YouTube Faves: So many videos, so little time. Whether you go to YouTube seeking information, ideas or just plain entertainment, it seems that the choices are endless. So The Chronicle asked its critics and writers to pick some videos they think are worth taking a peek at and tell our readers why. Here are Aidin Vaziri's selections for the best music videos by Bay Area acts.
Journey, "Separate Ways," 4:26. There are so many Journey video parodies on YouTube (mostly starring dogs in heat) it's almost impossible to find the real Journey. At first I thought this one was another parody, because it started off with a bunch of idiots with perms and muscle shirts appearing on an abandoned dock "Star Trek"-style, playing air keyboards. Oops. This is the real video! So let me get this straight -- while Duran Duran were off in Sri Lanka riding elephants and raping tiger ladies, Journey just pretended to play their instruments on a bunch of shipping pallets and forklifts in Oakland? At least Steve Perry looks as if he's passing a kidney stone every time the camera gives him a close-up. But why the mysterious closing shot of the blonde in the bed -- was it all a terrible nightmare? Watch.
Metallica "One," 7:02. Great song and everything, but the whole thing where they cut parts of old movies into black-and-white performance footage seems like something Jim Morrison would have done if they gave him a camera and CPR. Metallica's videos only got worse from here. If you ask me, Lars Ulrich wasted his time with Napster. He should have spent all his big words and brain cells trying to shut down YouTube instead. Watch.
Huey Lewis & the News, "I Want A New Drug," 3:31. I always wondered how Huey Lewis could possibly sing in a sink full of ice water. With his eyes open! Back in 1983, he probably had all kinds of super powers besides the underwater singing thing. In this clip we see Huey zooming around San Francisco in a 1) convertible, 2) yacht and 3) helicopter. But even with all those forms of transportation at his disposal, not only does the poor guy barely have enough time to get dressed when the cameras start rolling, but has to shave on the boat while flirting with some babe in a bikini. Even at that, it takes him pretty much all day to get to the big show. What big show? The one where the girl he's been flirting with all day is in the front row! Actually, I was hoping this was the video where the members of the News are on the beach buried in the sand from the neck down but the only clip they had of that was actually a movie of a squirrel eating a Ritz cracker while the song played in the background. Plus, ever since "Ghostbusters," I hate this song. Watch.
Faith No More, "Epic," 4:29. Nice guys all around, but this is probably the stupidest video ever made. It starts with a hand with an eyeball that inexplicably shoots out neon green snot (no, really) and ends with a goldfish flopping around breathlessly before a piano explodes. In between all that, Mike Patton jumps around in a cargo shorts making funny faces, the band swishes its hair around quite a bit and it rains. Boy, does it rain. Oh, and there are more explosions and lightning bolts. Did I mention the hand with the eyeball is in a gold frame? It's unbelievable that anyone in 1990 thought this was more credible than Bell Biv DeVoe or Wilson Phillips. But I guess that's before they invented all the good drugs. Watch.
Chris Isaak, "Wicked Game," 4:03. Wow. This video is far more indecent than I remember it, and that's awesome. Helena Christensen is 95 percent naked throughout the whole thing and Chris Isaak looks great, as usual. But when they start groping each other in the water and rolling around in the sand? Just wow. And when it goes from black and white to yellow and white? Well, that part I don't understand. Otherwise, this is one of those rare instances where everything comes together just right: song, clouds, boobs, palm trees, chipped nail polish. If they still made videos this good, MTV would probably still be showing them. Watch.
MC Hammer, "U Can't Touch This," 4:13. It's hard to imagine a rapper wearing glasses or circus tent pants these days. Then again, Hammer was kind of a not-very-good rapper. This video is so dated that it's about to become hip again. Just watch: Some hot new Norwegian band is going to have spandex-clad dancers shaking their asses on an industrial staircase and everyone will go on about how they're such geniuses. Watch.
Counting Crows, "Mr. Jones," 4:29. Here's the thing about Counting Crows: Everybody would like them a lot more if they could look at them a lot less. They easily cut their potential audience in half the moment Adam Duritz first appeared with the dreadlocks and brown suede fringe jacket. Watch.
Third Eye Blind, "Semi-Charmed Life," 4:00. Third Eye Blind isn't nearly as godawful as everyone thinks. Looking back on this band's first video now, it's like, "Well, they kind of look like jerks you don't want to see in the Mission running around the Mission but, hey, at least they're better than some overpriced loft condo." Watch.
Jellyfish, "Baby's Coming Back," 3:04. People wonder why Jellyfish never made it big. Well, it could have something to do with the fact that whey were grown men who wore top hats and bellbottoms and made videos with giant cartoon babies. Watch.
Sammy Hagar, "Winner Takes It All," 4:11. I can't find "I Can't Drive 55." This is better anyway because it's from the soundtrack to the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie and has more synthesizers than guitars. Watch.
Greg Kihn Band, "Jeopardy," 4:16. Commitment-phobe Greg Kihn is supposed to get married, right? Except when he lifts the bride's veil everyone turns into a zombie! (This kind of thing was very popular in the '80s.) It's like a Ziggy comic set to music. Watch.
Too Short, "The Ghetto," 5:02. Personally, I prefer it when he's rapping about butts and stuff, but this is the moment the Oakland rapper discovered his conscience and features some pretty heavy dramatic acting such as: people crying, people standing in doors and people lying down dead in the street. Watch.
Smash Mouth, "Walking on the Sun," 3:23. It's funny that Smash Mouth ended up doing all those Scooby-Doo soundtracks, because right from the start they looked like a bunch of cartoon characters that were afraid of ghosts. Watch.
4-Non Blondes, "What's Up," 4:54. What was going on in San Francisco in the early '90s? Like Counting Crows and Jellyfish, Linda Perry's old band looked like a cross between hippie vagabonds and circus clowns. The video isn't nearly as annoying as the actual song, although Linda's mouth looks really, really big. Watch.
Romeo Void, "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)," 4:03. Want to know how messed up the music industry was in the '80s? Just because the singer of Romeo Void had to shop in the plus-size department at Macy's, they projected her face on a screen in the background of this video while skinny models romped around in white overalls. Awesome video, though. Watch.
