In the mid-1980s MTV was the new go-to place for music. The television channel played nothing but music videos 24 hours a day with millions of households watching. It was a revolution in the way people consumed music.
If an artist got their video in the rotation on the channel, then it was guaranteed to be a top-chart hit. It is widely believed this is how the British pop bands in the 1980s such as Duran Duran and Culture Club became successful in the USA because of the advantage of making music videos.
Although the channel was breaking out new stars, it could also ruin other careers as our subject today would find out. Big stars would debut their videos in prime time when MTV’s peak audience was watching, most artists were praised when the new video aired but not Billy Squier. The singer’s career was ruined during one of these premiers. This week the Beat Marches On to 19th June 1984 when the fateful video for Rock Me Tonite by Billy Squier debuted.
Billy Squier’s career was peaking in the early 1980s. After trying with bands throughout the 1970s it wasn’t until he released a solo album that fans started to notice him. His first album, the Tale of the Tape, was released in 1980 and wasn’t an instant classic but it started to build momentum towards his career with a three-month stay on the Billboard album charts and some moderate plays of singles You Should Be High Love and The Big Beat on the radio.
The following year Squier released the next album Don’t Say No which elevated his career exponentially. The lead single The Stroke ended up being a top 20 hit in America and performed well in Australia, Canada and the UK. The album would go on to sell four million copies in the US alone.
The next two years for Squier was successful, the follow-up to Don’t Say No, Emotions in Motion, kept him as one of the top rock stars of the early 1980s. It was looking like the singer was going to be one of the top stars of the decade. Then came the next video.
Rock Me Tonite was a big single for Billy Squier, it peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 but the run-up the charts was before the music video premiered. The video process was plagued from the start, two directors agreed to make it, then pulled out. With the video needing to be submitted to MTV within two weeks to make the premier date and the channel unwilling to postpone the debut, a decision had to be made quickly.
At this time MTV was at the start of its peak. From humble beginnings in 1981 when they couldn’t even be televised in New York where they are based, they reached out to the youth of America just by showing music videos all day every day. For the next three years, the rise of the channel was meteoric and at this time Billy Squier quoted the station as ‘The biggest radio station in the world and most influential’
In the end, Squier had a recommendation from David Mallett, the second director who rejected to direct the video. His choreographer Kenny Ortega who had directed a couple of music videos, most famously The Pointer Sisters, I’m So Excited, the singer agreed despite his managers not being excited about the idea.
When Squier met Ortega, the director had a Tom Cruise in Risky Business vibe but the singer didn’t like that as it was too pop. He wanted more of an American Gigolo vibe, which was dark and gritty. This was when the problems started.
When Squier showed up at the soundstage there was a shock in store. His band and managers saw very bright pastel colours, satin sheets on a bed and smoke machines. Sceptical at the time the singer asked Ortega whether this was going to be like the American Gigolo gritty look he wanted. The director assured him that once filmed it would look like his description. The managers not liking the situation asked for the band to be filmed for a take of the video, which was agreed upon but never happened.
When the record label, Capitol, received the rough cut of the video certain questions were raised about whether it should go ahead, but as Squier had approved it, they gave it the green light. They said ‘Fuck it, It’s only a video’ which is part of the problem with the process. The music video was still in its infancy in the music industry at this time and the record labels were only just starting to learn about how to manage it.
When the video premiered the reaction was as expected. It shows Squier literally dancing like no one is watching, although everyone is (2.3 million views on YouTube plus the countless millions who watched the premiere). Also, he rolls around in satin sheets and dons a pink shirt. Even MTV was miffed by the artistic direction of the video.
Talking about it since Squier said he should have pulled it and produced a new one but looking at the video almost 40 years on from when it debuted it’s hard to see where the dark and gritty American Gigolo style was going to come from. Kenny Ortega disagreed with the singer’s remarks and was so unhappy with the final product, that the director and editor tried to not take credit for the video.
The directions of Squier and Ortega went in vastly different directions after the video was released. With the former going from selling out arenas when on stage to the venues only being half-full after the video. Warren Demartini whose band Ratt was supporting Squire at the time noticed it wasn’t being received well. The singer fired his managers after the whole saga and bought in Rod Stewart’s manager, Arnold Stiefel.
For Kenny Ortega, he went from strength to strength after the video. He was a choreography director for many classic 1980s films such as Dirty Dancing and Ferris Buellers Day Off. Then went on to direct Disney’s Hocus Pocus and the High School Musical films.
The success of Ortega does provide an interesting question. Was it the Rock Me Tonite video that ended up ruining Billy Squier’s career? Could it be that the fans didn’t like the new direction he was heading in? The song was more synth-based compared to the other hits the singer had and the fans didn’t react to it as happily as in previous efforts. Squire had been one of the biggest rock stars over the last three years and there’s always the threat of the artist being oversaturated in his market after the success.
Whether it was the video that ruined his career, or his fans didn’t like his new style, one thing was realized by the music industry. MTV was now the powerhouse. It made the labels take the music video seriously. It changed songs from an audio aspect to a visual aspect and you would now have to look good as well as sound good.
And now the moment you’ve been waiting for, the Rock Me Tonite music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcFSheSaht0
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for four years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
Worst Music Videos Ever. Billy Squier’s ‘Rock Me Tonite’ | Articles @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com
Did the ‘Rock Me Tonite’ Video Destroy Billy Squier’s Career? (ultimateclassicrock.com)
The book I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks was also used for research.
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, then you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered