Music videos should always be good, the technology and the cash was always there to create something special, and often to cover up terrible songs.
But yet, so many people fail on this front.
Westlife, for example, only make black and white videos of them standing signing together.
And a lot fall into the trap of trying to be too clever with videos, making them confusing and pointless.
I’ve conducted a thorough search, I’ve DEFINITELY watched every single music video ever made from start to finish to come up with the ultimate top ten.
There’s quite a range of music and video styles here, I’ve gone for sheer rubbish, stupid concepts and epic videos with very silly plots.
10.
Peter Andre
My old school chums will remember when Pete came to perform in the school hall, prompting a near riot by over-excited teenage girls.
With hair like worms, a massive schnoz and that famous six-pack, the super-greasy Aussie was pin up material back in the 1990s.
He also came up with rubbish like this, what a shocking haircut, strutting along the beach in the Caribbean blissfully unaware of how cheesy he looks.
Why’s he in the sea wearing jeans?
9.
The Bee Gees
Just for the hair, the clothes, the fact they seem to be wandering around in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and the fact they keep using the same shot of them popping out from behind the blown-out windows of a house.
Great song, not such a great vid.
8.
Lionel Ritchie
This is one of those “story” videos, but the concept is so ridiculous it had to feature.
Lionel is a lecturer at a college who falls in love with one of students (that’s him sacked).
It turns out she’s blind.
So the line “is it me you’re looking for?” takes a new meaning, clearly it’s not himshe’s looking for because because she’s blind.
The two highlights are him singing down the phone and the ridiculous bit at the end where she’s perfectly sculpted his mighty afro in clay, despite being blind and not knowing what he looks like.
Lionel is one of the most successful ever, I hope he looks back on this and feels just a tad embarrassed.
7.
The Weather Girls
It’s a dance floor classic, but certainly not a video classic.
Done on a budget of about 37p, it shows men and women flying around with umbrellas.
It’s stupid and looks terrible.
The mighty Weather Girls didn’t make any other records.
6.
Guns N Roses
This is a classic epic rock video, nine minutes of self-indulgent nonsense.
It’s a shame because it’s a brilliant song, but it’s a hugely expensive, ultimately rubbish video.
So we’re at a concert, then we’re in a bar, then we’re at a wedding, then the wedding stops so the guitarist can go outside the church in a desert to do a solo (ignoring the fact there‘s nowhere to plug his guitar in), then we’re back at the concert, everyone’s changed their clothes, then we’re back at the wedding and everyone’s dancing, oh, we’re back at the concert, oh, no wait, we’re at the wedding, and now it’s raining and someone’s spilt a bottle of red wine, then we’re back at a funeral, who’s died? God only knows.
Then Axl wakes up and, lo and behold, it’s all a dream.
5.
Michael Jackson and Sir Paul McCartney
Say Say Say
These two made a terrible record called “The Girl is Mine”, and while this is a better song, this barmy wild west video is very irritating.
Watch it and notice just how much more talented Jacko is in every way compared to the miserly scouser.
4.
Meatloaf
So, the contradictory title of the song clearly states you won’t do anything for love, will you loaf?
Meatloaf is notorious for writing ridiculous songs (Life is a Lemon and I want my money back, anyone?) but this near eight minute saga is ridiculous on a whole new level.
He plays the beast out of beauty and the beast, looking on as he lusts after a gorgeous girl, who of course lives in a castle in the middle of nowhere and has baths wearing clothes.
Then the cops turn up for no real reason, she sings a bit and he becomes a normal person and gets the girl. Hurrah.
3.
Backstreet Boys
I’ll Never Break Your Heart.
This is summed up simply by Christmas jumpers, ski-wear, curtains.
Why everyone laughs at boy bands.
They all look like school boys.
2.
New Order
True Faith
There’s a prize for anyone who can explain to me what on earth is happening in this bizarre, nonsensical video by the same band who made the brilliant World in Motion 1990 World Cup song.
It was choreographed by Frenchman Philippe Decouflé, who convinced the band having people leaping backwards in ludicrous outfits was a good way to represent the song.
It wasn’t, it made everyone think “what the hell is this?”
Utterly pretentious, meaningless and downright stupid.
Of course, I could be being thick and missed the point of the greatest piece video-making in the history of music.
How people in weird puffy outfits represent a song which seems to be about a bloke who’s a bit down about his relationship ending is beyond me.
1.
David Hasslehoff
Hooked on a Feeling
Thanks to the internet, and the weird trend of people deciding things that were rubbish in their youth are suddenly now cool, The Hoff is has made a most unwelcome return to the public eye.
The former Knightrider and Baywatch star has sold stacks of records in Germany, which tells you all you need to know.
What I don’t understand is that The Hoff is clearly fabulously rich, so why does this terrible video for an even worse song look so terrible?
It’s just unbelievably awful. I can’t get to the end of it.
Top Ten Cheats
In Comment, Multifarious, News, Top Tens on January 22, 2011 at 4:16 pmI thought I’d bring this back to the top of the site.
Here we go again, moments that drive us all absolutely barmy, we see it, everyone in the stadium sees it, the world sees it but the idiot in the black uniform who matters the most misses it.
This is the top ten cheats
10. Rivaldo dive
This pathetic incident happened in the World Cup in 2002 in the game between Turkey and Brazil.
The Turkish player boots the ball to Rivaldo, who is waiting to take a corner.
It strikes Rivaldo gently in the leg, yet he goes down clutching his face as if he’s been on the end of a particularly good right hook.
Stupid ref then sends off Turkish player, much to the annoyance of the rest of the team, the management and the watching world.
Rivaldo was subsequently banned, on the grounds of being a twat you’d guess.
9. Neil Back
England rugby legend Back is playing for Leicester Tigers in the European Cup final.
His team were leading, but opponents Munster got a scrum not very far out, dead centre in the last minute.
Irish scrum half goes to put the ball in, as he does, the originally nicknamed “Backy” taps it with his hand back into his own side of the scrum.
For those of you not au fait with rugby, this is akin to punching the ball into the goal in football, a no no.
The ref, however, is standing on the other side, keeping an eye on one of the props, and so misses it.
8. Trevor Chappell
The least well-known of the famous Australian cricketing dynasty is probably the most notorious.
This is a clip from a one-day game against New Zealand in the 1970s.
After you’ve finished laughing at their kits, you’ll need to know New Zealand needed six of the last ball to win.
As a result, Chappell rolls it gently underarm along the ground, thus making it impossible.
The rules were changed after this.
I particularly like the way the batsman reacts.
Despite being a pro sportsman, he reacts in the way anyone else would, by giving him a look which says “you utter c**t’.
7. Tonya Harding
Nancy Kerrigan (Above)
Tonya Harding
Ice skating is not well-known for scandal, but this is pretty unbelievable.
American Harding was embroiled in scandal after her husband hired a man to attack and injure herbiggest rival, Nancy Kerrigan.
The injury put Kerrigan out of the US figure skating championships in 1994, which Harding went on to win.
She was found guilty of helping to cover up the incident, but has always denied masterminding it.
It’s still a blatant act of cheating though, whoever is responsible, and there’s no doubt she benefited.
6.
Thierry Henry
Old Thierry is a fabulous player, but may well be remembered for a piece of handling Jonny Wilkinson would be proud of.
Running down the wing, the ball bounces up and he scoops it along with his hand before crossing it to William Gallas who whacks it in, thus winning France the game and sending poor old Republic of Ireland out of the World Cup.
Cue rage in Ireland, where there were demands for a replay.
They also conveniently forgot they won one of their earlier games thanks to an extreme dodgy penalty, but there was outcry nonetheless.
This is one of those things where you wonder how no-one saw it as it is so obvious, and anyway, who wants to see a load of Championship cloggers playing in the World Cup at the expense of messrs Henry, Anelka and Ribery.
5. Spain’s Paralympic basketball team
The sheer brass and morally wrong-ness of this is brilliant.
In the Paralympics of 2000, the Spanish team was stripped of the gold medal it had won in the intellectual disability competition after it was revealed 10 of the 12 players had nothing wrong with them.
The rules stated that to be allowed to play, players had to have an IQ of less than 70 (they could’ve asked the majority of Premiership footballers).
Spain didn’t bother to do the tests and were rightly stripped of the medals.
4. F1 Crash
I hate Formula 1 with a passion, so when I read about this I smiled.
The second most interesting thing that’s ever happened in the sport, after the tragic death of Ayrton Senna, was when Flavio Briatore, the mega-rich owner of the Renault team, instructed their driver Nelson Piquet junior to deliberately crash to help their lead driver, Fernando Alonso, win the Grand Prix in Singapore last year.
I know what I’d say if someone told me to crash while driving at 200mph but here’s the clip
3.Ronald Koeman
This is still the single moment that has enraged me most in any sporting ocassion.
This is the famous incident from the must win World Cup Qualifier in 1994.
First, Koeman hauls down David Platt when clean through on goal inside the penalty area.
Red card and a penno you must think?
No no, Koeman then convinces the ref not only was the foul outside the box, it was a mere yellow card.
As the script then suggests, the blond-haired get went and scored at the other end, meaning England didn’t qualify.
Happily, it did lead to the sacking of Graham Taylor.
A few points to make, if you look, he grabs Platt’s shirt just outside the area, however, he’s still got hold of it when he goes down very much inside the area.
He is also clearly the last man who has prevented a clear goalscoring opportunity, therefore a red card.
But the good old ref sums up why everyone hates refs by getting two massive decisions completely wrong, allowing good old Ron to stay on and score admittedly a very good free kick.
That said, have a look at who’s playing for England, Carlton Palmer, Tony Dorigo, no wonder we didn’t qualify.
Also check out the Dutch manager’s combover.
For some reason I can only find highlights in Dutch, which somehow makes it even more annoying.
And yes, David Seaman should’ve saved both, especially Bergkamp’s, which was rolling gently across the ground.
2. Ben Johnson
Somehow athletics officials failed to notice Ben Johnson’s yellow eyes and bodybuilder’s physique at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
His time of 9.79 seconds smashed the then world record and is only slightly slower than Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds record 21 years on.
Of course, he was found to have pumped himself full of steroids.
You’ll notice a young Linford Christie finishing in third, which was pushed to second when Johnson was found to have more drugs inside him than an NHS Foundation Trust.
1. Diego Maradonna
Yes, who else could it be? Another dirty cheating foreigner who cheated our heroic footballers out of World Cup glory.
We all know about the “Hand of God”, but I have a few questions, why did no-one twig that it was very unlikely that Maradonna, about 5ft 3in, would be able to outjump a 6ft plus goalkeeper stretching as high as he could for the ball?
We also have to applaud the little twat for his first goal, probably the best ever, but why didn’t any of England’s lumbering midfield do what you or I would have done and booted him up in the air?
Mind you, they probably couldn’t even get close enough to do that.
As you marvel at the nimble feet of the Argentinian genius, take stock of how incredibly slow England midfielder Peter Reid is.
Here’s his amazing goal (with some really terrible commentary), which actually made it 2-0 after the handball debacle.
and here’s his ridiculous cheating.