Billy Squier's Awful Rock Me Tonite Music Video That Ended His Career

Today we take a look at Billy Squier's awful music video for "Rock Me Tonite" that destroyed his career.

Billy Squier's Rock Me Tonite Music Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZvl2aqIyNg

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I want to thank one of my subscribers for suggesting this video topic. Now have you guys ever done something so cringe-worthy that you regret it? Chances are you probably didn't do it in front of millions of people on TV but one artist who did do something so cringe-worthy and awful was Billy Squier. What did he do? Well, it was so bad that he fired both of his managers and some credited it with ruining his career. Stay
tuned to find out in today's video what that was.

So back in the early 80s, Billy Squier was on top of the world and within two years he would release two massive records which would be top five hits including 1981's "Don't Say No" and the following year's "Emotions in Motion". Combined, both those records sold an astounding five million copies and Squier was soon playing sold-out arena shows. What should have been a huge career for the rest of the 80s came crashing down by 1984 when he released his fourth record Signs of Life. Initially, the album seemed to be a huge hit with the lead single "Rock Me Tonight", giving Squier a number-one hit on the rock charts and also proved to be a crossover hit peaking at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

If Squier did stop there with a single, he could have possibly had a much bigger career for the rest of the 80s but what came next was what some would consider a disastrous career move. Like with any singles that get released back then and even in today's world they normally get the video treatment and unfortunately for "Rock Me Tonight", the video was well awful and cringe-worthy. The video would be directed by Kenny Ortega who's probably best known for directing the High School Musical films.

The video is linked down below and shows Squier waking up in a bed sporting colourful and satin coloured sheets Squier then proceeds to prance around the room as he
gets dressed and then puts on a pink tank top over a white shirt. By the end of the video, he puts on a pink guitar to join his band in performing the song.

For the 2011 book, I Want My MTV the author focused on the network's early years. They interviewed over 400 people including artists, managers, filmmakers, record company executives and even employees of MTV and none could agree on the best MTV video of all time but there was a pretty big consensus that "Rock Me Tonight" was the worst music video of all time. In fact, there's an entire chapter in the book devoted to
discussing the video.

The video would make its debut on MTV and you would have thought that Billy Squier 's manager or someone would have stepped in and said maybe this isn't a good idea, we're not putting this video out, but remember guys and girls, hindsight is 2020 because if you look at the music charts in 1983 and 1984, it was full of bands who made cheesy
music videos. In some respects, Squier was just doing what other artists were doing as well. Just take a look at what was popular and cheesy at the time, including Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face", Paul Stanley and Kiss' clip for "Heavens on Fire" or REO Speedwagon in drag in "I Do Want to Know".

Squier original idea was to show himself getting ready for a show and he would be
paralleled by younger fans doing the same and then seeing them sneak out to
the show. Originally Squier wanted Bob Geraldi who worked on the Michael Jackson "Beat It" video to direct the shoot. Squier would have discussions with Geraldi who was excited about the idea at first but declined because he wanted a bigger budget for the video. Capitol Records, who was Squier label, wasn't into the idea of spending large amounts of money on music videos at the time, especially when compared to other labels.

With no director on board, Squier and his management team approached David
Mallet, who directed Billy Idol's video for "White Wedding". Mallet put together some storyboards but they were flatly rejected. Squier recalled the quick interaction he had with Mallet, telling an interviewer 'the first thing he showed me was a scene of me riding into a diner on a white horse. I was like 'get rid of him'."

Squier and the label were in a jam because they had already set a premiere date for the video on MTV and they hadn't even found a director yet. It would be director Kenny Ortega who happened to be a friend of Billie Squier girlfriend at the time who offered to direct the shoot. He was best known at that time for directing the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited" and he'd also worked with David Mallet on some of the choreography in
his videos.

Видео Billy Squier's Awful Rock Me Tonite Music Video That Ended His Career канала Rock N' Roll True Stories