These Are My Salad Days: Spandau Ballet On YouTube

By Less Lee Moore

You can’t step twice into the same YouTube river. The channel has undergone enormous transformations since its debut. In just the last few years, there have been heated disputes over copyright in the US and the UK, embarrassing incidents of corporate confusion, and irate fans who rejoice in finding long-loved-and-lost videos only to be crushed when those videos are removed for various reasons.

Thankfully, many bands have stepped up (with apparent legal muscle as well as capital) and created their own Official YouTube channels. This issue we’ll be profiling the Official Spandau Ballet YouTube channel.

“Martin Gore finally returned my tank top.”

My discovery of this channel began innocently enough: I was at a party and bravely offered to sing “Gold” on a friend’s SingStar Karaoke game, only to subsequently scare everyone with my mastery of the lyrics. I couldn’t get the damn thing out of my head and so I did what everyone else does: looked for the video on YouTube the next day.

Although there were a few Spandau Ballet songs I’d loved and never forgotten from the 80s, I was astonished that I remembered every one featured on YouTube. But no matter how thorough my knowledge of the songs, I only remembered a handful of videos. Enter OfficialSpandau . . .

“To Cut A Long Story Short”
Like many early 80s videos, this one makes no sense: the band appears in some sort of candelabra-bedecked castle from inside a haze of fog and weird people make vague facial expressions that are supposed to evoke some secret meaning. But Spandau Ballet push the limits by wearing lots of plaid wool in the form of knickers and kilts. Note to Tony Hadley: Fair Isle sweaters are not New Wave. I am unclear as to why he wears his trench coat and gloves on his shoulder the entire time and emotes at his binoculars. Steve Norman is wearing a pair of lace up sandals frighteningly similar to some “Mia” brand ones I had in the ’80s. There are also faux-Goth dancers mimicking the moves from Duran Duran’s “Planet Earth” video. More fog appears, the band disappears, end scene.

“The Freeze”
Each band member morphs into one another and then looks balefully towards stage right. Tony Hadley, fresh from his audition for the remake of I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, visits his frigid girlfriend, who desperately wants to figure out a way to get behind the mesh screen in her unfurnished living room. It’s all full of Kemps!

“Musclebound”
This is the kind of video that used to make me uncomfortable as a pre-teen. Maybe it was the low camera angle, the painted midgets, and the confusing Lawrence of Arabia storyline . . . I’m not sure. At any rate, I’m now convinced Peter Jackson watched this video many times back in the day.

“By nightfall these hills will be swarming with Orcs.”

“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.

“No, the set for ‘Union Of The Snake’ is that way.”

“Communication”
Yes! The classic 80s video featuring “acting!” In this case, Tony Hadley is some kind of James Bond character, only armed with a 35 mm camera instead of a gun. And like Bond, he is also betrayed by a woman, one who looks startlingly similar to Susan Ann Sulley from The Human League.

“True”
In the interest of full disclosure, I need to confess to my avid worship of GQ magazine in the early-to-mid-80s. When this video came out, I could not imagine a group of classier, more fashionably dressed guys than Spandau Ballet. And Tony Hadley’s suave crooning was just the icing on the cake. At the time, I thought the band’s coatdresses were the pinnacle of men’s fashion. Now, I am mortally humiliated that I ever thought that. I sort of resent this song for being so popular, especially at school dances and weddings, because any appeal it had for me has practically shriveled up completely.

“Gold”
More coatdresses show up here, along with paisley scarves, nods to Goldfinger, Pepe Le Moko, and. . . colonialism? I also love this song without shame. And I think Steve Norman is wearing spats.

“Only When You Leave”
For as good as this song is, the video is pretty boring, save for lots of leather, shoulder pads, and the apparently inseparable Kemp brothers. Did they have their own sibling language as children?

The Kemp brothers wish they could
forget that one night in Bangkok.

Men who dress like old lesbians.

“I’ll Fly For You”
This video was filmed in Louisiana; we see Mardi Gras parades, bayou scenes, and tooling around the streets of the French Quarter in a Toyota jeep and whatnot. However, as a native of the state I need to make one thing clear. I know that when you’re a rich pop star you eventually get bored with groupies and you have to explore new kinds of kinky sex to get your rocks off, but trust me, NO ONE who lives in the south copulates on a cypress branch in the middle of an algae-infested swamp. Just to clarify. Aaaand it’s probably not a good idea not to romanticize slavery, either. But hey, they got members of the NOPD to actually do something, so props to them. (By the way, where was I when they filmed this? I swear I do not remember this happening.)

“Highly Strung”
There are grave fashion crimes in this video (perhaps what was being tried in the courtroom scenes of the video for “I’ll Fly For You”), including, but not limited to, crop tops, shirts unbuttoned to the waist, striped pants, crocheted tank tops, Tony Hadley’s makeup, and Martin Kemp’s eyepatch. In the midst of all of this, we’re supposed to concentrate on the storyline, which seems to involve a neurotic Chinese fashion model. This is another excellent tune, though.

“Round And Round”
Sadly, we have come to the end of the videos. It’s probably just as well, because I’ve noticed the dreaded hallmarks of mid-80s fashion slowly creeping up, i.e., oversized, brightly-colored clothing and variations on the mullet. (Even Spandau rivals Duran Duran were not exempt from this; see the video for “The Wild Boys” for evidence.) This is actually a cute video . . . be sure to keep your eyes peeled for Steve Norman’s “right back atcha” hand gesture. Hey look, it’s Ron Perlman!

As you may or may not have heard, Spandau Ballet are reforming and embarking on a world tour towards the end of this year. Of course, many will likely call this a cash grab, and it may be the case, but reading a quote from Martin Kemp on the reunion is so sweet, I can totally forgive them: “If the five of us ever worked together again, after 15 minutes we’d be laughing at the same stupid jokes we laughed at when we were 17.”

For more details on the upcoming tour, visit the band’s official site.