In the 1967 video for "Arnold Layne," Pink Floyd cavorts like the Help!-era Beatles on a beach -- except this being England, the beach looks cold, windswept and deserted. The video is in black and white, which doesn't lend itself to lightheartedness, plus it's totally disorienting to see Roger Waters 'aving a bit of a larf. He probably switched back to furious self-pity between takes.
Off-putting in a different way is Heatwave's "Boogie Nights" video, in which the entire band is decked out in chocolate brown pants with matching sleeveless vests (complete with lapels), with white trim; no shirts. They all look like chocolate vanilla creme Pop-Tarts. The band, surprisingly enough, was multiracial, which means there are several dorky white guys with early-70s mustaches playing the keyboards in those hideous suits. If I formed a band with, say, Bookforum editor Eric Banks and Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield, and we made a video wearing our everyday shlubby white-guy clothes, people would say, "At least they look funkier than Heatwave."
1 comment:
Yeah, but I don't think we could get away so innocently with the line "It's all right, we are here to par-tee."--EB
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