Jay
Sometimes people’s vision of a creative music video can result in pure disaster.
In the past we have featured many great music videos from the 1980s and 1990s, and proved that a music video can make or break a song. See 10 Great 80s Music Videos and 10 Great 90s Music Video, but now let’s flip that around and take a look at some truly awful music videos.
With terrifically bad CGI, crazy collaborations and super low-budget videos on offer let’s start off with…
Eiffel 65 – “Blue(Da Ba Dee)”
CGI in the 90s wasn’t particularly amazing unless you had a massive budget, which Eiffel 65 clearly did not back in 1999. This music video features shockingly bad animated blue aliens who seem to be fighting the band, but then start head banging to their music later on. Let’s hope there is a rogue asteroid on their collision course. It’s a slice of Euro-pop trash and what makes this video worse is the dreadful song writing and voice manipulation of the lead singer.
David Bowie and Mick Jagger – “Dancing in the Street”
When two rock legends get together, you’d think this video would be awesome. The video was filmed in the unglamorous surroundings of London’s Docklands with Bowie dress in leopard print, Jagger wearing the most ill-fitting clothes he could find and their dancing skills are atrocious.
The whole thing looks totally disorganised and at one point you can clearly see Bowie’s expression of “WTF?” when they are singing with their backs to each other! To be honest though the video was for Live Aid and rushed out in just 4 hours and with no budget, so it was a case of getting them together and see what the hell happens!
Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”
You may like the sight of a middle-aged Cher parading around pretty much naked in front of a bunch of horny sailors and straddling a huge canon, but maybe you won’t!
It all seems a bit seedy, like watching your mates mum trying her luck down the local karaoke club.
Survivor – “Eye of the Tiger”
You’d think for one of the most famous and pumped up movie themes of all time would have an epic music video to accompany it, but sadly this is not the case. It doesn’t even feature any Rocky clips at all!
It just shows the band all meeting up and marching to some band practice and it’s all very cheap. In one of the scenes they walk through a warehouse full of bathtubs. Woah! That’s some pure rock ‘n’ roll shit right there! For most of the video they end up playing inside a golden rubbish bag literally sweating to death.
Shanks & Bigfoot – “Sweet Like Chocolate”
Stop getting CGI wrong! You’d think that by 1999 people could get CGI right by now, but this is shockingly bad. Is it worse than Blue (Da Ba Dee)? Yes. It’s almost like the band didn’t want anything to do with the video whatsoever and just told the record label to put any old shit out no matter how irrelevant it is.
Jan Terri – “Losing You”
When her music video gets unwillingly uploaded to YouTubewith the title ‘Worst music video ever”, poor old Jan Terri didn’t even stand a chance!
The video is jerky, the singing is dreadful and at times the video isn’t even focussing on Jan Terri, but I can’t blame the camera-person! It looks more like a home video than a music video. You can clearly see the whole budget for the video was probably spent on hiring that damn limousine.
Vanilla Ice – “Ice Ice Baby”
This music video almost feels like a parody of a proper rap video! Good old Vanilla tries his best to look like he’s street, but comes off as a total douche bag! You don’t usually see rappers dance like that in music videos.
At one point he looks like he’s dancing with a bunch of waiters on their lunch break. We shouldn’t ask “where did it all go wrong for Vanilla?” We should be asking “when did it ever go right for Vanilla?” Word to your mother – You’re shit!
Billy Squier – “Rock Me Tonite”
Billy Squier has an amazing ability to actually pinpoint the end of his music career. It was this video and he is the first to admit it. It’s so painful to watch that you may want to skip to the next video real quick.
Billy – “Because We Want To”
We are not sure what is going on in this video, but Billy seems to arrive in an alien ship and infect people with her dance virus even a billboard and a dustbin! The CGI is also very, very ropey.
Also in the video Billy explains to us why teenagers act like dicks and are so f**kin’ annoying, and apparently it’s because ‘they want to!’
Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson – “Whatzupwitu”
Why did this collaboration even happen? Eddie Murphy must have had some serious shit on Michael Jackson to blackmail him into featuring on this song! There’s so many things wrong with this. The name of the song for a start. The special effects of a fake sky with peace symbols and music notes are some of the worst ever. The song is pretty shit. Eddie Murphy’s vest and then the schoolboys makes for some cringworthy shit.
Rebecca Black – “Friday”
What is there to like about the video? It seems that nowadays anyone can become famous instantly all because of social media. Shit special effects, underage school kids driving in a car and lots and lots of sugar! It’s the audio equivalent to waterboarding because this video is pure torture!
