Wild Card- 80's Rock Videos
For this wild card blog post, I felt I needed to talk a little more about genres and specifically the genre of 80’s rock videos. We touched base a little on the characteristics in class, but I wanted to discuss it more. There are usually lots of women, exaggerated facial expressions, big hair, guitar solos, outlandish outfits, leather and a lot of them are at rock concerts. Now, I love the 80’s. I love the movies and especially the music. I grew up listening to classic rock so 80’s rock was definitely in that mix. The only thing my dad would play on the radio was classic rock so it’s embedded into my childhood. I’m going to analyze some of the videos to demonstrate the characteristics. These videos will be “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses, “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi and “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” by Aerosmith.
In “Welcome to the Jungle,” all of the band members have very large hair. You can tell this is a fad of the 80’s because when Axel Rose gets off a bus at the beginning of the video his hair is straight and lacks volume, but when he joins his bandmates onstage it is teased up. This could represent how he was before joining Guns N’ Roses and then how he is after being in the band. As the video progresses, the band is playing for an audience at a show, which is another characteristic of 80’s rock videos. The band’s outfits aren’t as outlandish as others, but there is still lots of leather. Axel Rose also has very expressive features and dance moves which is yet another characteristic. And of course we have to have a guitar solo from Slash or else it wouldn’t be a Guns N’ Roses 80’s Rock video.
In “You Give Love a Bad Name,” there is a large mix of 80’s rock video characteristics. There are extremely outlandish outfits, exaggerated expressions, a concert setting, guitar solos, and of course big hair. There are even pyrotechnics in this video too. Jon Bon Jovi is engaging with his bandmates and the audience and he is very expressive. He is also wearing tight red and black leather pants with red boots. I’m not sure how many people would wear that today, but I guess back then it was the thing. Many of the band members are wearing lots of fringe as well and the entire video is them performing at a show. Anytime I think of 80’s hair I think of the band Bon Jovi because to me their's is the biggest and all of the members have it.
In the video “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” Steven Tyler is very expressive with his face and dance moves. He’s well-known for his large mouth so this makes his expressions even more exaggerated. He’s wearing a sort of long shirt that is open in the front with no other shirt on underneath. This video has lots of women in it which is another characteristic of 80’s rock videos. The video is also a concert and contains a guitar solo.
All of these videos I described contain the characteristics of the genre 80’s rock. Overall, I just really like rock music from the 80's so that's why I wanted to do this blog post.
