They don't exist when you don't see them: George Michael - "Praying For Time"

Not having enough time to write reviews as often as I'd like, and being inspired by the fellow blogger EYE Listen To the Music, I decided to slightly broaden the scope of the blog - to keep it alive. From now on, I will also post my favorite music videos. Like I said, I have been inspired by EYE Listen To the Music blog, which I highly recommend as a source of carefully selected artistic music videos. The author of this blog has an exquisite taste for music video art. You may not like a particular song, but you'll surely appreciate the picture. Of course, it would be pointless to simply copy her blog, so I will use different selection criteria. Her blog is focused on recent videos and I will try to present mainly my favorites from the classical (for music videos) period of '80s and '90s. Further, I will post not only the greatest videos, because the priority for me is music, so occasionally you'll find a mediocre video for a great song. Very rarely I may post the opposite - a great video for a mediocre song - if I decide this was a real milestone for this genre of visual art. Well, enough with this explanation. I forgot I don't have any readers anyhow. Except for myself. So, off we go! The obvious choice would be to start with Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles, the first music video shown on the then brand new TV channel MTV (yes, they played music back then - this rumor is actually true). And not because I want to copy MTV, but because of its prophetic lyrics. But being obvious is the last thing on my mind. I always preferred being original, so I chose a different video. Much different. A video of the artist tired of people interested in his image rather than his music. People who did not really listen to what he actually had to say. For this artist, releasing in 1990 - in the middle of the golden era of MTV - the music video you are just about to see, was the act of suicidal bravery. And despite that, the single promoted with this video went on to become the no. 1 in the US and many more countries. He proved that what really matters is the music itself. Well done. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Mr. George Michael!

George Michael - "Praying For Time" Apparently, after a legal battle with Fucking Sony Music, George lost rights to use the above video, because now his official YouTube/VEVO webpage features a remake of this video with a different font and a different flow of words / verses. Oh, I just love how the major record labels screw their artists, at the same time pretending they are representing their interests. Fuck you, Sony! I boycott Sony anyhow because of their virus-infecting infamous scandal, but if not for that, this could be another pretty good reason. What? You say the case has been wholly rejected? Oh yes. The judge held that Michael's contracts were reasonable and fair, especially because the terms were comparable to the industry standard. I couldn't agree more... Screwing their artists is their industry standard up to this day and one should be aware of that when deciding to sign that devil's pact. *** And now for something not completely different. If you like music video art, you may be also interested in my other blog, where I present a selection of interesting (in my opinion) short films: http://justmakeitshort.blogspot.com/.