Do we try over spilt milk?
The last thing I want to do is make this into a pile-on session on the pride of the American ’80s underground, REM. If you’ll recall, some Townspeople already had the opportunity to do this when the band we inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame some weeks ago.
We are not here to indict the recording career of REM, Mike Mills’ shocking switch to the Nudie suit and unkempt hair Look, or even Michael Stipe’s overall Look portfolio. Today, there’s but one Rock Crime for which REM must answer: the video for “Losing My Religion”. Love the song itself or hate it – and surely there are many on each side of that fence – it is solely the 1991 MTV Music Awards‘ Best Video of the Year, directed by Tarsem Singh, that is accused of high crimes against rock.
If you were anywhere near a tv in the early ’90s, surely you’re all-too-familiar with this video. There’s the religious imagery and obvious hints at the framing of famous photographers’ works as well as the works of Caravaggio. There’s tho whole Soviet poster art/salt of the earth imagery: large-nosed, honest folk with stubble and somber faces, looking off into the distance or, briefly, directly at you, the viewer of these important messages from a singer who’d already made a career of mumbling nonsensical lyrics to cover for his near-crippling introversion. Jeez, does anyone look like they’re having a good time in this video?
Certainly, by 1991, the promise that early rock videos from the late-70s held, as first seen on shows like the syndicated Rockworld was long broken. Growing up with that stuff, I was primed for a lifetime of bands lip-synching in ill-fitting suits and loud shirts on stark white backgrounds, with nothing more to focus on that the players’ boss gear and sometimes cool hairdos.
This next video has little to do with stark white backgrounds, but everything to do with my memories of Rockwold. See if the band rings a bell!
Now, do you recall the absolute rush in seeing this one for the first time one late Saturday night in your high school years?
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Whew! This must be how powerful that stuff the narcs played by Jason Patric and Jennifer Jason Leigh got hooked on in that movie Rush. For second-class ’60s gear fetishist reasons alone these videos were a godsend. Dreams of geek-rock stardom were hatched based on this sort of video. What dreams were hatched watching the video for “Losing My Religion”?
Here’s another fun, white-background classic:
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Ah, if only I could go back in time, lose 40 pounds, believe great things were right around the corner, and have no clue what life was about! That’s how inspiring I still find these old videos, videos which portray rock ‘n roll as the vital, community force it was created to serve.
Perhaps the humble highpoint of the early video age was Elvis Costello & the Attractions’ trio of videos for Get Happy!! Remember these goofy ones, which did away with gear altogether and simply pulled on the spirit of Beatles’ movies and other throwaway ’60s pop imagery:
Shortly thereafter, the first wave of wholly nonmusical videos, such as early Madonna videos, would hit. Gear fetishism was replaced by mascara and rubber bracelet fetishism. At least these videos were still in the “fun pop” tradition. They were fanning the flames of all the Elvis (Presley, younger readers) movie/Beach Blanket Bingo nonsense that Motown and British Invasion artists successfully integrated into their works before the heavy, heavy Festival Era wiped that stuff out of vogue. I could only complain so much.
Hair farmer pop-metal would follow, which was painful to watch, but at least it was as idiotic as anything I liked, just a different idiotic aesthetic was in operation. The video medium was still being used to foster the vital, community spirit of the genre.
Then along comes the REM video. Here was a band that built its indie cred – hell, that led the way in buidling the concept of indie cred itself – through ensemble playing; cool ’60s gear; polka-dotted shirts; long messy hair; and cryptic, jangly music. Here was REM coming out of the closet wearing unbleached cotton peasant garb, looking forlornly as their newly crowned Leader, Stipe, gesticulates wildly while going on about who knew what at the time. The new hierarchy within the band was shocking. Remember when REM portrayed itself as a close-knit, all-for-one, one-for-all group? Suddenly, bandmates are giving Stipe shoulder rubs then standing in the shadows, barely taking part in the video.
The funny thing is, right around the time of the release of the video for “Losing My Religion”, REM released another video that was one of the last gasps for the ’60s-based video virtues that I’d treasured:
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Everybody gets into the act, even their buddy Kate Pierson, from the always-fun B-52s! I know some folks want to flag Stipe for a misdemeanor for that Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys hat, and yeah, he’s still doing the meat cleaver hand gestures, but come on, sticks in the mud, this is a video that represents the vital, community spirit of the genre.
What does the video for “Losing My Religion” represent? For starters, its got no gear, no cool fashions, no good hair, and no community spirit. It’s no fun whatsoever. It has nothing to do with rock ‘n roll. It’s Michael Stipe telling Peter Buck he’s had it with the slovenly record store clerk routine. Stipe told the band it was high time that he put them on his back and get them the hit they deserved, dagnabbit! It’s actually a heroic performance by Stipe (and moreso, when taken into context with his eventually straightfoward explanation of the song’s meaning, as told on Fresh Air, among other outlets).
The video and the dynamic shift it initiated were also and the final nails in the coffin of the band as fans had loved them until this point. Buck, for what it’s worth, would show little interest in REM as anything but a cash cow. Mills let his Look go to put and tried to compensate with the Nudie suit. Bill Berry’s health forced him out of the band, but ask any drummer in the house if playing behind a mandolin is worth coming back from a death scare. Think the drummer in Deaf Leppard had any reservations about finding a way to get back on the throne and bash away behind that heavy metal thunder?
However, it’s not the video’s eventual killing of REM that is its most heinous crime. It’s the video’s role in the killing of Everyman’s Dream of the Pop Star, as we knew it from rock ‘n roll’s first 2 decades and even through the bubblegum, glam, and disco eras of the ’70s, that leads me to charge them with the most severe of Rock Crimes.
The crimes of the video for “Losing My Religion” resonate today, here:
Ugh! Who beyond the age of 5 or 6 wants to dress up like Sufjan Stevens, with that ridiculous straw hat? Why can’t he look up? Why can’t he make eye contact? What’s he hiding? What the hell did he grow up dreaming about in his geek-rock fantasies, getting to hang with the winged monkey guy from the video for “Losing My Religion”? The John Lurie-like miner? Man, it’s fantasies like that that should be fueling careers in social work, not rock ‘n roll. These are the new geek-rock dreams that have been fueled by REM’s breakthrough moment. We all know that phony Beatlemania had bitten the dust, but replace it with something else that’s cool.
I ask of you, Townspeople of the jury, do we convict the video for REM’s “Losing My Religion” for a Rock Crime of the highest order?
While we deliberate, I’ll leave you with this fulfilled, new geek-rock dream:
O, Moderator, where did you lose your perspective? Firstly, and there are so many things wrong here, no one can be convicted of anything more than a misdemeanor for anything that takes place in a video! Videos are in and of themselves an enfeebled mole on the back of Rock. And in that see of flaccid images, literal and tedious visions, cameras lazing around trying to behave like a vicarious irreverent eye… ugh! Haven’t videos proven by their fourth decade that they are, by the very dynamic of their consumption, no more than inert at best?
Thank heaven that charming Specials song, one of the few to which I used to dance with abandon, wasn’t sullied by the foppery of that video. Another load of bowler and mascara wearing white boys, fresh from another viewing of A Clockwork Orange, elbowing amongst their black brothers (whose belief in the power and message of music would make the band split the band soon after.)
And I hear you about Pump It Up. But is he having fun in that video? Or the other, for that matter? Seeing Elvis Costello’s face was always a detraction from the simple untrammeled fun of his music. He is busy delivering the quasi-sage and superior “I Can See For Miles” vibe that distances him from said simplicity, with sneering self-aware un-fun.
And wasn’t Stipe the focus of REM from pretty dern early? This song is long after my interest waned, and after I started having the knee-jerk response of wanting to go buy another Vic Chestnutt record whenever I hear them.
One of the pitfalls of videos is their tendency to highlight the distance from the dynamic where a rock band was in the room to facilitate dancing or interaction of some sort between the audience members, in it’s early decade or two. Now, not only is the rock band there to be stared at and taken in as a largely mute and static ritual, but in that role they are deified to the point where they can seldom resist at least a smattering of Christ imagery. And Stipe seems to have embraced the martyr wing of his inner fascist with abandon.
All in all, a demoralizing morning offering on RTH. But on the up side, I have prepared my mix CD. Focussing on the chops-laden seventies constellations of prog and fusion and their ilk.
General, thank you for your thoughtful reply. Although we disagree and you, therefore, are wrong:), you make a good case for throwing this charge out of court. But not good enough. The fact that I not only have the song “Losing My Religion” in my head, which really isn’t that bad, but images of Stipe’s flailing hands and that damn milk bottle falling reinforces my belief in the negative power of this video, a force so negative that it would influence a generation of videos, award ceremony graphics, and ESPN Classics features.
Because of this video, I hated that song, and I harbored extreme prejudices against Stipe, in particular, that took me years to overcome. This is different than being distracted by Costello’s face, you’ll have to admit. I loved the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz – loved them and have looked forward to them since childhood. The winged monkey/angel/proto-Sisquo (is that how that 1-hit wonder spelled his name) dued nearly caused me to give up my love for the flying monkeys. Evil! The 12-year-old boy tied up with the arrows in his chest remind me of the Greenaway film Prospero’s Books, perhaps the most innovative, lovingly crafted piece of shit in the history of art.
I won’t go on. I’ve made my case and it’s a good one! I am confident the jury will see things my way. In their inevitable sentencing, however, I do hope they show the video some mercy, as based on your well-stated thoughts.
Good news regarding your mix CD. This Hear Factor thing is going to be big! Stay tuned!
Blaming something for the influence it subsequently exerts on others is a dangerous road to go down.
Dangerous, yes, but sometimes necessary. I’m confident that the jury will see the need for taking this road in this particular case. Let’s await their deliberation…
Well, if you dislike the video for Losing My Religion, I would certainly enjoy hearing your comments about the video for Everybody Hurts.
I prefer the video for “Everybody Hurts” – same problems at the start – the whole healing of humanity issue, the forelorn look…And Stipe keeps chopping those hands and over-enunciating the lyrics, but then there’s a bit of humor and joy as The People get out of their cars and take matters into their own hands. At least they’re not crying over spilt milk the whole video. Nevertheless, the damage had been done thanks to the video for “Losing My Religion”.
So what do you say about the video in question, Dr. John? Surely you’ve weighted the evidence, considered the severity of the crimes in question.
The key issue for me is: how well does the video convey the ideas that the song is trying to get across? In the case of Losing My Religion, the song has a heavy mood that is accented by the imagery of the video. It has nothing to do with a rock “look,” anymore than a stage production of Hamlet should be judged. Granted, though, the spilt milk is a bit silly.
On the other hand, any chance of trying to contemplate the ideas behind Everybody Hurts (providing that one is able to get past the no-duh song title) is spoiled by the “Up with People” tone of the video. If you are inclined to disagree, think about how you would describe the video to a person, and if you would be capable of not bursting into laughter sometime during the description of the video.
So, in sum, I find the latter worse.
I don’t see it that way at all, Dr. John. “Losing My Religion” is a song about unrequited love, a fact that Tarsem did more than his share to completely obscure. Whereas “Everybody Hurts” is simply a song of hope in the face of adversery, something the video manages to embody quite well. Yeah, both song and video are corny, but they hit their marks. Maybe not on the level of It’s a Wonderful Life (the movie, not the Chris Stamey album, nerds), but impressive on its own terms.
These seem to me to be two points in its favor. There’s more to life than fun. And rock & roll.
at the time the video just struck me as another concept video…the mapplethorpe and caravaggio references seemed pretentious, sure, but…
the criminal element on view was michael stipe’s pretentious herky jerky interpretive dance.
that was rock crime enough.
learn to separate the dancer from the…video.
nirvana’s use of the same director (and almost the same approach…just a little…ummm…grosser) was much more effective.
oops.
anton korbin directed “heart shaped box”, not tarsem singh.
ah well…i always thought they were directed by the same guy because of the use of elaborate, wizard of oz-like sets, deliberately klunky costumes, and blown out technicolors.
carry on…
I love the “Heart-Shaped Box” video! I get those two guys mixed up too. Is the Korbin also the guy who does a lot of work with U2?
Dr. John, Townsman Oats answered your question for me better than I could have. I feel the jury is coming to a decision that will be favorable to the prosecution team. It’s just a matter of time before others step forward in support of the facts.
BigSteve, your humanitarian approach to this case is appreciated and showing potential powers of persuasion. The video needs your defense. Innocent ’til proven guilty, they say…
Keep ’em coming, Townspeople. I can tell you’re starting to see what I’m getting at, whether you agree with me or not. While you’re saying your piece, tell me I’m not alone in appreciating the musicians’ gear in early videos and feel like I’m missing something by no longer seeing them in most videos, as musicians hone their acting chops instead of lip-synching.
Here’s a rock crime for you — lipsynching into a microphone. What’s the point?
Btw Mr. Mod, how did you feel about the early EC pigeon-toed spaz routine? I’d forgotten about that phase of his Look. I know how important stance is to you.
It seems to me to be an example of an artist trying to break out of the handed-down set of typical rock Moves. And that’s one of the things Stipe is trying to do with the weird gestures. Think David Byrne in the Once in a Lifetime video. Everybody’s doing it in the Shiny Happy People video.
I have no problem with the spaz stance, as you aptly put it. It caught people’s attention, mine included when I first saw a life-sized cutout of his My Aim Is True image in a record store.
I never aspired to that stance or worshipped it, though. As much of a freak as I was, I didn’t really identify with dorky misfits. I loved Costello because of the music and the aggression. The spaz part was cool because of the energy it helped give off. However, as a teen I tended to identify with misunderstood cool-yet-sensitive-and-intelligent types, like Lennon, Townshend, and Strummer/Jones. I know, I can’t say I’ve changed much in my pathetic fantasy life.
Although I single out Stipe’s role in this video on trial, please keep in mind that the crimes are not Stipe’s. I give the man plenty of credit for lifting that limited, introverted band on his slender shoulders and becoming the Rock Icon they needed to get over the top once and for all. It’s just the video itself, which put the final nail in the coffin of the video/promo film tradition I’d grown up liking, that is on trial.
As I’ve tried to say, the video is one of the first and most successful to have worked, for better or for worse, as a video that happens to have rock music accompaniment. I get no sense of the band from it, and it only made me hate the song, when as I would later learn, the song wasn’t so bad. With the success of that video, entire musical genres have developed to support some video directors’ particular visions. It’s like albums in the ’70s that existed so that Roger Dean could design the album cover.
Speaking of Shiny Happy People – an old article that I couldn’t help but smirk over:
http://www.avrev.com/news/0401/24.rem.shtml
Upon reviewing this video again today, I have a bit of a softer view of it as I was trying to be reflective in review, although the video ruined the song for me as well – to this day I still cringe at hearing it and almost didn’t even want to watch the bloody thing because of my own ban on it.
However, I couldn’t help but giggle over the pulling off of the hair-piece and the sticking of the finger into the gaping open wound. Gross.
What’s the water that they’re running from at the beginning – is that the great flood? What does all that angel/burning bush/metal making have to do with anything? And who are the two guys who look like leftovers from the Village People – the ones with the biker leather hats who keep looking at eachother, and then looking at the camera?
Here’s a question: if REM had made a video with a subtler concept, would that song have become as big a hit as it was?
What I think really turned me off of that video *was* the religious aspect of it. I was raised in the Catholic “faith”, and not that I want to get into a huge religious debate here, but I’d much rather a rock song sell me politics than religious semantics.
But because religion is a hot-button topic, it’s going to sell and shock, right?
Chop-chop-chop, if Stipe were the Tin Man, he’d need some constant oiling!
I also can’t think of an unhappier man to be in a video than Peter Buck.
Btw: I’m *not*, I repeat, *not* saying that that’s what that REM video was intended for (to sell religion), I’m just saying – all that imagery is what turned me off about the video itself.
One not very succesful, yet bold tactic in the face of supplying video, was Dylan’s playing live in a theater with no audience, sort of live/studio so you could hear the song and see him singing, without him having to lip-sync, and to me a bonus that you get an additional version that isn’t on the record. All these “band in a house with or without a party going on” videos would sound worse, but be more entertaining if they tried some such.
This is progress, General! Good proposal to keep future generations out of hot water.
The Who made a video for Eminence Front where they actually played live as well, but I recall it as being shot on a white-backdrop video set.
no, the eminence front video was shot at maple leaf gardens…probably sound check for their “last show” from the “farewell tour” of ’82.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pLwI9P6xLm0
tasty licks by townshend there at the beginning , eh?
you know, we think of the who as having been “old” by ’82, but it’s pretty remarkable how young they actually look there.
sally c: the finger in the wound is one of the video’s elements that was taken from a caravaggio painting of the doubting thomas, the one who needed to touch the wound in order to believe that it was really the resurrected christ who stood before him.
look at: http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio34.html
notice that caravaggio’s thomas really looks like he’s about to puke, just like any of us would if we stuck our finger inside the wound of a man who had been dead for three days.
but i digress….
what i mean to say was: i was raised catholic, too. and for the life of me, i couldn’t figure out where “they” or the director stood on the subject of religion by watching that video. were they commenting on religion? were they being spiritual? it seemed heavy on visual pyrotechnics and light on clarity. too vague. THAT pissed me off (but not as much as Stipe’s spazzy dancing…which just pissed me off in a visceral way…and being pissed off viscerally is much more fully felt when you’re around 22 like i was at the time…being pissed off intellectually came later in life).
i also hated the production on that song, and the vocal style (I was annoyed by the time he finished saying “ooooh LIFE”…this was after a year of wincing everytime I heard him sing “I’m very scared for this world” on the “Green” album…so I had had enough of the persona that Stipe would be effecting for the rest of his career, even in its infancy).
slade, we’re veering into our “culture of gesture” territory, aren’t we? this video is nearly unsurpassed in grandiosity, even for today, and yet it’s extremely thin on clarity, if not content. it’s a big gesture that supercedes whatever the hell it’s trying to signify.
i just noticed that the stills for these youtubes are very much like the caravaggio paintings to which the video alludes.
here’s the other one:
http://www.abcgallery.com/C/caravaggio/caravaggio35.html
Ain’t that the truth! Good stuff, Townspeeps. I know there’s more that needs to be brought forward for the jury.
Great points Art, I laughed pretty hard at that. Good pince nez-ing;) Yes, those images are uncanny! Great cap off from Easter weekend for topics btw, Mr. Mod. not that it was intended or anything, but…(laughing) 😉 Speaking of Green; I think I remember them selling wildflower seeds at the merch table on the Monster tour, as well as t-shirts that got big when you put them in water. They probably cost a fortune.
Damn 25 years ago! I’m the old guy with the faulty memory. It’s got that whole ‘making of’ vibe. Maybe it seemed fresher then. I do remember thinking “Daltrey can play guitar?!”
Isn’t this the central problem of the non-performance video? You don’t want a literal interpretation of the song, so generally you go for mood and a series of arresting images. We were watching Bowie’s dimestore surrealism the other day in the Ashes to Ashes video. Losing My Religion’s video has lots of content; it’s just not clear what if anything it has to do with the song.
The ‘losing my religion’ expression, as has been told many times, is a joke. The video for some reason takes off on the word itself and uses religious imagery. But since the imagery is not tied to the source of its power (i.e., Christianity) it can seem sort of like the empty wow of a Cirque du Soleil show.
I caught a contact bi from watching that REM video. I’m now officially bi-sexual.
I had no idea that Tarsem Singh did The Cell either. What a strange movie that was. I wonder if that movie coupled with Losing My Religion made him go underground? What’s he done lately? Creative geniuses, right?
BigSteve wrote:
BINGO!
Bingo indeed. I was gonna say Madonna, but Cirque is even apter.
The “Shiny Happy People” Video always annoyed more than “LMR”. Seeing Stipe smile like that always creeped me out. I would much rather see the serious/pretentious Stipe than a goofy Stipe.
I do remember a lot being made of the fact that LMR was the first video where Stipe Lip Synched. Actually, I think Stipe tried to get around it by saying he was singing at full volume when they shot the video.
Also, on “Love For Tender” – EC does not look happy at all. Nor do The Attractions. He was so coked up during that time frame he was probably to numb to smile.
I’ve only seen two video shoots, but both times the singer actually sang. I think it’s common practice.
What on Earth reason would there be for one *not* to sing when filming a vuh-deo?! (“uh, Mike, lissen… can we try the take again, but this time I just want you to mouth the words… you know, *pretend* to be singing…”)
A-Dogg, did you not sing aloud during the video shoot for the legendary “working tapes?”
Pince Nez time: name a video where the vocal track is actually “live.”
I can think of one in particular, by one of those ’80s bands. It’s from the second single from an album, and thematically/philosophically linked to the album’s first video, which did NOT feature either a live vocal or lip-synching.
I’m not sure which one you’re thinking of, but Bruce Springsteen does it in “The Streets of Philadelphia.”
Also, in the clips for “I Wanna Be Loved” and “Veronica,” Elvis Costello was mic’ed, so you heard both the album vocals and his on-set singing.
Metallica’s video for “Nothing Else Matters” is of the band in the studio recording the song. And the supposed rule was that no outtakes were used in the video – in other words the guitar solo, drum fill or vocal you are seeing is exactly the same one you are hearing. If that’s true, I reckon it sorta counts.
I’m surprised to have learned how many instances there are of new vocals sang over videos. Great One, has anyone answered with the one you had in mind when you asked the question?