Why did Billy Squier’s “Rock Me Tonite” music video destroy his career?

The correct term is “why did his career go straight down the shitter?”

I just watched the video (never saw it before) and I don’t understand why the fuck that would end someone’s career or what was so shocking about it. Then I read the comments under the video and all I can say is I am so glad I am not a part of Generation X. All of them were bitching about how when they first saw the video as a kid they thought it was so gay.🙄 You can say what you want about millennials, but at least a video like that wouldn’t have them clutching their pearls like Generation X. It was and still is a very homophobic generation.

Growing up in the '80s was certainly no picnic, R2.

The constant homophobia and AIDSphobia fucked me up for life.

20 years of therapy couldn't undo it.

1984 asshole Reagan was the president. Think about it.

R2 Almost all the comments are homophobic to some degree. One person even praises how this ruined his career and they are happy and how in 2020 the queers would celebrate a disgraceful video like this.

Some comments are very mean. Some kind of funny though. Lol.

R3 I can’t even imagine. Most of the people in the comments under the video you can tell are Generation X because they talk about it in a reminiscing way and their reactions when they saw it when it first came out. Jesus, it’s like they needed smelling salts and were hallucinating just because of the way he danced. People today wouldn’t have blinked an eye. Like I said the younger generation has its issues but you can’t deny most people under 30 don’t give a shit about something as stupid as this. You would swear he was fucking a guy in the video by their reactions.🙄

I’m Generation X (graduated hs in 85) and we enjoyed the New Romantic scene, which was incredibly androgynous. Billy Squier probably appealed more to young boomers.

Gen X today is pretty laid back about homosexuality. It's mostly Boomers who still have issues.

I doubt the comments section of a Billy Squire video is representative of Gen X as a whole.

[quote]You can say what you want about millennials, but at least a video like that wouldn’t have them clutching their pearls like Generation X. It was and still is a very homophobic generation.

Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Boy George, Annie Lennox and George Michael were all part of Gen X's teen and childhood years. Very gay-positive and gender-bending.

There are many homophobic people in EVERY generation, including Millennials and Gen Z. Gen Z is actually more homophobic than Millennials, which is funny.

R9 but most of those straight boys viewed the men in that group as straight men being eccentric and being different. Not “gay”. Once you were thought of as “gay” your career was hurt.

R6 I agree with you to a degree, but the video would very much be mocked and laughed at if it came out today. The only difference is most wouldn’t focus on if he was gay or not, but would mock and make fun of the ridiculous dancing and his outfit.

You have to admit the video is pretty damn funny. Who's bright idea was it?

R8 See R3

R11 Exactly!

He's trying so hard to be sexy. Mission impossible.

R15 And Mick Jagger didn’t?

[quote]Once you were thought of as “gay” your career was hurt.

That still happens today. Why do you think Bradley Cooper and Chris Pine are still closeted?

When those commenters talk about this video (and him) being "gay," I don't think they mean gay as in homosexual, I think in part they just mean "gay" as an all-purpose insult, which was pretty common back then. "That's so gay" = that's so retarded and ridiculous. (I'm not defending that at all.) I doubt they thought he was actually gay.

But the fact is he does look ridiculous. He's a terrible dancer. And anyway nobody dances to hard rock, which is the music he was known for.

(R16) watch this video and tell me dinosaur Mick Jagger isn't sexy.

R13 Kenny Ortega choreographed and directed the video.

I agree with r7. I was a kid in the 80s and Billy Squier was uncool before and after this video. I think he appealed to older people, just like those other icons of lameness, Phil Collins and Billy Joel.

Billy and Phil’s music was nothing like Billy Squire, who was hard rock.

I remember seeing this video in the '80s. He was supposed to be a rock and roller. And he's dancing around like a spaz. I thought it was funny then.

What really sucks is he was at his peak Success and fame when the video came out and tore it all down.

“At the time Signs of Life finally arrived in late July 1984, Squier was at the very peak of his career. Fueled by successful radio hits, bluesy synthpop cut "Rock Me Tonite" and futuristic hard rocker "All Night Long", the album brought him his third consecutive platinum certification. However, Squier's fortunes took a sudden hit with the music video for "Rock Me Tonite", which dominantly featured Squier dancing around in a dark bedroom with a pink tanktop. The image presented didn't conform to standard gender roles or expectations of masculinity at the time and was a perceived challenge to Squier’s image as a guitar-playing rocker. The video began almost immediately attracting increasingly embarrassed and negative responses from critics, fans, fellow musicians and Squier himself alike, who described it as "diabolical". It has been later cited as one of the worst music videos of all time and as an infamous example of the phrase "video killed the radio star". Squier's album and ticket sales took damage; Signs of Life ended up stalling at #11 on the Billboard 200 and he stopped selling out shows. Squier lost his patience: he fired both of his managers and insulted the video's director, Kenny Ortega, for misleading and deceiving him.“

The choreographer was Richard Simmons.

Billy was just ahead of his time. Prancercize didn't catch on until the 21st Century.

I wonder what the people in the youtube comments would have thought of Queen's I Want To Break Free video.

It's no wonder MTV banned that one

I've never understood why or how that video stuck out as fantastically gay in an era of pop culture that was unselfconsciously gender-bending all over the place, but I can assure you that it did. Gay as in "man goes up in the man," not merely dorky and embarrassing. This argument is odd:

[quote]The image presented didn't conform to standard gender roles or expectations of masculinity at the time

Considering what else was going on in rock and roll. Something about that Squier video, he just took it full retard.

That video is what officially destroyed his career, but he had already turned some of his huge fans off with his latest album because they felt it was too “mainstream” and he was selling out. The first two singles from that album weren’t just on rock and metal stations like most of his previous singles, but in mainstream pop and pop rock stations. They were upset he “sold out”. After that he did this video and they completely abandoned him, along with everyone else who didn’t mind his new softer, more synth-rock sound.

fun vid

it helped his career u dum skunt

[quote]But the fact is he does look ridiculous.

There weren’t many videos that didn’t look ridiculous in 1984. Funny how nobody says anything about how stupid Prince looked crawling on the floor in the When Doves Cry video, for example.

When Doves Cry is a fucking great song though.

[quote] I remember seeing this video in the '80s. He was supposed to be a rock and roller. And he's dancing around like a spaz. I thought it was funny then.

Looks to me that he was trying to imitate Freddie Mercury and David Bowie.

I don't find his dancing to be THAT terrible (considering it was the 80's), but if he was truly supposed to be a rocker, then I can see how it would turn off his real fans.

he sold millions of records

is sittin on gold

fuk off

(R34) I seriously doubt that.

He's from a wealthy family, he owns a big apartment at the San Remo on CPW and a house in the Hamptons.

Billy, is this what you were going for?

I'm sorry, but you can't compare When Doves Cry to... this. Prince crawling on the floor was fucking sexy. Prince owned wearing panties, posing for an album cover naked and crawling on the floor.

Billy was just not a natural at this and it showed. He looked ridiculous, the dancing was terrible (I'm shocked that Kenny Ortega who is talented choreographed this). It wasn't uncommon for a video to be filmed and then discarded and a new video with a new conception being filmed. I'm surprised nobody said to Billy, "Uh, do you really think this is a good idea?"

It ruined his career because he looked like an ass and dorky as fuck.

[quote]I'm surprised nobody said to Billy, "Uh, do you really think this is a good idea?"

I'm a millennial. I'm also a Prince fan and there's just something about this Billy Squire video that is extraordinarily fey and much more so than anything Prince ever did. Pink shirt, pink lights, Broadway-ish dancing, the subject of the song, starting out shirtless and naked in bed, more pink mist and doors opening with pink lights ... writhing around on the floor, tearing his shirt off, etc.

I mean, when Prince did a video he could have been wearing pants with his ass cheeks cut out but five seconds later he'd be dry humping a woman, telling a dancer to shake her ass, talking about her masturbating or some other wild stuff. That's why Prince could get away with this. That was where Prince "lived."

This was not Billy's wheelhouse.

I also firmly believe that many people told him this was a horrible idea and he pushed forward with it. Then when it hurt him he denounced it.

I think the missing piece of this discussion is the fact that Squier had a totally different image and fan base than Prince or the New Romantics or Madonna: prior to the video, Squier was marketed as a kind of stripped-down hard rocker, sort of in the mold of Springsteen, and his core fan base was the classic Wayne-and-Garth (another blast from the past!) pubescent white males.

These guys are the epitome of white male fragility, so not only were NOT down with "gayness" in any of its meanings back then, but as pointed out by r29, this video torpedoed his rocker image and made him toxic for them. These are the same teens who would have maybe claimed to want to fuck Madonna, but never danced to her music in public, and who laughed loudly at Prince in the company of their equally complected friends.

Isn’t Kenny Ortega the choreographer of Xanadu? That would go a long way to explaining some of this.

It was really rather pathetic, but if that article pointed out him wearing a pink tank top as an issue, well in the 80s guys were wearing pink. Polo shirts, ties, whatever, it wasn't considered gay or fey, it was actually on trend. I never got this guy's appeal and I REALLY don't see how he would have ever been considered to fall under the genre of "hard rock".

That said, I'm sure he's not starving, and likely having the last laugh as many of his critics are either dead or sleeping on the couch in their mother's living assisted facility studio apartment.

I'm Gen X...I was 10 in 1984. I don't remember seeing the video when it came out, but I remember Boy George, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Wham!, Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics...that's who I listened to, along with my peers. So fuck off with the "homophobic GenX" nonsense.

Billy Squier would have appealed to a pretty uncool crowd even his prime. Not hard enough for serious rockers, not hip enough for new wave. I think his fatal mistake was that he didn't stay in his lane, and betrayed the image that was expected from him. R41 said it well.

The damage was done and his career never recovered.

He still works today.

I agree r44. I was also 10 in 1984 as I said in r21. I remember this video although I don't remember this controversy. Boy George, Prince, and Wham! were really popular then and their songs are still known today. Billy Squier was extremely uncool and like you said not hard enough for serious rockers. There's nothing interesting about him, like there was about Van Halen, so he wasn't going to catch on with MTV viewers as well. I know he had a few songs but they all sucked and weren't fun like other MTV artists at the time.

He had 3 albums sell millions. He wasn’t that lame, selling albums like that r46

There are millions of lame people in this country who like lame music.

At his peak he was selling thousands of concert tickets and selling millions of albums. You can claim he was lame, but he was successful.

r49, yes indeed. He was lame and successful. He was on MTV a lot, for sure. I just never thought he was cool, and until today, I didn't realize I had an opinion about him that I would end up sharing multiple times in a thread on the internet!

I have no memory of Billy Squire. Granted I was very young but I followed MTV and pop music pretty much on a daily basis back then. I vividly remember all the other artists listed here but can't remember Billy Squire at all.

I had never seen the video and watched it hoping for a giggle but found myself shrugging. Maybe it's a generational thing but it didn't seem any cheesier than other eighties music videos. Almost everything from that era looks like crap to me.

I was a 17-year-old MTV addict when this video was in heavy rotation and I had no awareness of it being "too gay." It was just another video where musicians were trying to be dancers and actors BADLY. Wham...now that was gay.

Everybody knew George Michael was gay from day one.

Why did Kenny Ortega think this was a good idea? Especially the pink shirt, the pink lights every time he went into another room, and the pink guitar...

R54 that is one of the biggest lies told.

No r56. Everybody knew. I was around back then and I remember.

R57 no one knew. That’s a lie.

What is funny is this song is actually fun and has amazing energy.

r58 you musn't have been around back then. George Michael was perceived as gay by just about everyone. When he was finally outed in the late 90s nobody was particularly surprised.

R60 again, that is a lie. Most didn’t know and him coming out was shocking to many, especially women.

There were some rumors but it wasn’t “known”.

Sorry r61 that just isn't true. GM was thought of as gay by many, there were always jokes about it back then.

George got outed in the most humiliating way possible and it did seem to hurt his popularity in The US. His fanbase was mostly girls and women that wanted to bone him. Even if people sort of knew they just played dumb or were in denial due to the fact The US is much more religious and conservative than The UK. In the UK, people seemed to just brush off that bathroom scandal and he continued to still be popular there.

Billy was supposed to be a hard rocker so it's very strange to see him writhing around in satin sheets, dancing around in pink pastels and playing with a pink guitar. Imagine if it was Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg doing that. It would look strange or comical.

The video was too faggy, that's why.

R64 Cam'ron, Kanye, Young Thug and Tyler changed that now lol. Now rappers today try to look flamboyant as possible.

Here is a better version. Better video quality

R66 none of them look flamboyant. Cam’ron did the pink thing 17 years ago, and where is he now? Think about it.

People knew George Michael was gay. No normal person was shocked when he came out.

You'd be surprised how homophobic religious people will deny the existence of an obviously gay relative. They will rationalize and think "he's just artistic or special" if he looked and acted like George Michael. People really do see what they want to see.

R69 no. Many didn’t. It was a different time. Homosexuality didn’t come to most people’s minds back then just because someone was a bit effeminate anywhere but major cities where you saw gays. It had to be extreme for them to think “fag” in most places.

Some people in smaller towns didn’t even know being gay was a real thing back then.

A video speaking about the videos impact on his career. But warning, the guy talks WAY TOO MUCH.

[quote]Some people in smaller towns didn’t even know being gay was a real thing back then.'

They sure as shit did. We're talking about the 1980s, not the 1920s.

I think it's true though. Many small towns with religious populations back then would shelter their kids from any concept of homosexuality and adults wouldn't even entertain the idea of talking about in public. Even if two guys or two girls experimented with each other they would find some way to rationalize it as "not gay". They need it existed but they tried as hard as possible to suppress the idea or even talk of it. In the case of Michael Jackson, Prince, George Michael, Duran Duran and the New Romantic bands, they would just see them as weird or eccentric and you already had KISS, Led Zeppelin, T-Rex and all those groups in the 1970s. George Michael was also English, and Americans already see the English as a bit different per se. Also look at South Korea and Japan, both are still pretty homophobic and socially conservative and they have flamboyant male pop and rock stars with the most effeminate behavior and nobody questions their sexuality.

How many gays were out and open in the 80s outside of major cities? How many gays were on TV and film?

Hardly any.

Most people didn’t of them.

People in small towns certainly knew about homosexuality. Just because there were no gay characters on tv or in movies is a ridiculous assumption that they didn't know. Again, were you even around back then?

God, just look at all the anecdotes of DLers who grew up in those times and how they got bullied for being gay.

R76 yes, but a major star like George Michael was not someone most would think is “gay”.

His fanbase were long-haired, straight, working class guys who didn't wear pink and didn't like any sexual deviancy. I remember thinking that it was strange that a rocker would dance like that in pink pastels.

Sorry, that just isn't true. GM as well as Boy George were always thought of as being gay.

I remember meeting someone who grew up in a small town where he says he never ever met a black person until HS, where he had to travel into a different town for school. Until that day he thought Black people were this alien race that only existed on TV.

True story.

So imagine what he thought when he met a gay person, who are a much smaller population.

r80 that man was probably retarded.

R74 Most Asian men are wimpy geeks and cry babies. Being feminine is not a far cry from being wimpy. It's common for straight Chinese men to hold hands with their male buddies.

R81 no. Believe it or not, back then, in some places, you could go years without ever seeing a black person etc. now you can’t, but then you could.

I think DLers think every part of this Country was always what it is like in 2020 or like NYC, LA, San Francisco etc. no.

Those major cities are the minority, especially back then.

R80 Makes sense since most of The US is white. Like over 70% white and most black people live in urban areas or throughout the South. So if you grew up in a small rual town in the Midwest, Northeast or Rocky Mountains then you likely will not see any black people. Most TV and films are based around NY or LA, so that's why there is more diversity. That's also why South Park which is set in Colorado made jokes about Chef and Token being the only blacks in town because Colorado then really is mostly white.

R84 my old boss is from Maine. He moved to NYC after college because he is a gay man and felt he could live the life he wanted to here. He told me he didn’t know any black people until High School, and even then there was like 3 black kids in his entire HS.

R84 PS that was the mid-late 90s, Btw. Not even the 80s.

Gurl, it was the hands! If he could just stop swinging those hands around like he was swinging a purse at a masher, everything would be fine now!

I think the Van Halen comparison is apt. DLR was just like Prince out there with the flirtation of female sexuality. So the pink shirt should have worked for BS.

He couldn’t carry it off and I just filed that as a miss. He never did anything else that caught my attention.

He had a face for radio.

I know a white girl from the Midwest and she is a lesbian-leaning bisexual but her parents refused to believe that she was and told her she was "asexual". I am not kidding. She was in a relationship with a girl and everything but her parents just thought it was a phase and she was acting out. She moved to a small college city in NJ where I met her and also she only knew a very few black people in her home state and would say the most tone-deaf and ignorant things about other races. I told her that here in NJ you got to keep that to yourself because people will get confrontational and violent. She learned lol.

I remember this video, but I had no idea that it was controversial or that it supposedly ended his career at the time. It didn't seem any sillier or more flamboyant than a lot of videos in 1984, honestly.

R86 South Park did adjust to the times. In recent seasons, they feature more Blacks, Hispanics and Asians in the background and also more urban development which reflects the changing demographics of Colorado. The town also went from being more Republican and conservative to more Democrat and liberal to also reflect that shift.

R79 Teenagers didn't realize that George Michael or Boy George was gay. They thought of them as eccentric, feminine Brits.

Agent: “Trust me Billy...it’s not gay. This is the 80’s...it’s edgy and you look great in pink!”

Billy: “I dunno? It seems pretty gay? I’m not gay. I have a pretty strong rock following. This seems dangerous...”

Agent: “If by dangerous you mean crazy sexy, then I agree with you Billy! Girls will love this! Grrrrr! You’re a tiger Billy! Crawl on all fours!”

Billy: “I feel silly. I’m a great guitar player. Can we focus on that? Seriously, I can’t dance for shit!”

Agent: “Less talking and more ripping of T-shirts Billy...you’re going to love this when we get finished....”

I think people really overestimate how perceptive straight people's gaydar is.

I thought for a second that was Jerry Lewis.

He tried getting the video blocked from being released, he knew it was no good without even seeing it. The record label blocked his request and released it anyway. His GF told him “this video is going to ruin your career”. The label and Kenny Ortega told him it wouldn’t. His label even told him the song is already getting tons of radio play and on the charts and that is without the video being released yet, when it’s out he song will go to #1.

Then it was released and the rest is history. He was right all along.

He was actually in shock after he finally saw the video. He never watched it, and it was released while he was touring. He started hearing about it and finally caught it on MTV one night and was in shock by what he saw and immediately grew furious and fired his managers etc.

Had this been a female, someone like Paula Abdul, this video most likely would have been a hit.

R99 of course. Women were expected to act like this, not men. Madonna or Paula etc. crawling on the floor in a dark lit bedroom would be a hit.

Only a few male musicians would get away with this, like Prince.

Androgyny was *everywhere* on MTV in the mid 80s. I thought Poison were an all-girl band when I saw their first album cover. Even Ozzy Osbourne was wearing sequined blouses with shoulder pads like some Dynasty diva. It was a strange time.

[quote]Teenagers didn't realize that George Michael or Boy George was gay. They thought of them as eccentric, feminine Brits.

Teenage boys routinely called both of them fags.

R102 I think because they were pop stars. Most teen boys didn’t listen to them. They were adored by closet gays and girls. Most teen guys called the BSB and NSYNC fags in the 90s too. It’s because of the content they put out, not because they think they’re actually fucking men.

And let me be specific, it’s the type of pop music they put out. Michael Jackson pop appealed to straight boys. George Michael pop didn’t.

Ortega supposedly tried to get his name removed from its credits.

[quote] Ortega, for whatever it's worth, rebuts Squier's argument. "If anything, I tried to toughen the image he was projecting," he insisted in Tarnished Gold: The Record Industry Revisited. Adding that he and the video's editor were so unhappy with the results that they tried to have their names removed from the final credits, he pointed the finger of blame back at his client. "Let there be no doubt, 'Rock Me Tonite' was a Billy Squier video in every sense. If it has damaged his career, he has no one to blame but himself."

R101 The band members of Poison were younger so they looked better in feminine clothes and make-up. Ozzy may have worn eye make-up but he didn't try to look like Britney Spears dancing in her bedroom. Rockers were expected to be masculine.

Isn't this the stroke man stroke man man? I'm his defense, the 80s had that bisex gender gender thing going on. Look at Quiet Riot and all the makeup!

Oh, it was more than just "eye makeup." This looked like something your granny would wear if she wanted to glam up.

George Michael during the Faith era tried hard to butch up his image too. He sold himself as a "straight" sex symbol though he just looked like a gay guy dressing butch. But naive straight girls still crushed on him and bought that act. When you're a celebrity, people will see what they want to see.

The hard rock/metal fandom has always been hugely homophobic...especially in the 80's.

Remember when the guy from Skid Row was photographed wearing an "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" T-shirt?

Or when the biggest selling rock band of the decade, Guns n Roses, put out a song that vilified "faggots" for "spreading some fucking disease"?

I went to an Alice Cooper concert in the 80's in Long Beach, and the opening act was a fairly well-known band (especially in the L.A. area) by the name of L.A. Guns. In between songs, the lead singer made a comment to rev up the crowd that was something along the lines of "come on now, I know you're not all a bunch of FAGGOTS out there!!!". And the crowd ROARED. We left right then and there.

Most people were homophobic in the 80s. And 90s. And 00s.

It wasn’t a specific group.

Hair metal was the absolute worst. Thank god for Kurt Cobain for killing that genre once and for all and making it irrelevant.

I liked Guns N Roses (at least their first album) and that's it. They aren't really hair metal though. Warrant also had some decent songs. The rest annoy me. I'm from NJ and can't stand Bon Jovi.

Guns N Roses were the beginning of the end of hair metal, really. They were sorta glam (especially at the beginning) but in a much more scuzzy way, and soon most metal bands were following their lead. Not to mention the thrash bands like Metallica that never went in for that stuff. By the time Nirvana came along it was all ready to be killed off.

I hated Metallica. I went to Middle School in the late 90s/early 00s and they are all my best bud Edmund would listen to.

[quote]Kenny Ortega choreographed and directed the video.

Fucked me over in Xanadu.

The Final Countdown

Everyone I knew in the 80’s suspected George Michael as gay. This was the Midwest and not cosmopolitan. Boy George as well.

R118 sure

To be fair, my friend group wasn’t teenage girls. We may have had different experiences.

It's all about knowing what your target market or audience likes and dislikes.

Girls like pop music and feminine things so the effeminacy of pop stars like Boy George and George Michael didn't offend them.

Straight, working-class boys like heavy metal, rock music and masculine things so they were repulsed by the Richard Simmons imitating work out video of Billy Squier.

R31 Rio will never look ridiculous.

R112 Amen. I bypassed all that hair metal shit and just listened to my old Zeppelin until Nirvana came out like a monsoon and reset the music industry.

Cool update:

In 2002, Squier married Nicole Schoen, a professional German soccer player. They divided their time between a home in Bridgehampton, Long Island and an apartment in The San Remo on Central Park West in Manhattan, New York City. Squier had been, as of 2016, an active volunteer for the Central Park Conservancy for more than 17 years, physically maintaining 20 acres (81,000 m2) of the park, as well as promoting the Conservancy in articles and interviews. He also supported the Group for the East End and its native planting programs on eastern Long Island.[18][19]

Right there with you r123 NPO

the video is better if you imagine this is just his fantasy of really wanting to be with a man

I used to dance like that in my bedroom when I was a gayling.

You must have gone through a lot of shirts then!

I like this song a lot more than I thought I would but the video truly is ridiculous

I actually like the song. Ironically