Friday Night Videos: Berlin - The Metro

 Greetings 80s music video fanatics. Join me as we take a synth driven ride with Princess Leia through the subway.

I'll explain what that all means in a minute.

Way back in 1983 this Space Cowboy bought a cassette tap called Pleasure Victim by the Los Angeles based band Berlin. Over the next year or so I played the heck out of that sucker. I mean that I would pop into my Walkman play both sides, put in a another cassette (most likely Learning To Crawl by The Pretenders) and once it was done, back in would it would go.

If I had a dollar for every time I listened to that album I would be typing this out from my mansion in Martha's Vineyard ... which was actually discovered by one of my descendants.

True story.

Now I would like to say that my love for Berlin stemmed from such awesome synth pop tracks like The Metro and not for what the song Sex (I'm A...) did to puberty ridden brain. 

I'm not sure. That was a long time ago.

So lets get our mind out of the gutter and enjoy The Metro:

 

History:

 The song was first released as a non-album single, "The Metro" b/w "Tell Me Why", on the MAO Music label in 1981. It reappeared, slightly remixed, on Berlin's breakthrough album Pleasure Victim, released on the independent label Enigma in 1982 and re-released on Geffen in 1983. In May 1983, "The Metro" was re-released as the third single from the album, and the second to appear on the Geffen label. It was produced and engineered (as was most of the album) by the band's then-drummer and drum programmer, Daniel Van Patten. 

 The Berlin recording is known for epitomizing the new wave genre as a blending of punk rock and pop, with heavy use of the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer. Terri Nunn said the song, which was a breakthrough hit for Berlin, "defined us and defined that period of music." 

 The song's music video was their first MTV hit, in heavy rotation on the young channel in its second and third years. Directed by Dominic Orlando, it was filmed in 1983 at GMT Studios in West Los Angeles, California. Terri Nunn only sang two lyrics on camera: "I remember hating you for loving me" and "Sorry". The video became a part of the Berlin Video 45 Geffen-VHS home video, released in 1984.

I always post a bonus video so is Masquerade:

 

That was actually the first time I ever saw that video.

I actually found a video for Sex, which I also had never seen before. I would have shared it, but while watching it I felt like I was going through puberty again. I'm only going through that once!

Oh, I need to explain my opening statement about 'taking a synth driven ride with Princess Leia through the subway.'

Berlin singer Terri Nunn had an acting career back in the 70s and 80s and had parts on TV shows like Vega$, Lou Grant and T.J. Hooker. She also tried out for a little space western called Star Wars. Ultimately she lost out to Carrie Fisher by a nose.

Nothing against Fisher but I wonder what Nunn would have looked like in a metal bikini?

Ut-oh ... here come those awkward feelings again.

I'm off for a cold shower and glass of rye.

Check Out:

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