Although previous music movies persist on-line, and new ones are nonetheless popping out immediately, the shape’s cultural cachet waxed and waned with that of the community fashioned to broadcast them. Pulling up no matter you need on YouTube is simply not the identical as enduring 2 hours of “Steal My Sunshine” and “Who Let the Canine Out” since you’re hoping to see “November Rain” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” MTV was nice however typically it performed Russian roulette together with your soul.

The medium has now crossed 3 generations, however music movies stay a uniquely Gen X and elder Millennial assemble. Bizarre amalgamations of artwork home movies starring non-actors and commercials promoting intercourse. The advertising and marketing technique was to get children sexy, I assume, so we’d purchase albums.

It labored.

We grew up watching 22-minute commercials disguised as cartoons that have been created by toy firms; as youngsters, we graduated to the identical system on a unique channel. I really look again fondly on the commercials that aired on the time (“Is that freedom rock, man?”) as a result of they have been nearly indistinguishable from the content material. We have been at all times being bought to.

I really feel no disgrace in admitting I’d by no means heard of Danzig till one fateful, forgotten day within the 90s. On the time, I used to be solely actually focused on rap. Music movies legitimately expanded my pursuits by exposing me to new stuff.

So possibly it’s not thought-about cool to love Danzig or “Mom”—I posted on Notes about penning this piece and somebody known as Danzig ‘poseurs’—however no matter. This music rocks. Nevertheless it was the music video that made me put down my Massive Gulp.

The “Danzig – Mom 93 Dwell” video makes use of a remixed model of the unique 1988 launch. It’s additionally the music’s second music video. That’s proper—“Mom” is so superior it merited two movies. The primary options quasi-satanic rituals interspersed with excessive close-ups of frontman Glenn Danzig’s face. Identical music, horrible video. Which is partly why “Mom” didn’t enter the charts till 5 years after its debut, when “Danzig – Mom 93 Dwell” propelled it there.

Okay, that’s sufficient backstory. Let’s get into it.

Right here’s the video in query. I’d suggest watching it first, after which studying the remainder of this. However you do you.

0:00: We open with a black display screen and two seconds of silence. I really feel compelled to marvel why. What’s Danzig attempting to say to us, by saying nothing in any respect?

Are they symbolizing the vacancy of life, or maybe commenting on the vapid nature of movie star? Is it an abridged second of silence for the unique “Mom” music video?

Solely Danzig is aware of.

0:02: That guitar riff kicks in. If you realize “Mom,” you realize the one I’m referring to. It’s the identical chord I hear after I speed up to six mph over the velocity restrict.

The guitar performs over a mindless blur of visuals: a crowd gathered in a hazy area; Glenn Danzig’s silhouette; youngsters in blue face paint; headbangers, and extra headbangers.

0:17: Our first lyric: “Mom,” which doubles because the music’s title and may also be learn as a private plea by Glenn to his personal mom. Perhaps he desires to ask her in regards to the children who hold exhibiting up at his gigs with blue faces.

We get fleeting glimpses of Glenn as he sings the opening stanza. The music video is taking part in coy, maintaining our protagonist partly screened by smoke and mirrors. What we see grounds us for what’s to come back, however can also be not sufficient to arrange us.

Shirtless, whipping his hair about as if he’s in a shampoo industrial, Glenn asks the eponymous mom to not let her kids stroll his method. I agree—we don’t need an epidemic of shirtless kids hip-thrusting the air; COVID was dangerous sufficient.

He makes one other request: don’t let the kids hear his phrases. Glenn understands the facility he wields, and doesn’t achieve this frivolously.

0:28: The primary actual have a look at our hero is startling.

He’s constructed like a brick shit home.

Granted, Glenn is just 5’3”. He most likely weighs 150. I haven’t been that small because the fifth grade. He tasks a lot taller within the video as a result of most of it’s shot wanting up, as if from the gang. It’s the identical method Peter Jackson used pressured perspective to make The Lord of the Rings, besides this time Frodo is taller than Gandalf, and in addition a shirtless piece of beef.

I don’t make a behavior of wanting on the physiques of male rockstars. Simply not my bag, child. However Glenn forces you to reckon along with his physique. He’s not the primary rockstar to prowl round shirtless, however he’s the primary to appear to be he by accident ripped via his shirt by flexing too exhausting.

0:35: The music is superimposed over live performance footage, which makes the sound too crisp but additionally excellent. Most reside live performance songs are not so good as the studio lower. They simply aren’t, if for no different motive than crowd noise is a detriment. Right here we get one of the best of each worlds: A clear studio recording and the visceral thrill of a reside crowd.

One bizarre aspect impact: As a result of the sound doesn’t precisely match up with the video, it usually seems like Glenn is lip-syncing.

0:43: Glenn glistening, his hair a soppy mess.

Watching “Mom,” you innately perceive that this music video smells like sweat, burnt ozone, stale cigarettes, and Proper Guard.

0:45: The music has been slowly constructing this entire time. It’s the feeling originally of a curler coaster, when the regular clink-clink of the elevate chain turns into each background noise and a countdown to the journey’s true starting.

We’re right here now, ratcheting ever larger.

0:48: Nonetheless constructing.

You possibly can simply inform the crescendo is gonna kill. I hope the album got here with cautionary warnings for the aged, pregnant, and other people with coronary heart situations.

This music is a drive of nature. Not even Glenn, the music’s creator and the artist via whom we expertise the storm, is immune. He violently double fist pumps because the intro nears its apex.

Clearly the legion of guards are there to guard the gang from Glenn’s contortions.

1:00: We’ve arrived. The music has crested and is hurtling us ahead, probably towards our personal destruction, if Glenn’s cautionary lyrics are to be taken for reality.

We don’t care. “Mom” has us in its grip.

Glenn is now punching the air along with his palms and his crotch concurrently. We haven’t seen such revolutionary use of a dancing crotch since “Beat It.”

This second is so nuts, I’ve recorded it for posterity through the magic of GIF know-how.

1:03: LMAO. A dude will get completely yeeted off the stage.

Given every little thing Glenn is throwing round, it’s clearly for the child’s personal security. He’s higher off being solid right into a crowd of headbangers than spend one other second on stage with Glenn.

1:15: Shout out to Silhouette Boy.

Anyone can headbang and throw horns. This man took it to the following degree. Think about asking your folks to carry you up by the hip so you can too thrash together with your toes.

It’s factor Glenn doesn’t see this child. He doesn’t want any concepts.

1:25: Glenn is now sporting two boxing gloves, and it seems like he’s bought a mouthguard in too. I don’t know find out how to learn this or react to it, which sums up the expertise of watching the music video. It’s a blur of pictures and sensations that depart you reeling, mindless, as if you’re being pummeled.

Perhaps the boxing gear is smart in spite of everything. It’s a metaphor, for these prepared to look. Danzig out right here taking part in 4D chess.

1:26: I name this part, “The guards earn their hold.” Youngsters are carried off stage and thrown again into the gang. Some get shut sufficient to high-five Glenn. Others leap again into the gang of their very own volition, most likely out of concern after getting too near Glenn’s thrusting hips.

I think about working safety at one among these live shows has gotta be nuts. There’s someplace between 8-12 guards on stage, a skinny yellow line in entrance of all that boisterous humanity. It looks like each too many guards and never almost sufficient as “Mom” ignites the plenty.

1:39: Glenn has on a mesh tank prime, which someway appears like much less garments than being shirtless.

Btw, now’s pretty much as good a time as any to speak about his belt buckle, which is obscene in each sense of the phrase. Huge, horned, demonic, it makes Glenn’s air-humping much more violent. It jogs my memory of Randall Flagg from The Stand, a demon whose penis is hooked or has enamel or one thing; the purpose is—it’s a weapon, and it hurts.

That buckle has gotta add a number of kilos to the belt, which makes all that hip motion much more spectacular. No marvel Glenn is so ripped! He’s continually understanding simply strolling round with that factor on.

1:42: Pictures of the non-Danzig members of Danzig. They appear to be each different 90s period rocker you’ve ever seen: lengthy hair, facial hair, black leather-based. They’re rock star cliches delivered to life.

The video hasn’t even been taking part in for 2 minutes and already Glenn Danzig has reoriented our thought of what a rock star ought to appear to be: chiseled gods with a faint whiff of Japanese European gangster.

what would’ve been superior? If it was revealed that Glenn was really all the opposite band members in disguise. Not possible, clearly. Nevertheless it’d be hilarious, and underscore the premise that Glenn is working on one other degree.

2:06: Glenn begins high-fiving the entrance row. He additionally throws a punch. The digicam cuts away earlier than the punch lands.

Individuals dying of drug overdoses is a part of the music enterprise; individuals dying after taking a proper cross from the lead singer just isn’t.

2:16: Compulsory guitar solo. It’s brief however very candy.

Since he performs no instrument—you can appropriately say he is an instrument—Glenn pulls out all his tips throughout the solo: whipping his hair, punching the air, and mingling with the gang, earlier than ending with a patented transfer the place he flings again an elbow as if he’s beginning a garden mower. Explaining it makes it sound dumb, however man, it seems fucking cool.

When you requested Glenn about his strikes, I doubt he’d be capable of clarify what or why. He’s seized by the music. Who hasn’t been there.

2:40: Glenn lifting his arms in triumph.

Although the music isn’t but executed, his work is. He’s impressed a crowd of younger males to present themselves over to his message. They’ve stormed the stage and been thrown again, and but they nonetheless hold coming.

2:56: A last montage to ship us on our method. In some way, extremely, Glenn nonetheless has one thing left within the tank. Lot of nice headbanging, together with one second the place he stands on the fringe of the stage and bangs with each heads.

3:08: A fleeting glimpse of a young person within the crowd. He’s wanting immediately into the digicam—into my soul—as he offers horns. In the meantime, Glenn is screaming, “Mommmaaaaa,” nevertheless it appears like “Momwawwww,” which extremely makes it even higher. Paired with the child reaching in the direction of the digicam, it is a fantastic second of synchronicity. It appears like an elemental craving for one thing indescribable.

3:17: With no less than three totally different backward flips of his head, Glenn ushers the music to its conclusion. It’s an odd movement, abrupt and violent.

I simply realized what it seems like: When wrestlers stomp on a downed opponent and theatrically throw again their higher physique to promote the parable that they’re actually bringing the damage. The distinction—Glenn really introduced the fireplace.

3:23: In a mirror of the music’s starting, the tip is full silence. The ultimate picture is of 1 final child getting tossed again into the gang, which feels acceptable.

The music is over and we, too, are solid again to lives that immediately really feel boring.

Though I’ve put over 2500 phrases into this, I’m having a tough time describing the sum of the “Mom 93 Dwell” expertise in its wake.

It’s a blistering tour of the senses that transcends phrases. A journey finest taken by viewing Glenn Danzig as an avatar. I’ve by no means double fist pumped whereas thrusting my crotch towards a crowd, however watching Glenn do it, I really feel like I’ve. And I assume that’s why I first gravitated to this video, why it’s caught in my mind for 30+ years, and why I periodically come again.

Watching Glenn lose his shit is aspirational. He’s communing with music in a method I like as a result of his funding is full. He doesn’t care that he seems goofy. And since he doesn’t care, he doesn’t look goofy.

The video pulses with chaotic power. Every part Glenn’s doing. The group in a feeding frenzy. The no-nonsense guards actually throwing individuals off the stage. Our bodies in movement in every single place: flying, thrashing, thrusting, headbanging. It’s loopy, innocent enjoyable. The sort we used to have with out realizing what a privilege it was.

A number of instances throughout the music, Glenn asks if we wish to bang heads with him.

Sure, Glenn. We clearly do.

Simply level that crotch someplace else.