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why the video director thought it was a good idea to dress the artist up like he’d been kicked out of Kajagoogoo for outdated hair and film him prancing around a bedroom, preening at his own reflection, playing air guitar, and tearing off his shirt.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

Squier by Andy Warhol.
 
Can a shitty video kill a musician’s career? In the case of Billy Squier, one did. In a poll of over 400 music industry mover and shakers, Squier’s video for “Rock Me Tonite” (terribly mis-directed by choreographer Kenny Ortega) is considered to be the worst video ever made by a major artist and record label. Mike Kelber, who headed the Capitol Records division responsible for making the video, called it “a whopping steaming turd” and was astonished that such crappy looking production may have been the most expensive video Capitol had made up until that time. The resulting fiasco was devastating for Squier.

In the thoroughly entertaining book I Want My MTV (I keep mine next to the toilet), Squier describes the effect the “Rock Me Tonite” video had on his career with a combination of self-pity and dumbfounded disbelief. He still seems dazed by the fact that his life could be so profoundly altered with such irrevocable swiftness :

When I saw the video, my jaw dropped. It was diabolical. I looked at it and went, “What the fuck is this?”

The video misrepresents who I am as an artist. I was a good-looking, sexy guy. That certainly didn’t hurt in promoting my music. But in this video I’m kind of a pretty boy. And I’m preening around a room. People said “He’s gay.” Or, “He’s on drugs.” It was traumatizing to me. I mean, I had nothing against gays. I have a lot of gay friends.”

The video damaged his reputation among rock fans and Squier went from playing to packed arenas to less than 10,000 people a night.

Everything I worked for was crumbling and I couldn’t stop it. How can a four-minute video do that? Ok, it sucked. So?”

Squier eventually quit rock ‘n’ roll and it’s pretty obvious that the video is what compelled him to retire. Whatever regrets he might have are tempered by the fact that he left the music biz a wealthy man.

The wounds have healed and the scars aren’t that deep, because my life has evolved in a good way. I left the music business when I was forty-three. I don’t have to work. Look who’s smiling now! That video is a bad part of a good life.”

I’m sure most first wave MTV fans remember this: the video that killed the rock ‘n’ roll star:
 

 
Update: I Want My MTV author Rob Tannebaum wrote us to clarify a point made in my article. Thanks Rob.

There wasn’t an actual poll. My co-author and I interviewed more than 400 people for our oral history, and there was a clear consensus that “Rock Me Tonite” sucked way more than any other sucky video. No other video came close, not even Journey’s “Separate Ways,” which is pretty damn sucky.”