For Your Pleasure

20th August 2010

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.38 Special Video Retrospective

I’ve always loved .38 Special, but if one asks me to rattle off some of my favorite bands, they are bound to be unjustly omitted. It’s not an attempt to keep my love of them a secret; that’s just ludicrous. They’re from Florida, after all. So, why is it that unless I hear “Caught Up in You” or “Hold on Loosely” in an immediate context, I don’t lay claim to my ardent fervor for these southern rock outlaws?

After viewing their videography, I’ve concluded that this is because the members of .38 Special are not visually arresting in any way.They’re just dudes—dudes with abundant facial hair and Stetson hats—but dudes nonetheless. It is surprising to me that .38 Special even have actual videos.

 I tend to form initial attachments to bands based on their aesthetic choices. Yes, I have to like the songs, but it doesn’t hurt if you wear zebra leggings, leotards, a zebra legging and leotard combo while doing aerodynamic splits, writhe around shirtless with a bloodied torso, wear velvet suits and feather capes, go naked, look like Nuno Bettencourt, or just really tart it up by utilizing the entire make-up counter at Rite-aid. It is easier to create a world around a song if the band, essentially, acts as a prop for your rock-n-roll fantasy. Would I really get amped when hearing “Looks That Kill” if I couldn’t cull some of the post-apocalyptic glam from the Crue’s video and blend that with some vague fire-n-brimstone nonsense, a strong sense memory of my last hangover, and some long-harbored fantasies about Sunset Strip groupiedom?

.38 Special refuse to cater to my superficial desires and yet I love them just as I do Van Halen or Duran Duran. In particular instances: Maybe even more. They make me expend effort on creating a narrative, a backstory, an ethos for their band. While I am an active participant in the stories of other bands, they dictate most of the key elements. With .38 Special, they let you choose your own adventure as long as it is a southern-fried adventure involving whiskey and girls—which is the best kind.

The videos of .38 Special mostly consist of the fellows playing their instruments on-stage. However, in a few instances, an actual story is being told. A story that has characters, a plot, a denouement. This is some sophisticated territory for the lads of .38 Special and on a few occasions, they barely pull it off. Still, join me as we enter the oft forgotten and rarely seen videos of a southern-cum-arena rock band of the 80s that we all love—even if we just now realized it.