History Tid-Bit: The Anti-Video Music Video

The 80s were a time where music videos were the biggest thing. MTV actually showed music videos. Can you believe that? Teens everywhere would sit around all day watching music videos. They would either have the band playing along and trying their hardest to look cool with their long curly hair locks flowing behind them, or cheesy choreographed dance routines in tight spandex, or extravagantly made videos with the production values of a short film. Well, when the Replacements did a video from their song "Bastards of Young", what did they do?

They had a shot of the speakers playing the song the whole time. They were like...fuck convention. In the video for "The Ledge", they just had a shot of the band sitting around in a room with couches and chairs doing nothing in particular. Another video had them purposely not lip synching to the music and changing up instruments a few times throughout the song. It's pretty funny if you get the joke, and it's refreshing for a band to not take itself so seriously.

An interesting tid-bit takes place on January 18th, 1986, when The Replacements were the musical guest on SNL. It's notable because they were banned from SNL because of it. Why? Well, they showed up drunk as hell, bumbling around, and Westerberg dropped the F-bomb on TV audiences across the country. Of course, some say it's the best performance SNL ever had.

I'd show you the video of it but the network has taken down most SNL videos on sites. So far I haven't found it.