Videos like "The Pretender"?

January 28, 2008 4:31 PM

What music videos depict the band somehow defeating an enemy with the power of their music? The Foo Fighters' recent "The Pretender" video brought the question to mind, but I know it's a frequently used idea. What other videos used this theme?

The original Foo Fighters video can be see on Youtube. Songs that describe this happening are worth a point or two as well. Thanks in advance for your memories, which are apparently better than mine.

posted by mdbell79 to media & arts (31 comments total)

Tenacious D, "Tribute" (not the original video)
posted by Optimus Chyme at 4:34 PM on January 28

How about a feature movie?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:35 PM on January 28

What about I Believe in a Thing Called Love, by The Darkness?
posted by hue at 4:43 PM on January 28

How's War Photographer, by Jason Forrest? It's rather obscure, but vikings & power rangers and a musical duel, oh my!
posted by Lemurrhea at 4:45 PM on January 28

Also, don't know if Walkie Talkie Man, by Steriogram would count. Just at the very end, though.
posted by hue at 4:46 PM on January 28

Intergalatic
posted by prostyle at 4:48 PM on January 28

Breakin' the Law depicts something like that. The band is using the power of Rob Halford's voice to neutralize guards and strikes power chords to open a vault. The "enemy" they are defeating is a bank, and in possible interpretations, The Man.
posted by ignignokt at 5:00 PM on January 28

In Peaches by the Presidents of the United States, they actually fight ninjas. It might be close enough to suit your purposes.
posted by Atreides at 5:00 PM on January 28

We're Not Gonna Take It
posted by poppo at 5:03 PM on January 28

It's a bit of a stretch, but the Decembrists' Sixteen Military Wives sort of works--it's set during a high-school model U.N., but bellicose U.S. ambassador (Colin Melloy) is put in his place by the delegates of all the other nations, who bust out with musical instruments to play the tail end of the song (which is great).
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:06 PM on January 28

High Enough by 80's supergroup Damn Yankees. Ted Nugent stops bullets with the sheer force of his rocking (tm Patton Oswalt) at about the three minute mark.
posted by gnomeloaf at 5:12 PM on January 28

Pat Benatar in "Love Is a Battlefield." (Although does she defeat the enemy with her music, or by virtue of her awesome :::snort::: dancing?)
posted by Oriole Adams at 5:14 PM on January 28

U2's Elevation video has them defeating their evil counterparts with their music while being badly inserted into the original Tomb Raider film as part of the official soundtrack.

Still, quite pretty nonetheless.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 5:18 PM on January 28

U2's Elevation has them engaging in super-hero-ish antics.
posted by The Deej at 5:22 PM on January 28

Another feature movie by the self-proclaimed "greatest rock band in the world" Guitar Wolf.
posted by razorian at 5:24 PM on January 28

Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi features Lordi themselves first killing the pert cheerleaders and then transferring their awesome arockalypse power to the dark-haired punk girl so she may continue the slaughter of the enemy prep kids.
posted by oflinkey at 5:30 PM on January 28

Shonen Knife's video for Riding the Rocket features the band shooting lasers out of their guitars at a giant monster, which then explodes in a rain of candy.
posted by Item at 5:30 PM on January 28

Rock 'n' Roll High School is another movie with this theme. It's a Corman pic, so you can basically skip everything until the end of the movie where the Ramones actually show up, badly lip-sync the song, and cause all sorts of anti-establishment mayhem.
posted by mkultra at 5:34 PM on January 28

Dude! Take On Me! He even saved Chris Griffin!
posted by The Bellman at 5:51 PM on January 28

Great stuff so far, guys! I thought Damn Yankees had a video like that, but it was buried pretty deep and I couldn't have even guessed at the name of the song.
posted by mdbell79 at 5:54 PM on January 28

This is not technically a real music video, but in Metalocalypse, one of the characters (Skwisgaar Skwigelf) fights dragons by shooting lasers out of his guitars. It's in the introduction to "Skwisklok" -- listed here.
posted by spiderskull at 6:43 PM on January 28

Here's the Patton Oswalt bit (YouTube audio). I think he'll be pretty pleased that the Foo Fighters are bringing it back.
posted by abcde at 6:59 PM on January 28

Yet another feature movie.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:06 PM on January 28

Twisted Sister - We're Not Gonna Take It
posted by clh at 11:17 PM on January 28

Prince's video for his song "7" has this motif, and even features a microphone shaped like a gun, to make the corny point more explicit.
posted by anildash at 11:26 PM on January 28

The video for Survivalism by NIN features the same theme but with the opposite result, where a band's music is insufficient to defeat an oppressive government regime.
posted by headlessagnew at 12:08 AM on January 29

In Experiment IV by Kate Bush both the song and video tell the story of the military developing a song for use as a weapon that evetually turns against the scientists that created it.
posted by saucysault at 2:48 AM on January 29

"Walk this way"? "Earth song"?
posted by iviken at 6:33 AM on January 29

U2 "Where the streets have no name", although the "enemy" stop the concert at the end of the video.
posted by iviken at 6:42 AM on January 29

The Flaming Lips sort of act this one out in Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, though that might be kind of a stretch. (See especially "Fight Test".)
posted by fiercecupcake at 6:57 AM on January 29

Wave Twisters?
posted by small_ruminant at 4:07 PM on January 29