Billy Squier’s “Rock Me Tonite” is infamous in the annals of rock history as the video so completely terrible that it torpedoed the artist’s career, a feat that’s arguably never been repeated. Squier became a freakin’ HUGE rock star at the turn of the ‘80s, when his second album Don’t Say No sold all the copies and spawned four hits. He even became an unlikely figure in hip-hop when everyone sampled his early single “The Big Beat”—look up the song on whosampled.com, it’s got 16 pages of citations. His stature grew to the point that he could get Andy Warhol to design the cover art for the follow-up album, which also sold about a gazillion copies. He looked to be pretty well set.

BUT THEN CAME THE DAMN VIDEO. My esteemed DM colleague Marc Campbell wrote about it a few years back, and I’d direct you to his post for the comprehensive dope, but here’s the tl;dr: Squier wasn’t entirely without crossover appeal, but his fan base was mostly unreconstructed classic rockers—bemulletted devotees of Foreginer, Journey, et al—so it’s unclear why the video director thought it was a good idea to dress the artist up like he’d been kicked out of Kajagoogoo for outdated hair and film him prancing around a bedroom, preening at his own reflection, playing air guitar, and tearing off his shirt.

The video was seen by the artist’s core followers as really super ultra gay, and while gay acceptance began its upswing in the ‘80s, 1984 wasn’t exactly rainbow-topia among the Canadian Tuxedo brigades. While the album from which “Rock Me Tonite” was culled still sold millions, Squier’s rep took such a beating that his next album—and all subsequent albums—arrived to zero fanfare whatsoever, although since artists of Squier’s ilk were on the way out by the mid-‘80s, who’s to say his Learjet days weren’t already numbered?

But you know, the song was crap anyway. The riff is meh and the lyrics are a lazy cliché storm (“Moonlight in the city brings the magic to your eyes?” FUCK YOU, dude…) And as it turns out, the already unintentionally hilarious video is all the funnier without the song. We’ve posted “Musicless Music Videos” before, but I’m going to call this one a tie for first with the Jagger/Bowie “Dancing in the Street” coke freakout.
 

 
Big hat-tip to Jeff Deasy!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The video that killed the rock ‘n’ roll star
Hilarious musicless music video for the Village People’s ‘YMCA’
Bowie and Jagger are ‘Dancing in the Street’ to silence in this ridiculous ‘musicless’ music video