Music videos have always been a test bed for new video technology. Whether we’re talking about what most scholars consider the first music video, Electrocuting an Elephant in 1903, which featured groundbreaking filmmaking, groundbreaking electricity, and groundbreaking animal cruelty, or we’re talking about putting a shape-based wipe between literally every scene, you can bet that the techniques you see in the cinema were first tried in music videos.

One such technique, the green screen, is on magnificant display in this video, which appears to have been shot entirely in front of a green screen for no apparent reason. According to Wookieepedia, this filmmaking technique was first invented in the 1930s, but I think we can all agree that since Wookieepedia is editing entirely by volunteer Wookiees, that the green screen technique was probably actually invented for We Built This City by Starship.

Take a look and judge for yourself:

The video opens on this city:

Wait, this city? This city is the one that was built on rock and roll?

A close reading of the song’s lyrics (note: I did not read the lyrics at all nor did I listen to them closely) reveals that the city the song is about is San Francisco.

It’s easy to forget, but in the early 1960s, San Francisco’s population hovered right around 3,000 people. By the late 1960s, though, the population had reached over 800,000 people almost entirely due to an influx of hippies into the Haight-Ashbury district. A city-wide survey conducted in 1969 revealed that over 700,000 people in the city listed “Jefferson Airplane” as their primary reason for living in San Francisco.

In case you didn’t know (WARNING: true fact ahead) Starship used to be called Jefferson Starship which used to be called Jefferson Airplane. Try to keep up.

Some ghostly singers appear over the city as night falls.

Next, we see a man desperately trying to keep his entire body rigidly still while pretending to play a bass. Meanwhile, another man hams it up pretending to play guitar.

No one appears to have told them that the entire song is performed on keyboards.

The screen is filled up with scruffy youths while the singing man points emphatically.

Note that that none of these youths or the singer appear to exist on the same visual plane. The green screen allows the director to combine the best take by each actor into complete nonsense.

Also, the green screening is really poorly done.

It looks like by 4 year old cut out this picture from a magazine and painted it over a picture of the night sky.

The scene changes to a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Wait, maybe this city is Washington D.C.?

The singing man pleads with him, inexplicably.

The scene rapidly changes to a man in white face paint and all white clothing jumping up and singing.

There is literally no context for this event.

The singing man reacts with mild surprise.

Next we see a woman green screened into a Las Vegas-like environment.

She is green screened among an improbable group of youths who have been green screened in with each other.

The extreme close-up over a faraway background effect allowed by the green screen gives us an exquisite view of the singer’s crazy eyes.

Some dice fall off a sign.

Everyone runs.

This appears to be the only scene that was shot without a green screen.

We have a brief interlude for the guitar solo.

The bridge section of the song (if you don’t know which part of the song that is, there’s probably no point in telling you) is pretty boring, but we do get one wonderful shot that I present here without comment:

Never mind, I have to comment. This is the beauty of the green screen. The two singer’s heads are wildly different sizes and they were probably filmed on different days in different locations. But look at the chemistry between them.

Some more youths are looking up.

They see the starship, apparently rocking out.

Next, we get an amazing shot of the poofy-haired drummer who has not appeared in the video at all until now.

I really wish we could have gotten more of him.

The band plays us out.

I’m not sure what else to say, but I’m mesmerized by this video. It shows that you can use a lot of technology and a lot of heart to produce a lot of nonsense.

-PTD

Let me set the stage. You’ve just released a weird song that consists mostly of Casio-generated sounds along with lyrics that hover somewhere between nonsense, offensive, and insensitive. And it becomes a hit. Now, you gotta ask yourself, what’s the video gonna be?

It’s definitely a tough nut to crack. If you lean to hard into the weird it’s likely to be even more nonsense than the song, but when your only other option is to lean really hard on the offensiveness you don’t have much choice.

Wall of Voodoo elected to go with option #3 - do both. Check it out, Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo:

The video opens with the singer hearing what can only be described as a combination of a Casio keyboard and a Mexican radio announcer.

He starts singing and making a face.

He spends most of the video making these faces for some reason, possibly to indicate that he is on a Mexican radio, if you know what I mean.

Now we get to what I love about this video. Just take a look at this:

They’re all packed in for no reason! This is the type of weirdness I’m really looking for in a music video. Having them all standing on top of each other for no reason also makes their method of creating music seem all the more magical. Without them being packed in, you might notice that the drummer is hardly playing and the guitar player has essentially nothing to do. It’s all Casio drums and Casio keyboards and face making.

It also shows humility on the part of the band, since I feel like we never get a shot of the guitar player’s face in the whole video because he’s always standing behind someone.. Most groups insist on giving each band member screen time no matter how ridiculous that is, so it’s refreshing to see the opposite happen.

After the first chorus, the singer starts furiously playing harmonica.

It’s quickly revealed that it’s all an act, and that music is still just Casio keyboarding.

Next, the video struggles desperately to convey the message “Mexico” in a way that makes me uncomfortable.

There’s a stop sign in Spanish.

And a man wearing a sombrero.

Don’t worry, though. The band is still packed in.

Later, the band themselves start doing things in Mexico.

Although there’s no way to tell what they’re doing. Maybe listening to the radio?

Also, there is a woman there with beans.

If I wasn’t already uncomfortable about the Mexican imagery, I would definitely be uncomfortable now.

Toward the end of the video, for no real reason, the video breaks the fourth meal, I mean fourth wall.

I think seeing the director and all these other people working on filming four men packed into a tiny area, making faces, and singing about Mexican radio really does it for me.

The video ends with a title card.

Have I mentioned that I [love title cards](/posts/normal-people-with-lorde- royals/) in music videos? Because I do.

I can’t say I love this music video, but I sure do love packing them in.

-PTD

All too often, it can be confusing who the true hero of a story is. Usually it’s the audience who is confused, like with fans of All in the Family who cheered for Archie Bunker, but sometimes the very makers of a story get confused.

I talked about one example with In Too Deep by Sum 41 where a group of men worked hard to become excellent at their craft, only to be defeated by lazy, homophobic assholes. At least that video had the excuse that it was meant to be humorous.

Today’s video, however, has no such excuse. It features a confident, sexy woman demonized for prioritizing herself over a boring jock while a stalker-y “nice guy” is held up as the hero for always “being there” for said jock when her only motivation is to get down with him (if you know what I mean). It’s like the video was written by a reddit thread filled with men’s rights activists (is there any other kind?).

The video opens with an angry jock on the phone.

A creepy nerd peers at him through the window, watching his argument.

She pretends to care about him.

Note to any children experiencing a “relationship” like this. None of this is okay. No one should be staring at you through your window watching your every move.

He claims to be “tired of drama”.

After showing the creep this note, he closes his curtains even though she was clearly writing something else on her notebook. She fails to take this as a hint that the drama he was talking about was her, so she shows this sign to some closed curtains.

Not passive-aggressive at all.

She decides to try some new personalities to see if they might better attract this boring jock neighbor boy.

First, we have an emo goth of some sort.

Then there’s a late 80’s or early 90’s super rad outfit.

Ultimately, she decides to stay in her creepy nerd persona.

On an unrelated note, you may know that I love suggesting lyric improvements. There’s a lyric in this chorus, “She wears short skirts. I wear t-shirts.” Since later on in the song, there is the line, “She wears high heels. I wear sneakers.” it seems like the first line should contain two related items instead of any two true statements. Can I suggest “She wears g-strings. I wear t-shirts."? Think about it.

The next day, she sits on a bench pretending to read.

I’m sure running into the jock would totally be a coincidence.

Well, what do you know? Here he comes.

He sits down like an actual nice guy.

The creepy neighbor has hair in her face, which he can’t bare to look at so he moves it out of the way.

She takes it as a sign that he loves her.

Finally, about halfway through the damn video, the hero of this story, played by the singer Taylor Swift, arrives in a sweet convertible looking cool and confident.

Her boyfriend, the boring jock, rushes to her. He kisses her neck while she looks at the creepy nerd knowingly.

The action moves to a football game where we see our hero is the captain of the cheerleading squad.

She seems successful, beautiful, and fully in control of her life.

The creepy nerd looks miserable in the bleachers as a member of the band.

The jock scores a football and the crowd goes nuts.

Pretty sure they’ll have to rebuild the school after this celebration.

Our hero is not impressed, however, as a new football jock has caught her eye.

Maybe she is a fan of Nada Surf and is exercising her one month limit on going steady.

The old, boring jock is upset just because she never told him they were over.

She is justifiably upset at the old jock.

When your time is up, it’s up. You don’t need to have a meeting about it.

The creepy nerd pretends to be sad about this even though she is inwardly elated.

Time passes and the old, boring jock is getting ready for a formal dance.

He fails to notice that his creepy neighbor is wearing a t-shirt and so is obviously not going.

She pretends it’s because she’s too smart and cool, but we all know she was pretending to study while hoping to watch the jock have sex with someone else.

The jock, realizing that he has dodged a bullet, pretends to be sad that she won’t be there.

The creepy nerd decides that her whole “creepy nerd” act just ain’t doin’ it, so she changes herself into a Disney princess.

The jock is stupified.

He goes to her.

He is intercepted by our hero who, presumably having forgotten at this point that they used to date, is interested in this dressed-up hunk.

She is wearing a dress that is obviously appropriate for a high school dance, as long as the wearer has enough confidence.

Our hero is inexplicably rejected by the jock.

She is dumbfounded.

The ex-nerd shows a piece of paper to the jock.

He shows another paper back.

And that’s how the video ends. It’s truly mystifying. If this video is taken at face value, it is encouraging our youth to peep at each other through windows until they realize that they’re meant to be with each other. This is just wrong.

If you are a teen (or anyone else) who is trying to attract a mate, let me give you a few simple rules:

1. There are no rules.
2. Be direct.
3. If you don’t hear a “yes” then you have a “no”.
4. Come to a complete stop at stop signs.

That’s it. If you follow these rules for a few years I guarantee that you’ll be happier, healthier, wealthier, and wiser than before.

-PTD