money for nothing and the chicks for free

In high school Lynn Yuell made a sort of trademark pink splotch dyed on her shiny golden bangs, like a married woman from India who got a little too punk. And a little too lazy to lift up her hair to anoint her forehead. She came Monday mornings to the bus stop with the splotch freshened up for the week. “I saw Frida’s video again last night.” She knew it would drive me crazy, and it did indeed drive me crazy. I had seen Culture Club, I had seen Talking Heads, I had heard Cruel to be Kind, and Angel of the Morning. I had sat through Money For Nothing and the Chicks for Free, all to catch Frida’s solo I Know There’s Something Going On. All to not catch it. I suffered through REO Speedwagon, and through Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. For what? To have Lynn explain through chartreuse eyeshadow and blue splotch dye on her little chick hair, that she had MTV on every hour of every day and managed to catch everything I had been unable to catch.

Why oh why couldn’t I catch it? It felt as if I were busting a vein in my forehead, staring at the screen, willing for it to play. I never did homework. I never participated in anything after school. I had no life. I was the perfect candidate to view on numerous occasions Frida’s video.

And now exactly one hundred years after this event comes YouTube. Sure, they have Abba videos, but those all kind of suck. Abba was very serious about their music, but a little too literal about their videos. And Benny always lipsynched as though he were chewing marshmallows. I was never convinced that he ever sang, despite evidence that he did sing . To portray the line in Super Trouper, "feeling like a number one", Agnetha lifts up her index finger. To portray one.

“Live” performances that they did for tv had them lipsynching their own songs, when their voices were flawless, in the studio or outside. I never got that. Even when Frida put out the dreadful song written by Jon Lord from Deep Purple, the last song she's done, it’s canned, on German or Swiss tv. But with a full band backing it.

So what’s different about Frida's video from the 1980’s? It’s emotional. It shows a dramatic portrayal of the song, rather than just razzing the song, and is excellent, on her own.