Friday Night Videos

I tend to forget how many songs about the Vietnam War were popular during the 1980s. That makes sense, as it took the passage of a decade before the U.S. had enough distance to begin to come to grips with the collective trauma. I have not seen similar with Iraq/Afghanistan, but that may be due to the fact that those conflicts were drawn out over a generation and/or not enough time has passed since their conclusion. Either way, it's pretty grim. On a less bleak note, I am always delightfully surprised at how many absolutely great songs were on Sports, the third album from Huey Lewis & the News and their absolute monster breakthrough. It's so chok-ful of hits that I'd completely forgotten about "Walking on a Thin Line" until just a few mintues ago. Crazy, right?

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Geoff Castelucci.

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Friday Night Videos

I recently read an article about Huey Lewis' struggle with the poorly-understood Meniere's Disease, and it got me thinking about how Huey Lewis & the News so dominated the airwaves in the mid- to late-80s. They were so popular, they could do the strangest concept videos and nobody blinked an eye. Case in point: "Doing It All For My Baby" off the album Fore! I didn't like this one as much as Sports, although it was a massive hit. Still, there are a handful of songs on this album I like, and "All For My Baby" is one of them.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Kinks.

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Friday Night Videos

Here's Huey Lewis and the News with "Heart and Soul," one of their hits off the album Sports. Interesting thing about this song, a band I really liked back in the day, Exile, recorded it several years before Huey Lewis did (and also several years before Exile shifted to country). It was very much not a hit for Exile. If you've ever wondered how important production, arrangement and instrumentation is to the success of any particular song, this is exhibit A.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Sheena Easton.

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Friday Night Videos

Huey Lewis and the News were major players in the soundtrack of my high school years. I confess I always liked their earlier, raw work more than the slick, studio-polished tracks from the album Fore! on. Their modern take of 50s rock and do-wop struck a chord with me, and their first hit, Do You Believe in Love, is a favorite. The video, on the other hand, is a real melon scratcher. It looks as if nobody from the band to the director to the film editors had any clue about how to put together a music video. So they mashed a few ideas together, wedged in some performance clips and generally mugged for the camera. Does anyone else find it disconcerting that the woman in bed remains utterly oblivious to the band throughout the piece, despite their singing and stalking? I think I've figured out the meta-narrative, though. She's a groupie, and Huey and the boys all died at some point between the show where she hooked up with them and the video. That's right, they're ghosts, following her around, even though they don't know they're dead. It's like The Sixth Sense, only without Bruce Willis and that kid who sees dead people. Kinda sad to realize M. Night Shyamalan biggest hit was ripped off from an 80s music video, but looking at his recent films, it kinda starts to make sense.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... Jon Astley.

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