These Are My Salad Days: Spandau Ballet On YouTube

Posted in Music, Retrovirus, Video |

“Mom! She’s touching me again!”

“Chant No. 1 (Don’t Need This Pressure On)”
An ascot-clad Tony Hadley goes into a nightclub in the red light district and is extremely distressed by the fact that he is also singing in the house band wearing a different suit and no ascot. He sweats, freaks out, and leaves, running in terror down the sidewalk. The whole thing actually (sort of) makes sense if you think of this video as a mini-version of The Talented Mr. Ripley.

“Paint Me Down”
Homoeroticism abounds, as semi-nude Spandaus caress each other with paint, and Tony Hadley writhes around on a bed prefiguring the cover of Suede’s Dogmanstar album. This is presumably in humiliation from dwelling on the other embarrassing videos the band has appeared in. To add insult to injury, his ceiling bursts open from a plumbing problem in the upstairs neighbor’s apartment.

“She Loved Like Diamond”
The band members have turned Wayne Manor into a sort of artists’ retreat and are all simultaneously obsessed with a dark-haired woman who may or may not be dead and/or a vampire.

Steve Norman suffers from a bad case of “white man dancing face.”

“Instinction”
First off, let me state that any weirdness contained in this video is (almost) completely nullified by the fact that this song is amazing. Tony Hadley is wearing pleated leather trousers and what looks like a sock tie, while the Kemp brothers are dressed like the JoBoxers or perhaps the cast of Newsies. There is a Chariots Of Fire theme going on, cut through (literally) with diagonal strips of the band and shadowy figures playing saxophone. Further research confirms that this video (and the previous four) were directed by Russell Mulcahy, who also directed all the Duran Duran videos you remember from the same time period.

“Lifeline”
I never noticed before how the opening keyboard riff of this video is almost identical to the one from Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al,” which came out four years later. I call copyright infringement. Sweet Jeebus, Tony Hadley is wearing an argyle cardigan. All my past crushes on preppy British guys are flooding back to me now.

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