In retrospect, one could make a case for the clip for Canadian quintet Honeymoon Suite’s “Feel It Again” as an example of when music videos attack. Author Greg Prato even dedicated a chapter to the subject in his oral history of MTV, and it’s must-read material, as is (cough, shameless plug, cough) our interview with Prato. At the time, though, “Feel It Again” was cutting edge filmmaking, dudes, and a nominee for three MTV Video Music Awards.
Unfortunately, it was shot at the one moment in the lives of all five members when their hair – and clothes – looked the most ridiculous. Even worse than this picture, if you can believe that.
But get past that for a second and just watch. Singer Johnny Dee’s running in place in the chorus. All right, that’s silly, but look at everything that’s going on around him. Now he has a hat. Now he’s walking a dog. And here comes lead guitarist Derry Grehan to sing that big “Feel it agaiiiiiiin!” bit in the chorus. Needless to say, there’s a lot of shit going on here, as if someone had been studying Zbigniew Rybczyński’s videos (look him up, you won’t regret it) very, very closely. That is never a bad thing, and the chorus to this song still boasts a hook the size of an anchor. Feeel it agaiiiiiin! Don’t mind if we do. And look who was rocking the skinny jeans a good two and a half decades before they became trendy?
The real reason we’re posting this is because our high school reunion is coming up, so be warned: there will be a few more flashbacks in the coming weeks. Rock on.
We’ll be the first to admit that the Friday Video column is, well, really, really white. We attempt to rectify this oversight this week by showcasing one of hip hop’s finest bands at the height of their powers: Public Enemy. Yes, Flavor Flav has become a reality TV parody of his former self – which is kind of impressive, when you consider that he was pretty much a parody of himself in the first place – but Chuck D is no fool; he knows that a spoonful of sugar will help the medicine go down, and Flav was the perfect foil for Chuck’s take-no-prisoners manifestos. In the case of “Night of the Living Baseheads,” he addresses the crack problem, which had become a full-blown epidemic by the late ’80s. And for you Beastie Boys fans out there who aren’t familiar with this track, the new Beasties’ song “Too Many Rappers” makes a nice tribute to this song, where they borrow the “sellin’, smellin’, sniffin,’ riffin'” cadence. Nice to know we’re not the only ones who remember this stuff fondly. 
