Category: Classic Music Videos

I Can’t Remember What Was Said or What You Threw at Me: Frank the Tank’s Week 1 BlogPoll Ballot, Parlay Picks and Classic Music Video of the Week

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Classic Music Videos, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports293 Comments

With the return of college football on Thursday night, here’s the season premiere of the weekly post combining my SBNation BlogPoll ballot, parlay picks for 3 games each for college and the NFL (including every Illinois and Bears game) and a classic music video (heavily tilted toward old school rap, ’80s trash rock and ’90s one-hit wonders as always).  Let’s get to it:

(1) BlogPoll Ballot

Nothing too crazy here, as evidenced by the fact that I ranked #2 out of more than 100 voters in the “Mr. Dumb Existence” category for having a low standard deviation between my personal ballot and the overall poll.  I feel pretty good that any of the top 5 can make it to the national championship game (look at Florida State’s schedule and tell me that they can’t run the table there) while it’s more of a crapshoot afterwards.

(2) Parlay Picks (odds from Yahoo! and home teams in CAPS)

Navy (+15.5) over Notre Dame (in the land of Guiness) – These schools will be completely out of their element overseas, which means that this is way too large of a spread for my tastes.

Western Michigan (+10) over ILLINOIS – I don’t know what it is, but Illinois always sleepwalks against the Broncos.  Being a Chicago and Illini sports fan, I’ve accumulated a lot of rooting scar tissue over the years and the Illinois loss to WMU at Ford Field in 2008 is up there in terms of sheer horror.  I’ll be down in Champaign with my wife and twins for this one, so I hope I’m wrong here.

AUBURN (+3.5) over Clemson – Clemson has a habit of burning gamblers in high profile openers.  I’d take a solid SEC home team and the points.

(3) Classic Music Video of the Week: “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit

This song from my college days has held up fairly well over the years, but its video in particular has held a special place in my heart since the main feature of the town that I grew up in (Glenwood, Illinois) was its old school bowling alley that circulated the same nicotine-tinged air from the 1950s through its closing in 2008.  R.I.P., Glenwood Bowl.

Enjoy the sweet smell of a brand new football season and your Labor Day weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Poison – Bell Biv Devoe

On By Frank the TankIn Classic Music Videos, MusicLeave a comment

The high-top fade haircut may or may not ever come back, but I’ve been on a personal mission to keep “The Running Man” dance move alive for the past 15 years. There’s no better way to honor the memory of the patriarchs of the East Coast Family.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: The 12 Days of Christmas – John Denver and the Muppets

On By Frank the TankIn Classic Music Videos, Music, Television3 Comments

Reason number 1,015 to be thankful this holiday season for YouTube: Getting to see footage of “John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together” for the first time since my family’s old VHS copy of the iconic TV special became too scratched two decades ago.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to Everyone!

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Warm It Up – Kriss Kross

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Classic Music Videos, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Music, Sports1 Comment

Although most people remember “Jump” as the preeminent Kriss Kross tune, the “Warm It Up” video is significant on a few levels. First, this particular video was the genesis of the fad of kids wearing their clothes backwards. This trend became so pervasive when I was in junior high that the school district actually had to enact a written policy to ban people from wearing their clothes backwards, which is bona fide proof that I grew up in the ‘hood. However, I’ll have to admit that my old Blackhawks Starter jacket looked pretty bad-ass turned around.

This leads into my second point, which is that this video encapsulates how important it was during those first couple of years of the 1990s to have the right Starter jackets and jerseys. (For more insight on this, Peter Schrager of Fox Sports wrote an fantastic post a couple of months ago on Deadspin regarding his purchase of a New York Giants Starter jacket as a youngster.) The type of Starter wear that you had directly correlated with your social status in school. It would have been simple enough if everyone could just buy a Bulls or Raiders Starter jacket (the coolest teams to have at the time), but at least at Brookwood Junior High School, having the same Starter jacket as someone else was a fashion faux paus on the same level as two girls wearing the exact same dress to prom. My Blackhawks Starter jacket ended up being a solid choice since it represented a hometown team that wasn’t overexposed (or, in today’s case, not exposed at all) while having same color scheme as the Bulls. Plus, the logo supposedly gave me street cred since, as I was informed after my purchase, the markings on the Native American’s forehead look like the Folks gang sign (there really ought to be warning labels for these types of things for ignorant half-Asian/half-white guys such as myself).

Finally, as anyone that remembers this video understands, this was also the first time much of America’s youth was exposed to Chief Illiniwek. The Illini need more recruiting tools like this one.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Mo Money Mo Problems – Notorious B.I.G. feat. the Artist Formerly Known as Puff Daddy and Mase

On By Frank the TankIn Classic Music Videos, Music1 Comment

It’s weird to think of “Mo Money Mo Problems” as a “classic” music video, yet it has already been over 9 years since the single hit the charts. In my opinion, this was one of the last great videos before MTV went completely toward the reality show realm (which hasn’t necessarily been a negative development for me – I could watch “Next”, “Parental Control”, and “Date My Mom” on a continuous loop), with Biggie Smalls’ posthumous appearance and the introduction of the Shiny Pants Era of Hip-Hop. Plus, there’s a time capsule-esque quality with the references to the Tiger Woods-Fuzzy Zoeller dispute that was fresh on everyone’s minds at the time. So long fried rice, hello fried chicken!

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: I Wish – Skee Lo

On By Frank the TankIn Classic Music Videos, Music2 Comments

In commemoration of my high school class reunion, here’s an underrated song from my graduation year of 1996. I’m sure Skee Lo reflects a lot of the insecurities that we went through during that time in our lives.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)

Frank the Tank’s Classic Music Video of the Week: Sweet Child O’ Mine – Guns N’ Roses

On By Frank the TankIn Classic Music Videos, MusicLeave a comment

This week’s classic music video was spurred on by a couple of things. First, Slash has been plastered over the airwaves lately in his new Volkswagen commercial. (I always love how car companies believe that you can be enticed to plunk down $30,000 or more for a car by throwing in a guitar or iPod that you can buy for a couple of hundred bucks on your own.) Second, I received an email ad this past week for the new Guns N’ Roses (which at this point consists of Axl Rose and a bunch of former roadies) Chinese Democracy concert tour. Receiving an email ad about a concert tour certainly isn’t in and of itself unusual, but the fact that it came from the Major League Baseball mailing list definitely threw me for a loop. After investigating this, it turns out that Guns N’ Roses has entered into a strategic partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised that Bud Selig has agreed to determine which league gets home field advantage for the World Series based upon the city where Axl gets arrested next. Regardless, no matter how far the mighty have fallen, this song still rules.

(This and a ton of other clips are on the Frank the Tank Channel on YouTube.)