At
work lately we've been watching the Best of
Luther Vandross music video collection quite a bit. My
co-workers have
appreciated it
for the music. I, however have noticed
something deeper, more towards the
insanity of the
inner workings of the videos themselves. Especially with a couple of his
80's videos.
- Never Too Much
- A true 80's video if there ever was one It has all the style markers of the 80's too: rollerskaters, short shorts, mullets in acceptance, big-ass unwieldy boomboxes, women sitting on park benches looking like they're on morphine, and Luther...in a purple jumpsuit. You also noticed that Luther managed to include the minimum required amount of white people in a black video as per MTV by-laws at the time. We all know Michael Jackson put a curb on that, but still...it's worth noting.
- Stop To Love
- At least Never Too Much had some scenery changes, even if it was studio shot to nonsensical street shot. Here we just have Luther and his backup singers all on the back of a flatbed truck lipsyncing the day away, and looking stunning as all get-out doing it. Well at least Luther is trying, in a solid white suit. Say what you will, but the man just has the zaniest plain looking wardrobe in all of R&B. His singers though...oh man...something I actually noticed the last time I saw the video. One of the singers spent half the video looking like she was trying to hold her hair on her head. And then there was the beauty in the blue dress, looking like she stole her hair right off of Jackée's head. She also stole the video too, managing to get all the good shots and poses at just the right times. I bet Luther fired her for upstaging him.
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I gladly welcome anybody else's philosophies/analysis/observations/snide remarks on Luther Vandross music videos.