PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Bruce Springsteen Vs Billy Squier

Y’all know this, right?



It is, of course, Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark, the breakthrough hit on The Boss’ mega successful 1984 album Born In The USA. Much if the reason for the song’s success was that it was Springsteen’s first proper video, which propelled this guy in his mid-30s into 1980s MTV cool and also kickstarted the career of future Friends star Courtney Cox (and disproves the Friends theory that Monica was fat in the 80s).

Although not one of his best songs and completely out of character for him (in fact, the lyrics of the song are about Springsteen being unable to write the song he was in the middle of writing) - especially considering it directly followed the dark, brooding Nebraska album - it’s hard to deny that it helped The Boss become one of the musical icons of the era.

But it could have gone another way.

This is one of the takes of the original concept of the video. And, though the released video has it’s fair share of 80s cheese, you ain’t seen nothing’ yet…



White men can’t dance.

Although Springsteen’s dancing at the end of the video that became an instant MTV hit may have been hilarious enough to inspire the infamous Carlton Banks dance from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (seriously, look it up!), at least he didn’t look like he was having some kind of mental breakdown in it. He looks so uncomfortable, so unnatural. Just because Michael Jackson’s videos were popular with dance sequences in them at the time, doesn’t mean yours will be. At least Clarence Clemons is cool at the end.

In the unlikely event that there is such a thing as a parallel universe, this embarrassing video was likely released, and did damage to Springsteen‘s career and reputation (which, at that point, was pretty flawless).

And if that is the case, it’s pretty safe to say this one WASN’T released.

Billy Squier was making quite a bit of noise in the mid-80s. Each album was bigger than the last. Then this came along…1984’s Rock Me Tonite…



The blatant homoeroticism didn’t go down well with the rock crowd. Unfortunately for the human race, that kind of thing mattered in those days (although nobody seems to mind the extortionate campness of Kiss’ Paul Stanley).

The lying (presumably) naked in pink satin sheets, the pink vest, the ripping his shirt off, the dancing around the room, the writhing around the floor, the apparent orgasm…? What the fuck? And why is it that everybody in the 80s felt the need to DANCE? And I don’t mean just dance, I mean full-on Flashdance. What on Earth is he doing? Although the song was a hit, as the subsequent tour went on and the video was seen more and more, attendance each night slipped.

The end of the video, which shows Squier simply playing with his band on a soundstage, is fine. A bit of 80s cheese, but nothing that anybody would have noticed. Why not just recut the video and make it all THAT? Surely, they watched this back and though “maybe not”.

Had the video not been released…who knows? Maybe Squier would be more fondly remembered, and not just as the guy who made all of middle America say;

Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke and All That Bullshit

So…the whole Miley Cyrus thing, eh? Wasn’t it shocking? I have never been so shocked in all my life. Not the twerking, that wasn’t in the least bit shocking, I mean that we have reached such a crushing nadir in pop music that a performance as awful as this was allowed on our screens in the first place. Jeez…no-one could sing, no-one could dance, Robin Thicke was dressed like Beetlejuice.



I choose to write about shit music on this blog, mainly as a means to justifying my hatred of a lot of the music I hate (apparently I can come across as a bit of an ogre in that regard). So, I felt it was my duty to speak up on this.

First thing to mention, really, is that MTV is so irrelevant now that this has probably been the best thing for it. Like when Kanye West invaded Taylor Swift’s speech a few years ago…



I mean, admittedly, Kanye was right. Taylor Swift does not deserve any awards. Unless the award is prefixed with the word “Worst…”. I dunno, is there a Razzies for music? There should be if there isn’t. Nevertheless, the “controversy” kept the VMA’s relevant for another year or two, and now the “controversy” surrounding this has kept the VMA’s relevant for another year. It’s gone so far down the ladder that Daft Punk’s Get Lucky can be nominated for a Video Music Award, despite the fact that it doesn’t have a video.

There has been a few reasons for the outrage. One is the sheer filthiness of the performance. First of all, clearly the people who have been complaining have never seen a pop video before. Secondly, the performance may have been over the top, but it wasn’t sexy. It was awkward and off-putting. If anything, it looked sad and desperate. In fact, it reminded me of two Britney Spears performances from the same awards show, the first one with the Madonna make out session (trying too hard to shock)



And, secondly, that weird one where she looked like she wasn’t even there and the whole audience were basically looking at her saying “what the ACTUAL fuck?”.



In fact, the song Miley was promoting, We Can’t Stop, comes across as pretty sad and desperate. It’s lyrics suggest it was written by one of those annoying people who use the word “party” as a verb, a “party animal” if you will. But the song doesn’t make you want to throw your hands in the air like you just don’t care. It sounds sad. It sounds like an addiction, not a party. Even the title of We Can’t Stop suggests addiction.



The second argument is that by twerking, Miley was blatantly stealing from black urban performance. Well, fuck me in a month of Sundays! That would be a lot more upsetting if it hadn’t been going on since the dawn of music. All popular music is rooted in the blues. The blues is black music. Even before the rock & roll era, the crooners of the 30s and 40s had their music based on jazz, which is also black music. I don’t think there’s any such thing as white music. Is it right? I dunno…but is it wrong? If it is, we’re not allowed to listen to the Rolling Stones anymore.



I also want to deal with Robin Thicke. Firstly, he did not seem thrilled that Hannah Montana was grinding on him. Secondly, if Aldi sold their own range of Justin Timberlakes, they would be Robin Thicke. Dude sucks. Seriously sucks. You can’t even say “oh, but he’s so sexy”, because he isn’t. He’s awkward and off-putting. He looks like the dad from Growing Pains - who, coincidentally, is his dad in real life - and the dad from Growing Pains was not sexy. Thicke was wearing a really tight Beetlejuice looking suit at the VMA’s…just what was needed to show off the weird fucking shape of his body. Thirdly, the lyrics of Blurred Lines are not sexy, they’re rapey.

Here’s a sample of some of the lyrics from Blurred Lines

And that’s why I’m gonna take a good girl
I know you want it
I know you want it
I know you want it

Here’s a sample of some of the lyrics from Stone Temple Pilots’ Sex Type Thing, which was explicitly written from the point of view of a rapist

I know you want what’s on my mind
I know you want what’s on my mind
I know it eats you up inside
I know, you know, you know, you know

Yup. Basically the best, least rapey thing about Blurred Lined is the groove, which was sampled from Marvin Gaye’s Got To Give It Up. So just fucking listen to Marvin Gaye instead, OK?



Anyhoo…the performance did it’s job, because now everyone is banging on about it like it matters and has given Cyrus press she probably doesn‘t deserve. Every couple of years an artist that was formerly Disney owned acts out like this. Britney Spears did it, Christina Aguilera did it. Basically, when Disney owns a child star, they OWN them. They’re told what to wear, what to say, what to sing and HOW to sing it. So when they break free, they go a bit crazy. Then we forget about them. Would be great if we could just skip straight to that bit.

Either way, Billy Ray has to be upset about how his daughter is portraying herself. It's probably breaking his Achy Breaky Heart (thank you, I'm here all week, try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitresses!)