Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for music video directors. You are dealing with creative elements in the band while having your own vision for the video. Everything must be a compromise. Here’s what I imagine the conversation went like for the video for Nobody’s Fool by Cinderella:

The Band (in unison):
We are called Cinderella. What if we do a midnight transformation?

Director:
That sounds great. Maybe at midnight the band could transform into regular people instead of huge-haired scarf wearers.

The Band (in unison):
We would prefer sexy women to transform. Have a sexy woman run home and go to bed. And add a scene where a bunch of sexy women want to get with us, but we’re all, like, no way.

Director:
You want the video to be about a woman who runs home and goes to bed? That sounds terrible and boring. What about…

The Band (unison):
LALALALALALALA. We can’t hear you!

Director:
Fine, let’s get this piece shit over with.

Check it out:

Wow.

The video opens with a very significant scene before the music starts. There are two women.

These women look ridiculous. So they change.

They have clocks on their heads and now that they removed their glasses boys will make passes at them. Or will they?

Looks like we’ll have to wait to find out. The two women drive to some sort of private concert. The band playing is Cinderella and they arrive with some women.

Notice how the singer’s lips are pursed for no reason. That is awesome.

The women sit down and the band begins to play.

This song is a ballad. Naturally, the band went with a neon background. It represents sensitivity and feelings.

The woman the singer arrived with glances at the clock.

Tip: If your boyfriend invites you to see his band play, constantly look at the clock. Also, check your watch a lot. He’ll love it! It shows that you hope there’s a bunch of time left for them to play. Not rude at all.

Oh nooooooo! It’s almost midnight!

She is shaken. She stands to leave.

Tip: The only thing less rude than constantly checking the time is leaving during the first half of the first song.

She runs away.

Run for it!

She arrives at a house. Is it her house? The tension builds.

It is her house! Or at least a house where she is comfortable lying on the bed.

I bet you thought this video couldn’t possibly get more exciting. I mean, the woman already left a concert and ran to a house and fell asleep. What more could you want?

What’s happening?!?!?

WHAAAAAT?

Ok, so she puts her arms out, Jesus-like. Then she is changed from revealing black clothing to loose-fitting virginal white. Also, her hair is less ridiculous. No wonder she ran home. The singer from Cinderella would definitely leave her if he knew she wasn’t really a tough, slutty, rockin’ babe.

The band finishes the song and leaves the venue. Those clock-headed ladies try to get with them, but they’re all, like, no way!

Thank god we were introduced to those women at the beginning of the video. Otherwise none of this would make any sense.

The singer is signing some autographs and signs one for a woman with normal hair in loose-fitting, virginally white clothing. Wait, why did the woman run home if she didn’t mind being seen like that? She could have just stayed at the show and changed there. Or is the bed necessary for the change? Would she have been stuck in her black, revealing clothing as a tough, slutty, rockin’ babe if she didn’t make it home? I have more questions than answers.

The singer is very interested in this woman, despite her plain appearance. He seems to not recognize her, even though he walked to the concert with her. Does he not recognize women’s faces? Did he never look at her in the face before? I’m not sure what to think.

All I know is that he is extremely sexist.

-PTD

Yesterday I promised a real 1980’s video. Today, I deliver. I try to under- promise and over-deliver, but in this case both my promise and delivery are regular in nature.

Anyways, take a look at this music video by Cinderella:

The song is entitled (entitled is to titled as Ensure is to sure) “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)". There is a lot wrong with that title. First of all, the grammar is terrible. It should be, “You don’t know what you have until it done gone away.” Also, what’s the deal with the parentheses? For some reason this is common in song titles, but it makes no sense. I always feel like I should whisper the part in parentheses. If it is meant as a secondary title, the correct way to do this is with a colon as in Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf.

What are the themes of this video? The most major one is that the director rented a helicopter and it was really expensive and he’s going to use as much footage as possible to justify this expense.

The second theme is playing piano by a lake.

Playing piano in nature is one of the most symbolic things you can do. The lake represents the ocean, and the piano represents Portugal’s foreign policy in the early modern period. The sand represents the native people of the Americas and they are ground beneath the feet of outlandishly dressed gentlemen.

On second thought, I think it represents sensitivity. The singer is a very sensitive person.

Here he makes the universal gesture for “I am feeling emotions right now.”

He is joined by his band mates who are suitably emotional and all have huge hair.

So sensitive.

Blondely sensitive.

The drummer is so sensitive that he hides his emotion behind his mane, which flows freely in the lake-side wind.

This song is so earnest and is sung in such an inappropriate voice that I’m not sure how to process it. The singer is sitting there playing his piano…

…and the sounds coming out of his mouth are in a nasal screech. I feel like he needed someone at some point to say, “Hey, buddy, you’re not a tenor. It’s okay. You can sing a little lower and no one will think any less of you.” And he said, “NO! I am a tenor! Listen to [the sound of screeching for 5 damn minutes].”

This piano by the lake stuff just keeps going for, like, 3 minutes straight without anything new happening or anything even happening in the first place. They really want to get the message across: The man has emotions. The only real excitement during this portion of the video is a tantalizing shot of his rad jewelry.

Suddenly the scene shifts and we are introduced to the theme of being a cowboy.

This is at odds with the earlier theme because cowboys feel no emotions. John Wayne is the most famous cowboy and he never showed emotion in his life. Or maybe he just wasn’t a great actor. Either way.

Anyway, upon closer inspection the cowboy is actually the same person as the singer and he proceeds to play a guitar solo.

I think this is really bad form. The singer gets to screech and play piano. There’s another guy who only gets to play guitar. Let him play the solo! You can hand the reins to someone else for a little bit without losing anything. The guy is an egomaniac. I now suspect that the whole cowboy thing is just his chance to live out some sort of sick fantasy.

Here is the singer thinking about how, after the nuclear holocaust, he will go to a small town where all the inhabitants are dead and dress like a cowboy. What a messed up fantasy.

Towards the end of the video the director realizes that he has a bunch of helicopter footage that he hasn’t gotten to use yet.

That’s the bass player. He is tiny like an ant.

I think that might be the singer or possibly the guitar player. It’s hard to tell, we are in a helicopter.

To tie all the themes together at the end, the whole band stands in front of the lake and then there is a freeze frame.

Do you understand now? EMOTIONS.

Join me tomorrow when I end the week with a video that has a totally different approach to ballads.

-PTD