inspires David Bowie to write "Space Oddity," which is a dialogue between "ground control" and "Major Tom." I guess he didn't want to call him "Major Dave" lest it seem like it was about himself? (Or maybe Hal said "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, David Bowie.") 

Somehow a lot of accounts mix Elton John's "Rocket Man" into this lineage, since they're sort of thematically similar. As a moment's Googling just told me though, my long-time intuition about that song was correct — "Rocket Man" is not a "Space Oddity" hanger-on but is indeed based on the Ray Bradbury story "The Rocket Man." 

Fun fact about me: I am not much of one for science fiction, but I have a deep affection for Ray Bradbury. I read The Illustrated Man, which includes "The Rocket Man", at my dad's suggestion when I was ten, and loooved it. I've read a lot more since, but it's still my favorite. 

In any event, Elton John's "Rocket Man" is on a separate mission from "Major Tom." However, he is not on a separate mission from the much less well-known song by the same name that apparently Bernie Taupin nabbed that song from. Sigh. Anyway, that "Rocket Man" was based on the Bradbury story, so we can still count it as separate from this whole "Major Tom" genealogy. 

Anyway, then we get the sort of beginning of the bad 80s genealogy. Bowie ushers in his 80s phase by releasing a second song referencing "Major Tom." Instead of a space hero, he's just a junkie. I'm sure it's a bunch of metaphors or whatever, but for me it's just like 80s David Bowie is not that good. 

From here though, it only gets cheesier with 1983's "Major Tom (Coming Home)." Oh wait, to clarify, we've now moved on from David Bowie to Peter Schilling. In any event, it offers much more specificity as to what the hell happened up in space, and seems to offer us a vision of Tom as peacefully reconciled to his own demise. Or sort of hallucinating at the end and believing his home to be in space. Whatever. 

All of this finally brings us to 1986, and Europe. Instead of just "Major Tom", now we've got a group of astronauts doing a sort of group internal monologue. The "her" in this one is Earth, not a wife and kids as in Bowie or Schilling. But Europe's major addition to the whole "Major Tom" mythology is his destination: Venus.

 

Venus? Really? I mean yes, it rhymes with "seen us." Now call me old-fashioned, but I am pretty sure "Mars" and "moon" rhyme with quite a few things, too. I mean Venus just does not seem hospitable. I remember learning all the different planets in third grade or so, and it was like well Mercury's close to the sun and way too hot. But then Venus is like, covered with poisonous gases. So why not, I don't know, the moon? It's right there. You're all bouncy on it. It's not crazy-hot. Plus given that all these songs are about the space program of the 1960s, the real-life objective was clearly the moon. 

But if Europe want to go all exotic, why not Mars? Mars does seem to be the one that people feel is most feasible. I can think of like, dozens of Bradbury stories that take place on Mars (I mean, The Martian Chronicles is more or less just Mars-related stories!). But I can only think of one that takes place on Venus — "The Long Rain," which is also in The Illustrated Man. Spoiler alert: It doesn't go too well for those astronauts. 

Mercifully, Europe don't have the last word in the "Major Tom" mythology — I'm sure there's actually much more of it than what I'm chronicling here, but I'm limited by what I know about. 

In any event, the most recent addition I can think of comes from one of my favorite TV shows, The Venture Brothers. In their first season and in what I still think is one of their finest episodes — "Ghosts of the Sargasso" — they basically do "Space Oddity." Masterfully, as always, it combines being hilarious and containing a plethora of pop-culture references with creating a complex, detailed world for the characters. 

"Major Tom" was sent to space by Dr. Jonas Venture, his wife remarried the "Action Man" (who then is revealed to be a member of Team Venture), and so on. Oh, and a lot of it is a combined homage to one of the earliest episodes of Jonny Quest ("Mystery of the Lizard Men," which also takes place in the Sargasso Sea) and to numerous episodes of various Scooby-Doo shows (all the ones featuring ghost pirates). I mean, how can I not love this? 

Hmm, wasn't there something I was supposed to be talking about? Ohhh right, the video, the video. 

Well. We basically see Europe performing live-ish (in their homeland of Sweden, by the way) interspersed with footage of their "control room", as well as shots of various places in Europe (the continent, not the band! There's likely also a lot of Sweden in there, but I'm bad at recognizing this stuff). A lot of the footage has old-school computer text — you know, green or yellow text on a black screen with a blinking box cursor — superimposed over it. 

But yeah, that's about it. I mean, unless you really want a lot of descriptions of Joey's flared nostrils, crazy perm, and Johnny Nitro necklace. But really, do you want that? Wasn't learning about all these weird songs related to "The Final Countdown" more worthwhile? Maybe?

Judas Priest, "Don't Go"

You Are About to Enter The Scary Door  

THE VIDEO Judas Priest, "Don't Go," Point of Entry, 1981, Columbia 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Don't go, please don't leave me / don't go in the mornin' / don't go, please don't deceive me / don't take it away" 

THE VERDICT Can you believe I've run a metal videos site for coming on seven years now, and I've never done a Judas Priest video? Then again, I've been at it that long and never done a Metallica video, either. But it's not for the same reasons. I mean, I'm not afraid of Judas Priest. Am I afraid of Metallica? Well, yes, sort of. Not their music, no. But their litigiousness, yes. 

But anyway, focusing on Priest. I don't know why I've put them off so long. Yes, their later videos are, in a word, hella boring. But their early videos — of which there are a surprisingly large amount — are masterpieces of cheese. They really answer the question, "What can you do with £500 and a camera?" 

"Don't Go" is no exception to this. We start off with just a door floating in space, with the words "Point of Entry" (aka the album title) stenciled above it. It reminds me of a store in the next town over from where I grew up called the House of Doors. That name cracked me up when I was a kid. 

More to my point here though, it is almost exactly like in Futurama when they watch The Scary Door. Yeah, you're probably going to want to click on that link so you understand the other things I say here. (But aren't they both just The Twilight Zone? Trust me, this video is not high-budget enough. It's The Scary Door.) 

In any event, we follow the camera through the door, and as in a couple of their other early videos, Priest appear to be playing the song in the back of a tractor trailer. Okay, it's not quite that narrow of a space, so let's be generous. Priest appear to be playing the song in a double-wide trailer. But someone has painted lines all down the sides, so at least it appears to be very long and skinny — that's how stripes work, isn't it? 

There's also a large, framed picture of a cloudy sky behind Dave Holland. I think maybe here and definitely in "Heading Out to the Highway" they might have been trying to recreate the album art but, call me old-fashioned, it might have been a better idea to just actually go outdoors instead of trying to create long, open vistas in tiny indoor spaces. I mean really, a painting of the sky?

 

Anyway, Judas Priest are just playing the song in their weird box. I should probably also mention that it's windy in there, so everyone with long hair is having their hair blown around. Clearly, this doesn't affect Rob Halford (he's even wearing a hat, and that's sticking on). Everyone else in Priest faces the door, while Rob mostly faces the band. 

It shouldn't surprise anyone, by the way, that there's a lot of black leather in that shoebox. Rob is more or less singing to the other members of the band. "Don't Go" through the Scary Door. They don't want to listen. 

Bassist Ian Hill heads through the door first, even though Rob is waving and singing at him. Unfortunately, what happens when he goes through the door is very confusing and badly lit. Ian looks around, looks down, sees a bunch of colorful lights, and then sort of screams. I'm not sure what happened. 

K.K. Downing goes next, and luckily what happens to him is way slower, so we can figure out wtf is going on in this video. It really is the Scary Door. They seem to go through it and into weird dreams or fantasies or something. 

The other thing that's weird is yeah, Rob is upset for them to leave, but it's not like anything really happens. I mean, the shoebox room doesn't empty out (which quite frankly would make more sense). Instead, everyone who leaves just reappears back in the room and is visible in the background while the next person is leaving. 

Anyway, K.K. steps through the Scary Door and is immediately in a hospital corridor. He's wearing all white, and walking down the hallway, which is brightly lit and all white except for a checkerboard floor. I guess K.K.'s a doctor, 'cause he's wearing a stethoscope and stuff. 

But let's also mention that the place is full of white rabbits. There are rabbits laying all over the floor, so much that he has to step over them. Okay, so I think what happens through the Scary Door is they are going into their dreams. I mean a bunch of bunnies lying all around a hospital? Dream sequence.

 

Then K.K.'s bit gets weirder. At the end of the hospital corridor, he makes it to another Scary Door, with a bunch of rabbits lying in front of it. He opens that one and surprise! It's full of dry ice, and a bunch of women in pleather doing all kinds of freaky stuff. They pull K.K. into whatever it is they're up to in there. 

This seems to make Glenn Tipton want to go through the Scary Door. He pushes Rob Halford aside and heads on in. Glenn is dressed as a sort of Prohibition-era gangster, with hat and coat and everything. Unfortunately, what exactly happens in his sequence is really, really poorly lit, but he appears to be in a back alley. He runs down some stairs and into a waiting Dick Tracy-looking car, which he uses to flee from what appear to be (as best as I can tell in this video's pitch-black lighting) a bunch of gun-toting gangsters. 

Rob Halford goes last. He jumps through what seriously does appear to be the Scary Door — I mean, it's floating around in space with a bunch of stars behind it. Rob is dressed sort of as Jiffy-Pop, but I think really as a space man. He floats around, does sort of a somersault in the air, then pulls himself back through the door. 

Does Dave Holland get a fantasy sequence? Nope, not even a two-second one like Ian had. Boo. Instead, the video ends with the lights going out in their little trailer. All we can see is the painting of the sky at the very back, and Rob Halford at the very front, begging the camera not to go. But the Scary Door closes on him, and the camera pulls away. 

You know, in addition to the video taking us to a vicinity of an area adjacent to a location, this song is sort of like a sludgy, metal version of "Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)." I mean yeah, it doesn't have the implications of going dancing later that evening, or possibly just staying in bed instead, but the lyrics are really not that different in the scheme of things. 

I know, I know, I just keep coming up with weird connections between songs that don't really exist. (The connections, I mean, obviously the songs exist!)

Loudness, "Crazy Nights"

Tonight They're Gonna Rock You (Tonight)  

THE VIDEO Loudness, "Crazy Nights", Thunder in the East, 1985, Atco 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Rock n' roll crazy ni-iii-iiights / You are the heroes tonight! / Rock n' roll crazy ni-iii-iiights / You are the her-oooooooooooooo!" 

THE VERDICT Loudness are pretty amazing. They are in many ways like Japan's answer to Spinal Tap, which makes sense in a way since Tap find their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow touring the far east. 

But seriously, this video features so many Tap-esque cliches it's hard to even keep them all straight. Let's try. 

The clothing! I know, I always talk about what people are wearing. But I can't help it here. Loudness look like they got these outfits from one of those ads they used to have in Circus and Hit Parader that say like "Rock Star Clothes." I'm not making this up, these things used to exist! These companies sold like spandex, sleeveless Union Jack tees, and all manner of studded accessories. Let's review Loudness' apparel here. 

Vocalist Minoru Niihara is wearing a white leather vest over a sleeveless "rising sun" t-shirt — they totally sold those alongside the Union Jack tees! He also has on black pants. Most amazing though is that he has on basically white leather legwarmers that are turning his white sneakers into knee-high boots. You know who else rocked this look? Barbie, of Barbie and the Rockers. Yes, I totally had that doll (I think I've even talked about this before), and she had white faux-leather legwarmer things that you could put on her to transform her normal white Barbie heels into Rockers-esque boots. 

Guitarist Akira Takasaki has on a full-body suit of red spandex, with a large number of zippers, chains, etc. criss-crossing it. I think he was going for kind of a Nikki Sixx look, or maybe early Dokken. It's got shoulder pads, and separate arm bands — uhoh, I feel a digression about wrestling attire of the 1980s coming on! Don't worry, I'll fight it. This time. 

We don't see as much of bassist Masayoshi Yamashita, but he's got on a similar thing in black-and-white tiger stripes. I debated whether this was meant to be zebra or tiger stripes for a minute, but comparing it in my mind to the team-related apparel owned by a friend of mine who is a huge Bengals fan, I've come up with tiger.

 

We can really barely see the drummer, Munetaka Higuchi. It's kind of amazing — watch the whole video. He's in a zillion shots, yet they have almost always managed to line up the camera such that a cymbal is obscuring more or less his entire face. Munetaka doesn't once get to like make a pouty face for the camera, or wink, or point a drumstick at it, though he does get in some dramatic arm raises. In any event, I think he's wearing a black vest over a sleeveless tee, and maybe some kind of scarf, but it's a bit hard to tell. 

The lyrics "Crazy Nights" is astonishing in its sincerity and its focus on rocking. It seriously is like a love letter to nerdy metal fans: Come to our concert, here's what's going to happen, you will feel awesome. Shoot, they should have the Y&T robot get out on stage with them while they're at it! 

I think for me the best part of the lyrics is when Loudness proclaim "we're gonna do our best." Oh gosh, the sincerity is almost too much. 

Long story short, "Crazy Nights" is basically the Loudness version of "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You (Tonight)." I mean yes, "Crazy Nights" is in no way sexual as "Tonight...," but it's a similar message: "Tonight I'm gonna rock ya, tonight I'm gonna rock ya, tonight." 

Wait, no: This is like the Loudness version of KISS' "Crazy, Crazy Nights." But oh snap. Loudness did it first! I know it kind of doesn't matter because "Crazy, Crazy Nights" is literally the worst song KISS ever made (I would rather listen to any other KISS song), but still. It's like come to our show, it's going to rock, you can let it all hang out here, etc., etc. KISS, I can't believe it. Did you seriously rip off Loudness? (I know, I know, probably not — but what is the internet for if not reckless speculations?)

Wall o' amps + guitar face Akira is seriously channeling Nigel Tufnel in this video. Loudness have set up gigantic walls of Marshall amps on either side of the stage which they use to good effect here, since besides some colored lights (and let's not forget the gong) they don't really have much happening onstage. In any event, Akira uses them the most, doing total rock star poses and making all kinds of guitar face in front of them. 

The gong! Who started the whole gong thing? Was it Neil Peart? I don't know the answer to this. But I remember reading a thing in Spin magazine years ago — I think it was in some kind of list issue — the gist of which was you can tell what kind of show you're in for just by looking at the drum kit. A gong behind the drummer meant it was about to rawk. 

This video doesn't disappoint in this regard, with a whole sequence of Munetaka banging the hell out of that gong. Yes, we can't actually hear it, but it looks cool. Even if writing about it is making me get the awful Power Station cover of "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" stuck in my head. Ughh.

 

It's Tap-tastic, right? Then again, there are aspects of this video that aren't as relevant to Spinal Tap that are still worth mentioning. The following aren't Tap-related, but I would be remiss to talk about this video without mentioning... 

The fans Do the people in this video even know they are in this video? And I don't mean the people doing the chanting (we'll get to them below). I mean the couple of throwaway shots they have of metal fans to try to convince us that Loudness are performing in front of an audience — this despite the fact that it could not be more obvious that they're not. 

There are a couple of versions of this video floating around — the performance parts remain the same, but the fan footage (and the chanters) change. In most though, you get to see a blurry, red-tinged shot of what appear to be a group of pre-teen-ish white boys with short hair sort of bopping along to the music. 

In others, you'll get to see a bunch of Japanese fans leaning over a railing. Trust that in either case these people are not watching Loudness perform as we see them during this video. But again, the bigger question — were the people in this footage ever watching Loudness anywhere? 

The chanting! For most people, this song's nonsensical chant of "M! Z! A!" is the most memorable bit. For years I assumed that this was an abbreviation that meant something in Japanese. No. What I have since heard is that "M! Z! A!" was initially put in as a placeholder — they knew they wanted to have a chant, but didn't know what. In the end though, they just kept its kind of nonsense chant. 

I just tried to substantiate this version of events and succeeded: In an interview with Metallian.com, Minoru says, "It is like shouting 'hey hey hey' or 'wow wow wow' or whatever. Except M, Z and A came out of me. I have been asked this question and I used to tell people it stands for 'My Zebra Ass.' Of course, that's nonsense." 

Also apparently they wrote all the music for this song before writing lyrics, which may explain some things, like why the guitar's so badass, but the lyrics are so, well, see above! In any event, in addition to being sonically memorable, this video also makes the chant visually memorable, as we see all different people doing the chant. 

We first see the band members do it. But we also get to see Japanese policemen, school children, even a woman dressed as a geisha. Depending on what version of the video you watch, you'll see different people doing the chant. 

They also do collages of the letters a couple of times, using letters from signs, a varsity jacket, etc., to get the message across. It's not Tap-esque, but you've still got to love the chant. Plus it allows them to do a couple of quick "meet the band" sequences — win-win.