This was a fun read, Eric! I had to rewatch the video as it's been dog years! I also looked at the long version of the Bad video, and shocked to see it was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Richard Price! Well, duh. Get the best, MJ!
I had the original Thriller album, yes on 33rpm. It was my favorite album and music to dance to.
This was a great review and I laughed a lot. Think About it, tho. Don't we have to suspend belief for these videos? And don't we love doing it? It's my favorite state of being at this point.
You have fun wars. And then you can wrlte about it and we can laugh at it. I knew the dancers immediately, not cause of how they looked, but because of how they moved.
Now I’m imagining soft-voice Michael mediating for gang members between takes and makes me wonder if, in fact, “Beat It” was the beginning of the end for crime-ridden New York of the 70s and 80s.
I’m 20 again and all that’s on MTV is, y’know, MUSIC! You could have a whole Substack just on music videos from the glory days. Even artists I didn’t like otherwise made videos I couldn’t walk away from.
This was a fun read, Eric! I had to rewatch the video as it's been dog years! I also looked at the long version of the Bad video, and shocked to see it was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Richard Price! Well, duh. Get the best, MJ!
I had the original Thriller album, yes on 33rpm. It was my favorite album and music to dance to.
This was a great review and I laughed a lot. Think About it, tho. Don't we have to suspend belief for these videos? And don't we love doing it? It's my favorite state of being at this point.
Suspending my disbelief is my favorite but I also like to imagine stuff is actually real and laugh about it. That's the dichotomy at war within me. 😆
You have fun wars. And then you can wrlte about it and we can laugh at it. I knew the dancers immediately, not cause of how they looked, but because of how they moved.
Now I’m imagining soft-voice Michael mediating for gang members between takes and makes me wonder if, in fact, “Beat It” was the beginning of the end for crime-ridden New York of the 70s and 80s.
I’m 20 again and all that’s on MTV is, y’know, MUSIC! You could have a whole Substack just on music videos from the glory days. Even artists I didn’t like otherwise made videos I couldn’t walk away from.
Very fun!
In terms of your footnotes about Superman/Lois, I'm only slightly embarrassed to say that Larry Niven already wrote that essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel,_Woman_of_Kleenex
(Some additional description and excerpts here: http://www.nerdgoblin.com/4971-2/ )
...and you didn't even mention Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo....
It’s more than mentioned. I said it made tvs explode!
I can’t believe I didn’t know this before, but he definitely included it in the piece because 🤦♀️dang it’s obvious now that I know!
Real ones know! 🤘🏻
I realized Bad would pair pretty well with this piece! They're an unlikely street gang duology. 😆