There really isn't much I can say about this clip that will come close to the experience of watching it.
This Aussie band never really made it outside of Australia - it's debatable how much they "made it" in Australia, to be honest. However, they grasped the essentials of a classic indie band 80s music clip, and this, once seen, cannot be forgotten. This is permanently attached in my mind to the early years of a staple of Australian music, the midnight to dawn ABC music show that started the same year this song was released, and is still going, Rage. There really isn't much I can say about this clip that will come close to the experience of watching it. The Painters and Dockers were a Melbourne-based band, formed in 1982. Their wikipedia page has a good bio of their achievements, but curiously (as of this post) has very little to say about this clip. According to the expert information that is commentary on the clip, the record company suggested the clip be filmed on a yacht with scantily clad models; this was the band's response to such asinine attitudes, and the older chap patting the pigs is the real-life pig farmer. For those who are somewhat bewildered by the reference to geography in the first verse, "map of Tasmania" is a euphemism for the female pudenda (especially if unshaved) due to its similarity to the shape of the island state. (Cf Amanda Palmer's classic song, "Map of Tasmania").
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The Decade of the Dodgy Music Video
The music video clip was not born in the 1980s, but that was certainly the decade it took off as an essential part of music marketing, to the point where the teens of the 80s were referred to as the MTV Generation (aka Gen X). When record companies discovered the selling power of MTV and music clip TV shows, they started throwing obscene amounts of money at the production, while Art and Film School graduates across the world discovered that, at last, they were qualified to do something that could make money. The results were often over the top, bizarre, totally disconnected from the song lyrics, filled with fashion extremes and bands doing truly weird things. New special effects provided by video tech abounded, extremes of colour contrast, dodgy animation, green screen atrocities - and when you throw in a healthy does of uncontrolled egotism, it all added up to some truly weird (Music) Video Nasties. ArchivesCategories |