Historically, teenage angst and broken families have been the bread and butter of alternative music videos. From mothers water-spraying their sons away to fathers holding a gun to their children’s faces, abusive parents have been the perfect antagonists for every video. We decided that it would be in your best interest to check these five videos starring trauma-serving, life-scarring, and emotionally paralyzing parents, or, we have to find you a new home.
Suicidal Tendencies “Institutionalized”
Some parents would rather put you into a mental institution than give you a bottle of Pepsi. Mike’s parents elevate their abuse to conspiratorial levels. First, they gaslight him into thinking that he has emotional problems. Then, as he meditates lying and staring at the ceiling, they accuse him of being on drugs. Finally, Mike’s parents successfully ditch his agency and relocate him to a place where he could write these lyrics with a soft pencil between his front teeth. Was Mike really on drugs? No one knows. What we surely know is that Mike’s old room was turned into an Airbnb.
Korn “Falling Away from Me”
When family violence initiatives cannot reach you in the middle of the night, your best bet is to summon a Nu-Metal band using your magical music box. At least, this is what the video’s teenager-in-distress does to avoid her loser father’s belt. Though it is hard to call anything that has Korn in it magical, Jonathan Davis briefly becomes the video’s Tinkerbell. With his sparkly red magic, Davis successfully gathers the neighborhood’s repressed teens to the front yard. After the show ends, all the kids in the suburb are teleported to a land where there is no death, but only bass-guitar pedals, and tracksuits.
Twisted Sisters “We’re Not Gonna Take It”
Twisted Sisters know how to take a classic trope and put their spin on it: What if your abusive music video dad also happened to be a loveable goof? Make no mistake, the dad in question still harasses his kid by thrashing his room, and calling him a slob. However, the dad’s tyranny ends when Frank Karuba decides to drag him down the stairs by his hair. Watching the torture the dad has to go through almost makes you feel sorry for him. On top of everything, the dad has to endure multiple Steven Seagal-esque throws through the windows, and dry walls which end up with him falling from the second floor.
YungBlud “Parents”
Parental abuse in alternative music videos rarely touched homophobia in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Finally, we have a music video dad who is openly homophobic! Yungblud brings a boy home, and his dad loses it. Despite his dad pointing a pistol at his face, Yungblud seems to preserve his cheery demeanor. Though there are a couple of points to critique: a) Yungblud’s constant smile on his face looks less psychotic, and more mainstream edgy. b) The director fails to inform the audience how a priest got Yungblud and an electric toaster together in a bathtub. These technical problems aside, Yungblud’s stunts manage to keep the viewers’ attention span at a certain level.
Papa Roach “Broken Home”
As opposed to the happy polaroids you would see in an indie video, Papa Roach hits you with rapid shots of a chronically drunken dad which are bright enough to trigger epilepsy. From kicking the back of his son while watching TV to cheating on his wife right before getting arrested, Papa Roach’s abusive dad pushes all the buttons to be the most popular music video parent. Yet, he still doesn’t feel like he’s trying hard. If Jacoby Shaddix punches the unsuspecting ground while singing, he does so out of pure jealousy he feels towards his video dad.
Apparently, this record’s title is a British colloquialism that means ‘give it a try,’ which is the exact amount of effort a listener should be expected to put in here. The band tracked this one mostly live, while inexplicably managing to commit the most expired-sounding version of themselves thus far to tape. Quite the feat considering how well-known they were for their explosive performances at the time. Nobody sounds less excited to be on the record than lead singer and frontman, Alex Turner, who delivers his vocals as if he’s half asleep while sadly only fully waking for some of the album’s weakest tracks. To quote Turner, himself, ‘ipp, dipp, dog-shit rock and roll,’ indeed.
Fresh off their massively successful debut, ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,’ Arctic Monkeys’ sophomore album suffers from the urgent desire to repeat the conditions that led to their newfound adoration. This record is essentially the musical equivalent of that time in high school when you dressed precisely the way your friends did in a failed effort to look like a unique individual. By tapping directly into the British dance-rock scene of the time, ‘Nightmare’ drops the satirical elements of their previous offering by fully committing to the trendy aspects of the genre. Because of this, ‘Nightmare’ is the only album in the band’s discography that sounds as dated as the MySpace pictures look that you took in 2005.
On the band’s most recent album, one thing is abundantly clear: Alex Turner is fucking tired of being Alex Turner. With stunning production and amazing orchestration, ‘The Car’ is certainly not without its charm. Still, the voice on top of it all rarely sounds like it can be bothered with all the pageantry. Turner even goes as far as to admit it in revealing lines like ‘I had big ideas, the band were so excited… but now the orchestra’s got us all surrounded, and I cannot for the life of me remember how they go.’ Much like your old bud from college that still pretends to be ‘indie’ despite earning a six-figure salary, ‘The Car’ nails the aesthetic but lacks the veracity.
This is the album that probably led to a bunch of your friends calling the band ‘sell-outs’ while secretly bobbing their heads to the near-perfect riffs that permeate the entire track listing. This record was so phenomenal that most people didn’t even care how corny the band’s cosplay-Fonzie aesthetic was during its press tour. ‘AM’ finds Turner as the braggadocious, Alexa Chung-dating, Drake-covering, single-gold-chain-wearing frontman he always aspired to be. The transformation was pretty similar to your dad’s recent mid-life crisis but markedly less off-putting.
Considering the multi-faceted aspects of the band’s sound, the title of their excellent debut album may as well be their mission statement. Coming as a shock to all involved, ‘Whatever People Say I Am’ quickly became the fastest-selling debut album in British music history, an accolade it still holds to this day. Thanks to excellent singles like ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,’ Arctic Monkeys steadily became a household name. This would only prove to be a modest beginning for the group, allowing them to annoy music fans that hate to see bands evolve for years to come.
As is tradition, every fledgling sleaze-rock indie band must participate in a rite of passage. One that involves going to a remote location in the desert and cutting a record with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme. Consider it the modern version of the Crossroads, and yes; that means we are calling Josh Homme the Devil here. ‘Humbug’ marks a dark turn for the band’s sound, trading in their carefully crafted dance-punk sound for something more akin to stoner-metal, but without sacrificing their pop sensibilities. This very well could have been number one, but there’s a strong ‘we just tried weed for the first time’ vibe on this record that occasionally stunts its progression.
Okay, get it out of your system now and call us idiots for this one, but we only ask that you hold off judgment of this album’s placement until you finally get around to actually listening to it. Some so-called fans of the band will argue that this album is too far of a left-turn, while more observant admirers will tell you that this album is the most the Arctic Monkeys have ever sounded like the Arctic Monkeys. Having made a career out of flirting with Bowie-style arrangements, Turner cranks the sonic and lyrical freak level up to eleven here with a concept record about a high-rise hotel situated on the lunar surface. Many even believe the record somehow predicted the pandemic with its themes of isolation, political extremism, gentrification, and, of course, horniness. Find another of the group’s albums where Turner gets away with a line as cringe as ‘kiss me underneath the moon’s side boob’ and we’ll gladly reconsider this album’s rightful place at the top. This may not be your favorite Monkeys album of all time, but it is unequivocally their masterpiece.
