Ever since the dawn of MTV and Friday Night Videos, the music video has significantly impacted musical tastes and pop culture. It might not be as extreme as when the Buggles declared that "Video Killed the Radio Star", but there is no arguing that the music video certainly could make or break a song's popularity. So this regular Flashback Video feature will serve to remember some of the music videos from the great '80s decade that made an impact on me in one way or another.
This issue we will cover "Fight For Your Right" by Beastie Boys. One of the group's best known songs was the fourth single released in December of 1986 from their debut album, Licensed to Ill. "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" is its full title and it would peak at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1987 (the same week the album reached #1 on the album chart). A great deal of the song's success could be due to the song's music video which received regular airplay on MTV.
The music video for "Fight For Your Right" was co-directed by Ric Menello and Adam Dubin. Menello was a friend of producer Rick Rubin and went on to also co-direct the Beastie Boys music video for "No Sleep till Brooklyn" as well as solo direct LL Cool J's "Going Back to Cali", Danzig's "Mother", MC Lyte's "Cappuccino" and Slick Rick's "Children's Story". Menello also wrote the screenplay for the Run-DMC feature film Tougher Than Leather. Dubin was Rubin's college roommate who also co-directed "No Sleep till Brooklyn" before going on to direct many other music videos & television specials in the '90s and beyond.
The music video for "Fight for Your Right" had a relatively small budget of $20,000 and just two days to shoot. It was filmed at the apartment of Sunny Bak, a female friend of the Beastie Boys. The video begins as a mother and father tell their two sons to stay out of trouble while they are away. When they leave, the two boys decide to have a party serving soda and pie and hoping "no bad people show up". Of course, this prompts the arrival of Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA at the party and the trio proceed to start all kinds of trouble within the house, such as chasing and kissing girls, starting fires, bringing more troublesome people into the house, spiking the punch, smashing things, and starting a massive pie fight. As the pie fight reaches its peak, the Beasties run away as the party became too out of hand even for them. As the video ends, the remaining partygoers shout along to the final chorus of "party!" before hitting the returning mother in the face with a pie. The mother was played by the real-life mother of co-director Ric Menello.
Here is the music video for "Fight For Your Right" by Beastie Boys...
It is reported that Menello had surprisingly taken his inspiration for the wild party scene from the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's including the guy with the eye patch. There are numerous cameos in this video in addition to Menello's mother, including an unknown-at-the-time Tabitha Soren (future MTV News reporter), artist Cey Adams, photographer Ricky Powell, members of the punk rock band Murphy's Law and the Beastie Boys' producer, Rick Rubin among others.
This video helped propel the Beastie Boys into mainstream popularity, but their music videos in the '90s proved to be much more prolific especially including "Sabotage" and "Intergalactic".
Hope you enjoyed another trip back to the '80s thanks to Flashback Video!