TERMINAL MEGALOMANIA ON VIDEO

Relatives won’t come over anymore to watch your home movies and vacation slides? No problem! Just sell a zillion records, then package those precious mementoes in the form of a rock video. Not only your distant cousins, but most of the teen-agers in america will sit transfixed as the darned things get splashed across 19-inch screens everywhere.

That’s the message that seems to come from Phil Collins and Paul Young, two finalists for the all-time video hall of shame. Both of these overachiever British crooners have transcended the benign egomania of the boring lip-synced concert video and graduated to the terminal megalomania of the boring look-at-me-doing-nothing-in-particular video. That’s entertainment.

Collins and Young scrape the bottom of the barrel in this roundup of current pop video clips, rated on a 0-100 scale.

Vid clips picked to click:

Iam Siam’s “She Went Pop.� Director: Zbigniew Rybczynski. Falling starlets abound in this fatalistic but fun fable of an actress’ rise and rapid decline. In his best clip in ages, Oscar-winner Rybczynski does his usual quick cuts and dissolves--between no fewer than 48 different models--to create one homogenous, doomed composite of a gorgeous female star destined for the silver screen and a coroner’s investigation.

If you thought “The Color Purple� gave the male gender a bad name, get a load of this hyperkinetic montage: A pack of business-suited men teaches a little girl how to use lipstick, tries to collectively jump in the sack with her when she’s grown up, and gleefully watches as she succumbs to stardom, substance abuse and death. Whew! All this is set to a bouncy ditty that sounds like a a wiseacre ABBA anthem. The clip’s most amusing, arresting and haunting image is a procession of models singing while stretching out in neon dead-body outlines, as if trying them on for size. 84

Pete Townshend’s “Give Blood.� Director: Keefco. Townshend has overcome the performance-video jinx by giving a real performance. No lip-syncing here--it’s an entirely live, new version of the song that neatly expands on the recorded rendition (from the “White City� album) without completely overshadowing it. Let’s hope there’s a full-length concert videotape where this came from.

The concert footage doesn’t especially flatter Townshend--he looks a bit gaunt and quite tired and sweaty--but that only adds to its sense of immediacy, and he does get a good jump or two in toward the end. Townshend is joined not only by a horn section and a female chorus but a male chorus, not to mention David Gilmour contributing some tasty guitar licks. Performers who can hack it would be wise to give up their air guitars and go this live route more often. 81

Stan Ridgway’s “Drive She Said.� Director: Andrew Doucette. Ridgway’s amusing tale of a taxi driver hijacked by a glamorous female bank robber easily lends itself to filmic interpretation. Every line is so constructed with an ear toward visual imagery that the listener can produce a video in his own mind without ever having to turn on the tube.

Rather than capitalize on that, though, Ridgway has avoided a too-literal interpretation, keeping his first solo video fairly minimalist. The result is a surreal mini- film noir --shot in super-8, mostly in black and white, with odd editing effects--that offers gobs of intrigue, if almost as much repetition. We see only teasing glimpses of the spider woman in the back seat as Stan, after a fleeting dream of sharing in his seductive passenger’s new-found riches, accepts his fate with amusing existential aplomb and plenty of cigarette smoke to get rid of the perfume smell. 67

Pat Benatar’s “Le Bel Age.� Director: Jim Yukich. In one of the strangest and most watchable mainstream videos to come down the pike in a while, Benatar has only a supporting role--as does her song, for that matter. The main action centers around caustic stand-up comic Richard Belzer as Arty, an outrageous nightclub comedian whose best barbs are aimed at the watchdog policemen in the audience.

Arty is an obvious stand-in for Lenny Bruce, and the clip turns into a sort of musical remake of Bob Fosse’s acclaimed biopic of the brave ground-breaker. Cutting back and forth between Belzer’s dressing room scenes and Benatar’s on-stage song creates intrigue for a while, but by the end the “tribute� to Bruce (and to Fosse’s movie) begins to reek of rip-off more than homage. And the song is far too contemporary by any stretch for the ‘50s setting, though Benatar looks swell as a chain-smoking torch singer. 62

The Pointer Sisters’ “Twist My Arm.� Director: Kenny Ortega. Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know� may have set the blindingly bright standard for R&B; videos of the immediate future. Now the sisters Pointer have a clip that’s equally full of day-glo fluorescent colors, busy male dancers and all-around sassy energy. Their mild raunch isn’t nearly as engaging as Houston’s coy innocence--for, despite the masochistic overtones of the lyrics, these gals are definitely out to dominate the nerds who enter their garish fantasy--but the style and verve of the art direction and animated backgrounds may win you over. 48

Cathode rays guaranteed to induce alpha waves:

Elton John’s “Nikita.� Director: Ken Russell. The singer’s reunion with his “Tommy� director is lacking in the expected surrealism, but it’s unreal nonetheless. Pulling up to a border crossing in his convertible, Elton hands his passport to a foxy female guard and immediately falls for her--but it’s just not meant to be . We know this is true love because Elton not only fantasizes about getting rid of that silly Russian cap of hers and going to a nice restaurant, but about taking her bowling. (As a handicap, he even wears his giant “Tommy� shoes--what a date.) This Cold War camp classic, complete with goose-stepping guards and surveillance cameras, is the best howl of its genre in which no one dances or gets repeatedly punched in the face. 23

Phantom, Rocker & Slick’s “My Mistake.� Director: Chris Grabin. These three unsuspecting lads get onto an amusement park fun-house ride with nice girl Cassandra Peterson, but when the leering carnival operator speeds up the ride, she gradually turns into the ever-overexposed Elvira, and the boys become very frightened. Now, if you believe that three guys who look like they just crawled out from under a rock are going to be scared silly when their date starts to sport heavy slut makeup and develops cleavage, you’ll probably be gullible enough to buy their album. 10

Roger Daltrey’s “Let Me Down Easy.� Director: Keefco. While former partner Townshend (see above) forges ahead with new fire and commitment, the ex-Who vocalist has resorted to recording leftover tunes by Bryan Adams--who makes a guest appearance on guitar and backup vocals in this standard lip-synced performance video.

To see one of the greats grip the mike, heave back and forth and belt out such banality with all his might somehow seems to make a mockery of all the real passion that went into the Who. 8

Phil Collins’ “Take Me Home.� Director: Jim Yukich. Remember all the rock stars who made fortunes in the ‘70s and blew it all by the ‘80s? Collins isn’t taking any chances. Instead of blowing his royalties on a lavish vacation, he lets the record company finance it by turning it into an ostensible video in which he goes globe-hopping for no apparent reason in particular.

Look, Phil’s hanging out with the kangaroos in Australia! Wait a minute, he’s on a cable car in Frisco! Now he’s in front of the Eiffel Tower! What’s most astonishing is that Collins doesn’t actually do anything while visiting all these locales. He does throw a snowball at the camera at one point, by which time exasperated viewers may be preparing their own missiles. 8

Paul Young’s “Tomb of Memories.� Director: Nick Morris. Young’s egocentric approach to video is actually more obnoxious than Collins’, unlikely as that may seem. His latest is a mixture of concert footage--very little of it synchronized in any way to the music (Young just looooves slow-motion shots of his fans clapping)--and documentary coverage of Paul and his band on tour. Paul goofs around on the bus. Paul jokes around with the locals. Paul goes swimming. Paul presides over a press conference. This behind-the-scenes stuff may send spasms down the spines of Young’s underage female fans, but for most of the rest of us, it just sends lunch back up the old esophagus. 1