Hey Indaba, It's Monday and you know what that means: it's time to talk shop.  This week I want to talk about something I find rather amusing: lame music videos.  The art of the music video has been de-emphasized over the past decade as MTV has stopped playing them and major labels continue to lose money.  But there was a period in the late 90's and early 2000's when the expensive music video was the crown jewel in any band's empire.  And with big budgets and the overall cheesiness of that era came some epically corny music videos.  I've selected three that, to me, define the term corny.  I'll post them below and highlight the elements that corn-ify them to me.  Your job is to pick one as the worst or to suggest your own.  Let's get started...

Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life

• Takes place in largely CGI'd environment
• Features "futuristic" sport
• Dancing robots

Creed - Higher

• White tank top worn by singer
• Obviously fake concert footage glorifying the band
• Entirely shot in slow-mo
• Leather pants
• Clearly likening singer to Jesus
  

Smash Mouth - I Can't Get Enough of You Baby

• Pink hair
• Forced "retro" feel
• Synchronized high school dance

• Attempted "mesh" with film footage (in this case, "Can't Hardly Wait")
  
• Song break for singer to speak to another character in the video
  

So there you have it, my three favorite corny videos of that most cheesy era.  Can you do better?  Post a link in the comments or pick one of these three to "win."

The sweaty, drug-infused world of rock n' roll hardly brings to mind bucolic glades or arid deserts, so why do rock bands insist on making videos in such locations?  Let's take a look at some of the hysterically lame locations at which various rock bands have shot videos over the years. 

Desert

"November Rain" Guns n' Roses - Though dressed as a biker and, for all we know, native American, Slash looks about at home wailing in the desert as I look at home on a treadmill.  What's even more fun to think about is how Slash's solo must have sounded during filming, sans amplifier.  Just the fact that I can watch this without bursting out in laughter is testament to how badass Slash is but, as we will see in our next entry, not everyone is cool enough looking to pull off the ol' rocking-in-the-desert move. 

"Life is a Highway" Tom Cochrane - Taking a bold stance against his own song title, Tom Cochrane, the Canadian Bruce Springsteen, chose to shoot his video not on highways, but on little dirt backroads in the desert.  Notice again the popular "rocking outside a tiny church in the middle of nowhere" shot, which seemed to be standard issue for mid-90's music videos. 

Forrest

"Everything I Do" Brian Adams - Granted, this video had to be shot in the woods to fit in with the Robin Hood theme, but still, is there a more unnatural place for a band to play than the forrest?  I can't imagine Brian felt very good standing in front of a waterfall singing his ballad.  However, I am sure he was happy when he checked his bank account a few months later. 

"Hold On" Wilson Phillips - The three ladies of Wilson Phillips do double-duty emnarrassment with this video.  Not only do they rock it the forrest but they include a mountaintop and a beach, two additional cringe-inducing locations to sing.  AND there is snow on the mountain!  If you'e going to sing on a mountain, you had better make sure it is a bare rock mountain top, not one covered in trees and snow!  No wonder they didn't last.  Take it from an expert mountain-top rocker, snow is a no go. 

Underwater

"She Bangs" Ricky Martin - Perhaps the worst, lamest place to set a video is underwater and while Ricky Martin may not be a rocker, per se, his fame briefly reached the fevered pitch of that more associated with rock stars.  This video, one of the worst ever made, makes the fatal mistake of having Mr. Martin sing for a bit underwater.  Now, anyone who has gone swimming will let you know that nobody looks good underwater: your eyes are strange, your hair is wispy and you wear a subtle expression that suggests you're about to have a bathroom emergency.  Even when singing about how much she bangs, which I'm guessing Martin didn't really care about anyway, he can;t help but look stupid.