music video: November 2008 Archives

"Whip It" is built on a motorik* beat, similar to tracks by Neu!. The lead instrument is a Minimoog synthesizer. The bass is performed with a custom synthesizer made by Moog Music for Devo, known as the Devobox, and is built from two Minimoogs. The whip sound was made with an EML ElectroComp 500 synthesizer. On an episode of the VH1 show TrueSpin, Gerald V. Casale revealed that the lead guitar riff from "Whip It" is based on the riff from "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison with the beat moved to the back.

Devo funded the music video for "Whip It" with $15,000 USD of their own money. The main visual of the video, Mark Mothersbaugh whipping the clothes off a woman (Annerose Bücklers), was inspired by an article in a 1962 issue of "Dude" magazine. In an interview for Song Facts, Casale explains "There was a feature article on a guy who had been an actor and fell on hard times, he wasn't getting parts anymore. He moved with his wife to Arizona, opened a dude ranch and charged people money to come hang out at the ranch. Every day at noon in the corral, for entertainment, he'd whip his wife's clothes off with a 12-foot bullwhip. She sewed the costumes and put them together with Velcro. The story was in the magazine about how good he was and how he never hurt her. We had such a big laugh about it, we said, 'OK, that's the basis for the video. We'll have these cowboys drinking beer and cheering Mark on as he's in the barnyard whipping this pioneer woman's clothes off while the band plays in the corral.'"

In the video, Devo wears black, sleeveless turtlenecks, and their famous Energy Dome headgear. When the video begins, all the members, except for Mark Mothersbaugh, wear the turtlenecks pulled over their faces. During the performance, each member lowers the turtleneck. Robert Casale (Bob 2) plays a red Rheem Key Bass, and Alan Myers plays a set of Synare electronic drum pads.

Unsurprisingly, the S&M overtones of the video caused controversy. Devo was forced to abandon a television appearance after the host deemed the video offensive to women. Despite this, "Whip It" received heavy rotation on MTV.

*Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by some so-called "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk (promoting the official CD release of Neu!'s back-catalogue, Klaus Dinger stated he called it the "Apache beat"). The word "Motorik" means "motor skill" in German.

The name perhaps derives from the repetitive yet forward-flowing feel of the rhythm, which has been compared to the experience of motorway driving -- indeed, the motorik beat is utilized in one section of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", a song designed to celebrate exactly this experience. While The Velvet Underground's influence on Krautrock is often mentioned, Mo Tucker's drumming has specifically been characterized as "proto-motorik."

The motorik beat is in 4/4 time and of moderate pace. The pattern is repeated each bar throughout the song. A splash or crash cymbal is often hit at the beginning bar of a verse or chorus.

-- Wikipedia

Black Box Recorder are an English pop/indie group. They debuted in 1998 with England Made Me, a collection of lyrically sophisticated pop tunes. They followed this up with The Facts of Life, which gave them their first hit with the single of the same name in April 2000. Their third album, Passionoia, was released in 2003. There is also a compilation album, The Worst of Black Box Recorder, a collection of B-sides, cover versions and remixes.

Musically, the group is influenced by trip hop, ambient music, and French electronic groups such as Air. However the lyrics to these lush and romantic melodies are frequently bleak, ironic or sarcastic: obvious influences are Ray Davies, Morrissey, and Pulp. The video for single "The Art of Driving" depicted the band as crash test dummies, and one photo shoot from around that time portrayed them as survivors of a destructive car crash.

Black Box Recorder are Sarah Nixey, Luke Haines (of The Auteurs), and John Moore (formerly of The Jesus and Mary Chain, John Moore & the Expressway Rising, Revolution #9 & a solo artist). John Moore and Sarah Nixey married in 2001, and have one child. They divorced in 2006.

-- Wikipedia

My Bloody Valentine are an alternative rock band formed in Dublin, Ireland in 1984 and predominantly based in London. The founding members were guitarist/singer Kevin Shields and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig. The band's lineup during their heyday also included singer-guitarist Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe.

My Bloody Valentine's use of distortion, pitch bending, and digital reverb placed them as part of the shoegazing genre among other bands like Ride and Lush. Their 1991 album Loveless took two years to make due to funding problems, but once released it was critically acclaimed. Following Loveless, My Bloody Valentine became inactive, with Shields discarding several albums' worth of follow-up material. In 2007, Shields announced that the band had reunited and was recording new material.

-- Wikipedia

"Blue Flower" is a cover of the 1990 Mazzy Star song.

Pale Saints was formed in 1987 by Ian Masters (bass/vocals), Graeme Naysmith (guitar), and Chris Cooper (drums) in Leeds, England. The group began as a jangly indie pop band, influenced by Primal Scream's early sound. By the time they recorded their first EP, Barging Into the Presence of God released in 1989, the band went into a direction that displayed a mix of Ian Masters' choirboy-like vocals along with dark atmospheric and noisy pop tunes... In late 1990, Meriel Barham, the original vocalist from Lush, joined the band as second guitarist and vocalist.

-- Wikipedia

Cibo Matto (meaning crazy food in Italian) was a New York City-based band formed by Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori in 1994. The lyrics in their songs are primarily concerned with food, possibly used as a metaphor. Their sound has been described as a combination of "Jazz, Hip-Hop, Brazilian music, African Drumming, and Disco samples"

-- Wikipedia

Wire are an English rock band formed in London in October 1976, (and intermittently active to the present) by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed (né Grey) (drums). They were originally associated with the punk rock scene, appearing on the Live at the Roxy WC2 album - a key early document of the scene, and were later central to the development of post-punk. Wire are arguably a definitive art punk or post-punk ensemble, mostly due to their richly detailed and atmospheric sound, often obscure lyrical themes and, to a lesser extent, their Situationist political stance.

...[1990] The band changed their name to "Wir" after drummer Robert Gotobed's departure, who quit the band because the musical direction increasingly relied on drum machines and loops.

-- Wikipedia

Peter John Murphy (born 11 July 1957, near Northampton, England, raised in Wellingborough, England), is the vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus who later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as Deep and Love Hysteria. Thin, with prominent cheekbones, a rich voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, Murphy is often called the "Godfather of Goth."

-- Wikipedia

Polyrock was an American post-punk/new wave band formed in New York City in 1978 and active until the mid-1980s. Strongly influenced by minimalism, the group was produced by the composer Philip Glass and Kurt Munkacsi. The band, led by singer/guitarist Billy Robertson (formerly of the group Model Citizen), had a keyboard-heavy, pattern-based sound strongly reminiscent of Glass's work; in fact, Glass performed on their first two albums.

Polyrock's lineup also included vocalist Catherine Oblasney, guitarist Tommy Robertson, drummer Joseph Yannece, and keyboard player Lenny Aaron. The group signed with RCA by 1980, and delivered their debut album that same year. Another album followed in 1981 (Changing Hearts), but Polyrock disbanded in 1982.

The band are sometimes said to have released another album in 1981 (Electro-Romantic), but, apparently, no such album exists.

They were often compared by critics to Talking Heads, another band of the same era, though they never approached that band's fame.

-- Wikipedia

I'm slowly building a mashup tool using the recently launched MTV music video api and I asked my old friend Tommy Dorsett to send me a list of music videos he liked that came out during the 1980s and '90s. He sent me a wonderful, informed list and I'm going to post them individually (with some of my own choices, too) to allow for commenting on each clip. Here's one that I am a huge fan of also.