Wynette Goofs While Public Enemy Burns

Tammy and Amy. Michael and Humpty. Chuck D and the ex-M.C.

Together again--if only for the purposes of this month’s edition of Sound & Vision, which evaluates the new video clips of some odd couples, two by two. Current pop-music videos are reviewed and rated on a 0-100 scale.

Genre queens face backlash:

The KLF’s (featuring Tammy Wynette) “Justified and Ancient.” The great stoopid single of the season, this campy, quasi-mystical dance goof from KLF registers as some kind of absurd cross between Enigma’s “Sadeness” and, oh, maybe “Purple People Eater.” The silliness would be suffocating if this didn’t have such an irresistible techno beat--and if the remix version didn’t spotlight a couple of guest verses by country star Wynette, a good sport if ever there was one.

The cross-breeding between pop genres carries over to the visuals, with Wynette presiding as queen over the denizens of some very strange Aztec-like civilization, even as a written crawl naming all the awards and honors Wynette has racked up over the years scrolls across the bottom of the screen.

Unfortunately, most country fans don’t tend to go in too much for the Fellini-esque, and Wynette has gotten her share of flak already for having dared to lend her talent to a pop project that’s so doggone goofy.

But it’s not as if the humor in this video is at Tammy’s expense; in its own dingbat way, it celebrates her legend. Lighten up, country programmers, and let her enjoy her pop hit, since she seems unable to get one out of you these days. 80

Amy Grant’s “Good for Me.” Like country queen Wynette, gospel-pop giantess Grant has faced her share of contention from elements of the old fan base not only for her recent secular romantic hits, but mostly for the accompanying videos in which the sexy songstress is seen charming and cavorting with a man not her husband .

It’s acting, she says. Looks like public cheatin’ to us, the gospel literalists say. Needless to add, they’re in the minority and Grant will no doubt co-star in many video blind dates to come.

The song--sort of another “Opposites Attract” but with a buff male model instead of a cartoon cat as the love object--is great, bouncy fun. And even doing nothing more than mugging, Grant continues to grow more charismatic as a screen presence.

The fact that she’s chosen someone other than her frequent-collaborator husband to play cutesy with on screen with is no sin. But given all the times Grant has waxed spiritual about a deeper kind of love that transcends surface media standards, a “love of another kind,” you do wish she’d found someone to fool around with besides the hunk of the month. 59

Word to the badd, part II :

Digital Underground’s “No Nose Job.” This sensually oriented (i.e., horny) rap troupe isn’t particularly known for getting political or for spending too much time espousing black-empowerment issues.

But here, in a typically light but unusually sharp-tongued fashion, they go after fellow African-Americans (as well as those of other races) who go under the knife for a new and improved look. The video opens with footage of a supposed protest in front of a plastic surgery clinic.

The conceptual part of this clip has Groucho-nose-wearing Humpty Hump going into the clinic for a little rhinoplasty, then changing his mind. But, before he can escape, he gets held down and sedated by a cartilage-hungry team of doctors who eviscerate his notorious honker and his racial heritage in one fell swoop.

Hmmm. Which star in particular do you suppose Mr. Hump and friends mean to take their dig at here? Could it be . . . SATAN ? Or could it be. . . . 65

Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time.” Director John Singleton (an Oscar nominee for “Boyz N the Hood”), in what probably amounts to a nod to the Cleopatra race controversy, has surrounded the King of Pop with an all-black cast for this lighthearted Egyptian fantasy.

Cosmetic issues aside, Jackson has been lit in such a pale-faced way that in at least a few of the scenes he looks like the temple’s token Caucasian. So, in any case, let’s not invite him and Humpty Hump to the same party.

Model/actress Iman might also have a different point of view than Digital Underground on such matters. Here she’s a busty B.C. queen who falls for Jackson when he steps before the throne as the last in a series of ill-fated court entertainers. Playing straight, Eddie Murphy is the jealous Pharaoh who sends the palace guards after Jackson, and Magic Johnson has a cameo as the court announcer.

Though the last couple of minutes leave the chase behind for a decent walk-like-you-know-what dance sequence featuring a cast of dozens, the editing doesn’t really flatter the fancy footwork or the story’s meager narrative.

And although the smooch with Iman has been hyped as “Jackson’s first screen kiss,” there’s so little heat between the two--they can’t even keep their lips locked as she leans backward--that it looks more like his first kiss, period. 63

It ain’t the meat, it’s the commotion:

John Mellencamp’s “Again Tonight.” Mellencamp likes to identify with the common man, to not put himself up on a pedestal, so this clip portrays his band playing a local dive and not the Forum.

Fair enough. But did said dive have to be a sleazy strip joint? You keep waiting for a punch line to end this parody, but instead it seems to celebrate straight-faced the twin sports of female erotic dancing and male voyeurism. “I’ve turned into a cliche,” Mellencamp has said in more than one interview lately; if he keeps making this kind of video, we’ll believe him. 19

Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy.” Chris Morris of the L.A. Reader has named this song the worst No. 1 single since the invention of the Billboard charts. That doesn’t leave much else to say, except that this supposedly “gently satirical” (emphasis on gently) video only compounds the damage.

Some have taken comfort in the fact that the bodybuilding gym owners who front this group are putting muscle men out on the runway instead of babes, as if this were some sort of funny, kicky reverse sexism.

But lest we intellectualize this stupidity too much, it’s far easier to take the song and video the way most of those singing along have--at face value, as a lunkheaded chant of satisfied self-absorption. Right Said Fred singing “I’m too sexy” is like the record-buying American public rapping “We’re too smart.” . . . NOT . 10

So you wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star :

Teenage Fanclub’s “The Concept.” The concept is star worship, as this video portrays a teen-age fan literally trying to claw her way to the band through the impregnable barrier of a TV screen. The poor girl has come to a record store, presumably--as the lyrics say--to pick up her Status Quo fix (?!). But once she gets a gander at Teenage Fanclub video on the overhead monitor, she starts climbing over the racks to get to them.

Cut to the fast-rising group of Scots in the studio, also equipped with a TV, which broadcasts a close-up of her empty, peering face as the impervious band plays on. In portraying themselves as distantly removed and godlike, the Fanclubbers at least lay on the self-reflexive pop-culture irony rather thick. 75

Dire Straits’ “Heavy Fuel.” Casting comic actor Randy Quaid as a harried, occasionally hapless roadie for a big rock tour sounds funny, but laughs are few and far between in this under-thought sketch.

The best sight gag has Quaid going after a groupie who’s leaped onto the concert stage, chasing her through banks of amps and the middle of a drum set in the process. But the satirical song--basically a remake of “Money for Nothing,” but from the spoiled rocker’s point of view--is probably Mark Knopfler’s weakest ever, and Quaid scarcely gets a chance to redeem it with his off-the-cuff clowning. 44

War (on white domination) and (the prince of) peace, rap-style:

Public Enemy’s “Shut ‘Em Down.” Regardless of what you thought of the message of these provocateurs ‘ last video--the violent, pro-recrimination “By the Time I Get to Arizona”--there was one element that was hard to dispute: As a piece of filmmaking, it was inept.

But by the same token, no matter whether or not you like the images of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X approvingly thrown up on screen in this new clip, you’ll almost certainly have to admit it’s a bravura video. Successfully matching the rap outfit’s jarring music with an equally jolting (and colorfully eye-pleasing) visual style, New York collage artist Stephen Kroninger has put together a rush of images--rough animation, street scenes, quotes and emblems--that gives Public Enemy’s rant on black economic empowerment even more of a visceral kick. Too bad the media took the bait on the other PE video when the real meat is right here. 87

Hammer’s “Do Not Pass Me By.” While BeBe & CeCe Winans continue to have hits solely on the R&B; charts, pop-rap superstar Hammer has brought black gospel sounds back to the Top 40 mainstream for the first time since “Oh Happy Day,” first with “Pray” and now with this devotional follow-up. In this video he even deigns to forgo the fancy outfits and wear-- gasp! --street clothes. Who says miracles don’t happen?

Frankly, the proceedings stop well short of divine: There are too many shots of Lycra-clad dancers on fire escapes; the desert hillside revival scenes, complete with mass choirs and holy hoofers, never quite loom large enough to get across the intended spectacle; the beat is too mechanical to compete with the joy of a real black gospel band, and duet partner Tramaine Hawkins never quite gets to stretch out.

All that considered, anything that helps re-popularize one of the great music genres of the century--on decidedly unsanctified MTV, no less--makes for an oh-happy day indeed. 65