Billy Ocean's Loverboy video is way weirder than you remember

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Originally published at: Billy Ocean's Loverboy video is way weirder than you remember | Boing Boing

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Soooooo much blow.

That is all.

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I had completely forgotten about this. But the question is: how does one forget something like this?

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The 80’s were chock full of weird. We couldn’t possibly retain it all!

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I’m guessing the mind will attempt to block it out if possible.

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I remember thinking that it was really tied to Star Wars, and being disappointed that the song wasn’t in any of the first three.

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Wow! That’s amazing!

I have a theory that Peak Future was 1984-88 and it’s been mostly a disappointment since then.

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Several thoughts here:

  1. Both this song (with its nearly prog keyboard riffs) and the accompanying video were in many ways tailor-made for mid-1980s, teenage white male nerd me.

  2. It is not clear to me if the woman goes with the protagonist willingly. I mean, he comes in, shoots the guy she’s with, and takes her away, and the at least initially seems to be struggling. By the time they climb on the horse she seems to have at least acquiesced, but her lack of enthusiasm is apparent.

  3. To this date the band Loverboy has not made a song titled “Billy Ocean”. (also: The Cars never made a song titled “Gary Numan”.)

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This nearly made pizza come out of my nose. Well done!

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The Last Starfighter… Dune… Repo man…

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I think it’s because the song played in all the clubs but not necessarily the video? I was a bartender between 1985 to 1988 and, ugh, I had a total flashback. (Eighties dance music wasn’t my cup of tea.)

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Selective forgetfulness.

This vid creeped me the fuck out as a kid, and I had completely forgotten about it amid all the other weirdness of the 80’s.

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Can totally sing along. Have no memory whatsoever of the video.

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Oh, I remember this one. Back when videos were still a thing, I used to enjoy the ones that had a little story with them, especially if it strayed into science fiction. Still, this was a nice little tune and Billy Ocean had a great voice, so I wish it had been more about him. I get the strong feeling that some 80s schmuck of producer didn’t think white kids would watch a video with a black singer.

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Oooh boy, that’s some bigass flashback material right there! Had this one buried in quite deep forgetfulness, but after three notes immediately smelled the colored pencils I used as a teen in the eighties.

If folks were making videos like this, what could stop me drawing my own scifi-epic comics albums!

It never happened, of course. But it’s superb to get back a taste of that teenage drive by means of a quite silly video.

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Oh man, they used SOOOOOO much coke making that…

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If you take away the 80’s visuals and listen to the music and overblown production this song is WAY more creepy!

No they don’t! They play by ‘art direction’, marketing, no interest in the song and a slight nod to the artist involved. It is an interesting exploration of 80’s economics and 'C’apital involvement in the popular music market place at best.

I’m not sure what is actually surprising of a promotion Billy Ocean video set in the Star Wars Cantina bar… What would be very surprising would be that he had any agency to direct the video clip production… can only speculate that a very mediocre single would have slipped into obscurity and I wouldn’t be spending time fucking writing this rant!

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Now I really want to see a video of Billy Ocean covering Turn Me Loose. Now that would be weirder than anything I can remember.

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I came to this comment section to see a collection of other equally weird '80s videos and AM DISAPPOINT. There’s still time, people.

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“Be the change that you wish to see…”

Here’s another vid I’d thought was kind of odd, but it didn’t unnerve me in the same way:

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