One New York Life

Overthinking It still isn’t on my regular rotation of blogs to visit primarily because Company X has deemed it appropriate to block RSS Readers from functioning… because, I guess slacking off less efficiently is better for the bottom line or something. Regardless, I still try to get there a couple times a week around five and today’s gem was The Four Greatest Key Changes In Pop Music.

I don’t know a lot of music theory, but I do know Total Eclipse Of The Heart. I pressed play and it jumped to the key change in question — and I was treated to a chunk of the video. And ninjas danced across the screen. Ninjas. Dancing ballet.

And then it occurred to me — people complain a lot about MTV. Dude, remember when they used to play videos? I’ve had MTV Hits for a couple months now and I occasionally check out a video or two or watch 120 Minutes or Headbanger’s Ball. It occurred to me that videos are an endless wellspring of unintentional comedy. What follows here

0:08 – We’re inside what looks to be Bonnie Tyler’s apartment. It’s pretty 80s-fantastic as apartments go. It’s got nice bright walls and translucent white curtains dangling around the room. There are some semi-dangerous candles burning somewhat close to the napalm-curtains. This can’t be safe. On top of that, a stiff breeze is blowing through the room because, as us older people remember, homes in the 80s were notoriously drafty.

0:42 – A young man walks through the door to either Bonnie’s apartment or in the school. He’s glancing at the ground as he slowly walks through the door. He dramatically, yet slowly looks up.

0:44 – OH SWEET JESUS HIS EYES ARE GLOWING. IT’S THE INVASION. THE INVASION HAS COME TO A RANDOM PRIVATE SCHOOL SOMEWHERE…….. IN THE 80s. THEY TOTALLY ECLIPSE YOUR HEART AS THEY EAT YOUR SOUL. THE EYES ARE THE WINDOW TO THE SOUL BUT WHEN THERE’S NO SOUL TO LOOK AT IT’S REPLACED WITH SCARY ZOMBIE-LIGHT.

0:46 – Bonnie seems surprisingly calm about the glowing-eyed young man. She mentions a couple times that she wants the young man to turn around so she can see his bright eyes. Then threatens to fall apart (every now and then).

0:56 – As we graduate to verse two, Bonnie leaves her apartment and heads to the school. And now it starts getting real messed up in the creepy alien invasion school.

1:09 – As Bonnie walks down the hallway to the gym, as obviously that’s where you go in something like this, she glances in some of the classrooms. In the second one, she sees a young boy with wings growing out of his back sitting on a chair. He throws a dove at her that takes flight. She says she gets a little angry every now and then. This symbolizes, I think, insanity.

1:13 – In the next door, Bonnie sees the swim team. They’re just standing around with swim goggles on. You wouldn’t think swim goggles could be creepy, but this video pulls it off. Mainly because you know that glowing death eyes are behind the goggles. As they’re standing there with weird grins on their face, someone tosses water on them to try to melt them like the Signs aliens or the Wicked Witch Of The West.

1:19 – The reason I decided to do this. For an indeterminate reason (other than just being awesome) ninjas appear on the screen and dance around. Ninjas. Frolicking. Frolicking ninjas. I take two things from this. First, Bonnie Tyler is unafraid of the impending invasion of soulrending aliens because she has a private attack force of ninjas who are seen for three seconds and never seen again. And second, the ninjas don’t have to be explained because they’re ninjas and, by default, just awesome. If you’re keeping score at home — Bonnie Tyler, team of defense ninjas; rest of us, on our own.

1:25 – There is a team of guys sitting in the gym eating dinner. They may or may not be the ninjas. You’d never know.

1:30 – KEY CHANGE, BITCHES!

1:39 – The ninjas have vanished and have been replaced with frolicking ballet dancers in leotards. On the intimidation scale we just went from infinity to -115. You could make the argument that the ninjas are actually undercover as ballet dancers, but that’s stupid. Ninjas can go undercover as air.

2:15 – There are now football players. In full pads. They run up to the mirror, check its safety, and run off. Then Tyler rushes up to mirror to gaze longingly in to it. Her eyes still aren’t glowing so, near as we can tell, she still has a soul.

2:59 – The keyboard solo rides in and hell follows with it. The doors of her apartment fly open. The doors in the school fly open. Men flips and dance. She runs down a hallway with light behind her. Men are wet! The guys eating dinner toss the food! A man takes off his fencing mask! IT’S BREAKING LOOSE IN UNAFFILIATED SCHOOL SET.

3:29 – And now, the undisputed creepiest moment in music video history. Out of the 80s smoke machine rises a chorus of pod-people, all clad in robes, singing the chorus. In creepy purple light with their glowing eyes unblinkingly staring at the camera, they serenade us. They want us to turn around so we can be given bright eyes. I SAY THEE NAY, DEMONS! We cut back and they all raise their zombie arms and one FLIES TOWARD THE CAMERA at us. This could very easily be a scene from any horror movie. I might have nightmares.

3:35 – No, I will not entertain the notion that the scene is made less creepy by the fact we can see the cord connected to the scary flying alien boy.

3:43 – A creepy, 10-year-old vampire kid is sitting on a throne. He glares in to the camera with his lil vampire suit and tells us that he “needs you more than ever.” Who made this?

3:48 – A group of kids are getting the f*ck out of dodge.

3:54 – SWERVE! They were running toward Bonnie so they could dance around her.

4:08 – We’re flashing between Bonnie singing and dancing in the middle of frolicking half naked men and creepy, robed pod-people. One is scarier than the other, I’m just not sure which. In case you hadn’t heard — forever is going to start tonight. Whether you want it to or not.

4:33 – An angel wraps it’s wings around Bonnie — to protect her from the death and carnage that has come to this school, I presume.

4:41 – Now it’s daytime and we’re outside the school. Apparently the attack of the pod people of glowing-eyed doom was all a dream. Bonnie is walking down a line of suited up school boys to congratulate them for something? She’s in a suit? Maybe she’s the headmistress? Oh, it all makes sense. She was dreaming about a difficult day at work.

5:10 – BUT IT WASN’T A DREAM!!! She shakes hands with one of the boys who looks up at her with super glowing death eyes! She looks confused, yet not terrified. He then sings “turn around bright eyes” in a creepy falsetto obviously designed to shatter eardrums and hypnotize. IT’S NOT OVER!

5:24 – The boys shoulder past her in to the school where they will obviously proceed with their plans of world domination.

So, what I gathered from this is that Bonnie Tyler ushered in the era of teachers having hot fantasies about their students. I mean, she’s walking around a boarding school and being accosted by creepy zombified versions of high school students. This…. can’t be normal.

Please feel free to check it out if you don’t want to sleep tonight.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840B27zYfOk[/youtube]