Rick Springfield - Human Touch

Our second All Hallows Even clip is Rick Springfield's "Human Touch."  This is Springfield's second appearance on ERV; his cover of Sammy Hagar's "I've Done Everything for You" was featured on our little blog way back in 2012.

"Human Touch" came in the midst of Rick Springfield's heyday - between 1981 and 1988 he had 16 top 40 hits and five top 40 albums.  Over time, we've come around on his work - there is a fair amount of solid pop rock songs in his catalog, including this one.  Helped by the slightly odd video, the song hit #18 on the charts, while the Living in Oz album reached #12 and would become the third of four consecutive Springfield albums to go platinum.

The apocalyptic sci-fi video starts with some small skeleton people wondering into a lab that contains Rick and ... a bunch of dancers, it seems.  The year: 2016. The world seems to be a total wasteland (sadly, Springfield might not have been that far off about 2016).  There is then a bunch of dancing, some computers, and a four eyed saxophonist (no, not with glasses ... but with four actual eyes).  The result is an odd but fun video, which is easily recognizable as an 80s clip (the special effects ... oh my).

The sci-fi elements, set, and costumes make this an excellent Halloween video, and we hope that our reader(s) enjoy it as much as we did.

Missing Persons - Destination Unknown

Well, it is the time of year where ERV rolls out some rare, spooky, and/or atmospheric videos - welcome to our 11th annual All Hallows Even celebration!

First up is Missing Persons' strong 1982 cut, "Destination Unknown."  Long time readers may recall that we featured Missing Persons' cool, artsy video for "Surrender Your Heart" back in 2012.  That entry also does a good job of providing some background on the band, so we'll politely suggest following the link.

"Destination Unknown" is one of Missing Persons older songs and was originally released on the band's 1980 EP (along with "I Like Boys," "Mental Hopscotch" and a cover of the Doors' "Hello, I Love You.")  It was also the second single released from the group's breakout 1982 LP, Spring Session M (unsurprisingly, "Words" was the first single).

From an All Hallows Even point of view, we dig the atmospheric video which feels somewhat dream-like.  Bonus points for the broken mirror, which is prominently featured in the clip. The video did manage to go into rotation on MTV for a time, though we don't think that it was featured quite as much as "Words" was.

While we suspected that Missing Persons could be a one hit wonder, they actually never had a top 40 hit.  "Words" and "Destination Unknown" both peaked at #42, thought the Spring Session M album (an anagram of the band's name) did better, reaching #17 on the charts.