A little over a year ago, I remember the mini-explosion of excitement as then reigning X-Factor winner Leona Lewis released her soon-to-be #1 single “Bleeding Love”. The video experienced some of the same troubles that Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” has seen this week (video leaks, quickly yanked by YouTube), but people were eating it up. For those of you who never saw the British version, here ya go:
I made the mistake of commenting on a post about how it would only be a matter of time before the U.S. record company would decide to re-shoot the video, and you would have sworn that I had shot Leona’s dog and hung it out in the town square. You probably know where this is going, though. Four months later:
There’s actually a long line of “alternate” versions of videos, dating back to the early days of the video revolution. For example, can anyone say “relax, don’t do it?” Video #1 for Frankie Goes To Hollywood featured what can best be described as a leather bar/sex club setting. Fun for the whole family, eh?
A second Godley and Creme version popped up that was strictly performance, but played off the whole “laser beams” line in the song:
Version 3 was filmed by Brian DePalma in conjunction with the movie “Body Double”. Watch out for the up-and-coming starlet toward the end of the clip [corrected from original post]:
Finally, for those of us in America who came to the party late (no pun intended), there was this chaotic live performance that utilized just a brief amount of the original video at the very beginning:
So what inspired this post? Well, last year, the Ting Tings released the brilliant “We Started Nothing”, and a highlight for me was “That’s Not My Name”. Here’s the original video:
Fun video, but not much to it. Now that the Tings are making a full-court press at breaking the U.S. market, they’ve booked a club tour (Denver in April, yay!), and now they’ve completed one of the final components of success: a new video.
There are many of these alternate version videos along the highway of pop music history. What’s your favorite?
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Pop Music Notes 
I’m not sure about my favourite but the worst video makeover of all time has to be Robyn’s “Handle Me”. The Swedish original was brimming with wit and good humour (love the whole riding a bike through the ghetto in an evening dress), while the UK version was as boring as it was pretentious. Robyn in a box with an ugly haircut. Riveting.
ooo now i’m stumped – though i remember wishing that there was a video of Electric Youth that focused more on the dance routine when i was a teen. God, no wonder books and JAson Donovan posters were my best friends…
I had no idea how many videos were out there for “Relax”. Now that you mention it thought, yeah, I do remember seeing these. Funny how they tried to “butch up” Holly there. Didn’t quite work out did it?
Great post– however, I have to let you know that the third video you’ve posted for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” is not the actual video for the song, but a clip from De Palma’s BODY DOUBLE. De Palma actually directed a separate video for the song that uses the same premise (set), but includes more shots of the band singing the song and looking through a telescope, etc. It also includes a hilarious parody of FLASHDANCE. Check it out here:
Mike, it’s probably one of the few missteps Robyn has made (besides not releasing new material for so long).
Paul, didn’t we all?
Yuri, I think they got a different kind of butch out of it.
Geoff, thanks so much for the correction. I’ve updated the post.
Worse video makeover: Madonna’s redo of “American Life.” Such blatant pandering.
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