Category: 1987

Sometimes bands release a song that is just not like the others. And when that one happens to be the one that becomes hugely popular and people expect all their work to sound like that they might be in for a surprise. Think of Extreme’s More Than Words for example, or Frank Zappa’s Bobby Brown.

In the case of Beastie Boys and (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party) it was not so much the music that was different. It was already the fourth single of their first album Licensed To Ill and they had well transitioned from the original hardcore punk the band was playing in the early 80ies into Hip Hop with that disc. But the irony of the song, which was supposed to be a parody on drunken frat boys only interested in making party, when the band actually had always cared deeply about political issues, was simply lost on most fans. And so it took a while for both the party-goers to realise the joke was on them (my money is on most of them still not being there) and die-hard rap-purists who were horrified by the lyrics (to the point where they were accused of being outright racist) to see the group for what they really were: one of the most important hip-hop acts of all time. Fortunately their career would go on for a good thirty years – plenty of time to set things straight.

MTV was certain that this was going to go down well with their young male clientèle, so they held a spot in the heavy rotation open for the video while it was being made. The budget of a whopping $20k unfortunately did not allow them to buy fresh whipped cream, so they used expired cans appropriated from supermarket trash bins, and as a result the set smelled so badly of rotten eggs that some of the actors had a hard time trying not to vomit.

If you paid close attention to this week’s selection of artists you might have noticed that they all shared a common detail: a leading letter “r”. And so we’ll round out the week with rrrrrolling royalty:

You might only know the song from the practice of “Rickrolling” – likely the first worldwide Internet prank – where an unsuspecting victim is baited into clicking onto a link behind which something completely different is suspected, only to be doted on by a merry Rick Astley, dancing happily around the London Borough of Harrow. However, by the time the song thus gained a second life it had already been Ashley’s signature song and a huge success for two decades.

The singer initially was not too sure what to think of himself becoming a meme just when he was coming back to perform after a ten-year hiatus, but he soon embraced the jolly prank and has not only made his peace with it, but played into the phenomenon himself on a couple of occasions.

We’re, however, not presenting this as a prank, but as what it really is: A video of the 80ies you ought to know, even had it not become a meme. And would encourage you to watch it through to the end for once in your life. It’s a flashback into a care-free time not likely to occur again anytime soon, and just watching the happy faces of the protagonists does seem like a good reason to prank someone into observing it.

The common detail of this weeks selection of videos really was of course that they all had some sort of direction in the title. Or was it?