My Favorite Music Videos: Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"

Easily one of my all-time favorite videos, "Paranoid Android" premiered during a prime MTV-watching year for me, 1997. Everything just kind of stopped when this video came on, and you always hoped it would be next in the rotation.

As many times as I've viewed this one, I just learned a whole lot from a little wikipedia research, such as:

-The song title refers to the depressed robot, Marvin the Paranoid Android, from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I always kind of suspected...)
-The fat guy who cuts off his arms and legs is supposed to be Boris Yeltsin
-The main character comes from a cartoon series called Robin, which Radiohead members enjoyed
-At 2 minutes, 35 seconds, the band makes a cameo as the group of people watching a man dancing on a table with a face coming out of his belly button
-The line "The blood and the screaming" may be a reference to George Orwell's novel 1984, which was a major influence on OK Computer as a whole
-Radiohead has talked about this song as 3 songs in one, getting the idea from The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun"
-The guitar solo was ranked #34 by Guitar World readers in a list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos"

...and so much more.

For those watching at work, this is most certainly the unedited version that MTV would never show (see the mermaids at the end, and you'll know what I'm talking about.)
Now presenting 6+ minutes of deranged, animated joy.




P.S. - My old roommate Erica and I do a badass karaoke rendition of this, if I may say so myself. It's not even a duet, but somehow, we work it out.

My Favorite Music Videos: Fatboy Slim - "Weapon of Choice"

Welcome to the first in what's likely to be quite an extended series. I'll be posting my favorite videos, new and old, but we all know they'll be mostly old. Frankly, I'm not the MTV watcher I once was, so expect mainly videos from the early 2000s and before. I promise I'll do my best to seek out some newer selections too.

Let's take a trip back to the year 2000, sophomore year of college for me. I still remember how excited I would get when I caught this video starting while I got ready to head off to my morning classes. Such a simple concept for a video, and yet so very enjoyable. I'll admit that my opinion on this matter may be strongly influenced by my love of Christopher Walken, but I don't think I'm alone on that one.

According to Wikipedia, the lead vocals are by Bootsy Collins? I just learned something new! Wiki also provided this little gem:

"According to an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Walken got the inspiration for certain dance moves by observing raccoons."

And now you ask yourself, "What bit of valuable knowledge did I just push out of my brain by learning this fact?"

Without further ado, Mr. Walken, take it away.