Right. Ready?
Voice.
Hello.
Now you've tripped off.
You had one job to keep your mouth quiet.
It was kind of intentional, Michael.
Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far.
A podcast where a Scotspan, an Irishman and a Bulgarian discuss the worst, silliest and weirdestest fuck music videos.
Hello, I'm Neil.
Hi, I'm Neil.
Hi, I'm David.
Do you believe I'm lying down?
Well.
Uh, not really, no, actually.
Are you actually lying down?
Well, I'm sitting on the bed, I'm half reclined.
Just the microphone suspended above your head.
It's actually really, really precariously just balancing.
It's, okay, you know the way cheap mic stands are really like, well, they're not well balanced unless there's a sandbag on them.
Yes.
Well, this one here, it's balanced just enough.
And if I move it, it will fall on me.
So I'm trying not to touch it, but it's within about six inches to me.
It's good to have an air of danger in your podcasting.
Well, it keeps me sharp.
The time for 80s prog rock has finally arrived.
We're breaking our rock opera virginity with Mr. Roboto by Styx.
Trust us, no one is less happy about this than us, especially me.
Mostly, but not entirely, because the song is neither prog nor rock.
And the video is just, well, I guess this is what we're discussing today.
The video itself is directed by Brian Gibson.
The history of the song is definitely there.
It was the opening single of Styx's rock opera album,
Kill Roy Was Here,
which itself is named after a famous World War II era graffiti tag.
The album is partially a mockery of the fundamental Christian groups
who led the quote-unquote anti-rock crusades.
I am not sure Styx would be my first choice for mocking anyone in the rock world,
but here we are.
Watched Styx take doing the robot to its natural conclusion
by dressing up as actual robots,
join our hero,
blonde guy,
and singer guy
in a dystopic Blade Runner-esque
prison break
slash rock opera performance.
As it turns out,
I've only discovered this
after writing the intro
of the blonde guy.
His character name is
Johnny Chance
and he's played by
the guitarist Tommy Shaw
and the singer guy
is Kilroy.
Kilroy himself played
by the key wordist
Dennis DeYoung.
So,
that's the thing.
This video made my
fucking head hurt.
There's kind of a story
running through this
which is the video
opens with
Johnny Chance,
the blonde guy,
walking into what turns out, according to the Wikipedia,
to be the museum...
Museum of bad taste.
It's the rock museum.
It was the rock museum, apparently.
Because basically I spent half an hour trying to figure out
what the fuck was going on in this video,
and I only really learned all this through the Wikipedia afterwards
after putting my head through a fucking brick wall.
So he goes into the rock museum,
and there's robots kicking about,
and then there's a prison break,
where it seems to be humans imprisoned by robots,
And I think the keyboardist gets out with the help of a robot.
Or is it a robot?
Or is it the singer dressed up as a robot?
Part of what confused me is there's a line,
my heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM.
Which made me think, which one is, you know, good lyric, I guess.
But which made me think, oh, is the guy a cyborg?
Yeah, with his parts made in Japan.
Things about that.
So that made me think you might be a cyborg.
but judging by the video, he's just dressed up as a robot.
So let's just ignore that lyric.
Basically, he seems to be breaking in, saving the blonde guy,
and then they go back to the rock museum for some reason.
And these things in a robot's ear.
I didn't really understand the rock museum because, I mean, it didn't really establish it.
It just, I didn't, I didn't pick it up.
It doesn't look like a rock museum.
Oh, like a museum to begin with.
I noticed Elvis.
And did you notice Elvis?
I mean, if he's meant to be like a statue, he's like, he's moving his leg really, really
at the very beginning.
Oh yeah, that's like
right at the beginning
of the background.
I don't know, maybe there's a
there's a hidden thing
that we're not privy to
because we don't know
well, I don't know Styx.
This is the problem.
I think Neil, I think you were saying
the album is meant to be
like a concept album or something like that
and none of us could be bothered
listening to the whole album
for the sake of the podcast.
Yeah, because it's Styx.
Why would I ever want to listen
to the whole album by fucking Styx?
Honestly.
Like, I love this podcast
but no.
You do anything for...
Love, but I'm not going to do that.
I just kind of appreciate
the fact that they all
look like, well, no, I was going to say
proto-daft punk, but probably
daft punk looked at them, they were like
we can do this, but better.
They kind of look like daft punk
as designed by racists from the 50s.
Yeah, we're gonna get to the racism.
As far as I can tell, the only reason the robots
look like that is because of
the line, parts made in Japan.
It's the only connection I can find.
I mean, the whole song is a fucking racist mess.
Is it? Well, I mean, probably
not intentionally. Oh, well, yeah,
I suppose he's going Mr. Roboto.
Yeah.
Which is like a pop culture reference in its own now.
Maybe they just really appreciate Japanese culture.
It's possible.
To be honest, in the 80s, probably in the 70s, to be honest,
there was a bit of an Asian fetishization.
It's a difficult word to say.
There's a bunch of songs that talk about Japan and like, you know,
talking Japanese, big in Japan.
There was clearly something going on in there.
I don't know why in the 80s.
It was like Japan establishing in the 80s.
Very hardcore industrial power or something.
Remember the line in Back to the Future?
What's the name of the doctor from Back to the Future?
I won't say Brown, but that's not...
Brown.
Yeah, Doc Brown.
Doc Brown, yeah.
Yeah, Doc Brown goes, he's pulling apart the car or something like that.
Or he's pulling something apart and he goes,
look, it's made in Japan.
And then Mario McFly goes, all the best stuff's made in Japan.
I don't know what the idea was touching with.
oh, Japan made good technology or whatever,
and let's think about them.
That was the starting point,
because they did talk about, like,
obviously, like, with parts made in Japan,
and the whole, like, Asian vibe
on the design of the robots themselves.
Was that the actual starting point of the whole song?
It's just kind of spiraled into this,
a sort of mildly racist butterfly effect.
Don't know actually who the production design
of the whole thing was,
But the design of the robots looks a bit like second-hand Cybermen.
Yeah, they do look so.
I did actually, I read somewhere who the designer was once.
Oh, you actually did research? Nice.
Well, I looked at the Wikipedia.
While you're looking at this, I'm going to mute myself and shake something with a cup.
Or maybe I imagined reading it.
Dave, there's no such thing as Wikipedia.
Oh, that's disappointing.
Where did I get all my knowledge from?
in the 80s was japan starting to become like a non-freeze technology and kicking off again
or did it happen earlier oh it was like the 80s yeah it was mostly the 80s like they started in
the 70s but they didn't get it wasn't like the like well-known worldwide until the 80s really
i found it i'll wait till nelly's back from her top secret mission perfect time to fix my mic
did it fall in your face it's very slowly falling and i don't notice it but it just it's sort of just
on top of me it's just slowly looming over you podcast faster it was basically sony panasonic
those kind of companies just like i come out with like home video cameras vhs betamax is basically
the digital revolution in a way like everything going from like big clunky 70s analog stuff to
like magnetic tape
and then into CDs
and stuff like that
in the 90s
but it was like
that tape revolution
was kind of like
from
can Scott hear us?
of course Scott
has a brilliant answer
to this
and then you had
the game consoles as well
like Nintendo
in the mid to late 80s
as well
like you had all that
okay
oh she's made it again
was that
the ween I meant to hear that
Scott from Japanese
historical impact corner
getting insider information
that's pretty good as well
good
I want to hear more
Sorry, I was checking with Scott from a Japanese corner.
So we heard.
Did you hear the whole thing?
Because I amused myself.
No, only heard a little bit, but it sounded interesting.
I don't know.
It probably makes sense within the song.
Maybe it's not as racist as we thought it was.
It was just a bit insensitive.
Yeah, yeah.
It obviously wasn't intended to be racist, however.
It's just that caricature-y images like that
were obviously a lot more acceptable back then than they are now.
Should we call it a love song towards the Japanese technology?
Sure
Okay I'm calling it this
I've got a secret
I've been hiding
Under my skin
My heart is human
My blood is boiling
My brain IBM
So if you see me
Acting strangely
Don't be surprised
I'm just a man who needed someone
And someone to hide
To keep me alive
Just keep me alive
Speaking of the robots, I found the designer.
The robots were designed by Stan Wilson,
who also worked on Jurassic Park, according to Wikipedia.
Stan Wilson, who had become well-known for his work on Jurassic Park,
designed the robot costume and mask,
which are displayed prominently on the cover of the album
Kilroy was here. Did he make the dinosaurs?
The dinosaurs were real so
he must have just designed the cars.
Dinosaurs.
The general look of the thing
the thing, the video, all
feeds into the fact that I watched Blade Runner last night
which is a happy coincidence but it does
kind of have a bit of a pound shot
Blade Runner looked at.
There's even a shot where I think
he's escaping the prison or something
and there's a sort of Blade Runner
flying car sort of
with a searchlight on him.
Yeah, no, I get what you mean, but...
It does look kind of cool,
considering that obviously the music videos
would have a lot less budget than a proper film.
Does it look good, though?
Does it?
It looks okay.
I hate the colours.
As in, like, luck thereof.
Everything is blue and grey and black.
What's what I'm looking for?
Desaturated monochrome.
Zack Snyder.
Oh, man, shots fired.
Well, I mean, am I wrong?
I'm not wrong.
No, you're not.
Biggest hack in Hollywood.
Yes.
if you've ever seen Soccer Punch
was that him?
yeah it was him yeah
what a bad film
it wasn't that good was it?
nope
it was awful
it would have been fine if it didn't take itself so damn seriously
this is the big thing
it ends with an emotional monologue
and I was just sitting in the cinema
it's the only time I was sitting in the cinema
and I started counting the speakers on the walls
because I was so fucking bored
was it Zack Snyder
who also made Batman boring?
yes
Yeah, he managed to suck the emotions out of any single thing he does.
Sucker Punch has so many problems.
He's like, oh, it's feminist and I'm showing strong female characters.
Bitch, she got fucking the bottomized.
And she was trying to justify her being raped and all this.
Can you please not?
Please just sit in the corner and just shut up.
Ah, I hate him.
Sorry.
Yeah, it was a bad film.
But anyway, I'm kind of intrigued about the rest of the album.
If it is all a concept album about this,
I don't really want to listen to Styx for an hour,
but I'm kind of intrigued to what the actual story would be.
Well, I think there's a second song,
so we can do a bit of research on that.
A second single, I think.
Heavy Metal Poisoning?
Okay, for our listeners at home,
we're now watching Heavy Metal Poisoning by Styx.
It's a bit of, like, Nazi imagery, you know?
That's a fascist moustache I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's pretty fascist.
Pashy moustache.
Okay, it looks like an evil Freddie Mercury.
Okay, so they're burning albums and guitars.
Okay, I guess that's where the whole idea of...
Oh, we're mocking the...
Like the rock-hating Christian fundamentalists or whatever.
Well, it looks kind of like he's an evangelicalist.
That's the idea.
Yeah, I mean, if they had a point to make with the video...
Sorry, with the album.
This video makes it much more obvious.
I think to get
I'll get the video
you need to watch
the other ones
I'm seeing similar links
which is
well
I've just seen Elvis
Really?
Where?
Does it miss?
Oh yeah
you're a bit ahead
yeah okay
They look like they're
about a storm
of capital building
right so okay
we've established
that the album
is roughly about
so how do the
fundamentalist
Christian anti-music
people factor into
the robots
I'm fucking
God
I think we've lost him.
He's lost.
He's done.
How can it be a concept album that jumps from that to robots?
I might have to listen to this fucking album, goddammit.
Like, my best wager is that the connection between the robots
and, say, heavy metal poisoning or whatever they're there,
it's like the robots are probably Christian fundamentalists.
So they're not literally robots,
they're just humans who don't think for themselves.
I mean, allegorically, they're probably that.
They just showed him, like, oh, yeah, literal robots
because they're repeating everything or whatever.
That's my best wager.
I'm pulling stuff out of my ass.
I bet.
Although there is a scene where he seems to be
on some sort of operating table.
Yeah.
Which once again has given me kind of Cybermany vibes
where they're like, are they about to turn him into a robot?
Are they brainwashing him to not like music or whatever?
But he escapes.
He escapes and he runs onto the stage slash museum slash whatever
and then turns into a robot, I think.
The evil robot.
No.
It's just the idea that it's a conceptual album
and the opening track is like a synth-pop song.
And one of the other, like, three or four whatever music videos,
they released from that allegedly a conceptual album.
It's kind of a heavy metal song.
How do you go from synth-pop to heavy metal in a single album?
I did read that basically it's kind of a bit of a David Bowie situation where he's playing a character playing the song.
So maybe that's what's going on with the full album is like each or maybe not each, but like this song and heavy metal are two different fictional bands within the album.
Huh?
Neil, are you confused? Because I'm very confused.
I, I, yes. I'm going to say yes.
It just feels like one of those videos that is trying so hard to say stuff.
And the moment you try to hold on to the things it's trying to say,
it just falls apart because it's just air.
It's like chips for McDonald's.
It's just air.
I'm not a robot without emotions. I'm not what you see. I've come to help you with your problems so we can be free. I'm not a hero. I'm not a savior. Forget what you know. I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control.
Beyond my control
Beyond me control
Just reading from the Wikipedia here.
The song tells part of the story of
Robert Orrin Charles Kilroy,
brackets from rock.
In the rock opera,
Kilroy was here.
The song is performed by Kilroy
as played by the keyboardist Danny DeYoung,
a rock and roll performer
who was placed in a futuristic prison
for rock and roll misfits
by the anti-rock and roll group
Majority for Musical Mortality
and its founder,
Dr. Evett Righteous.
played by guitarist James Young.
Dr. Hadaway.
Just let's call him Dr. Hadaway.
Dr. Hadaway.
Well, this is the other thing.
This is the second robot-related video
that we've watched.
I can't believe I'm going to say this,
but the Hadaway video is better.
I loved the Hadaway video.
Do you think, though,
that they are using the same technology
that Hadaway invented in his lab
to create these robots?
I refuse to believe that Hadaway
deliberately did this,
but I think they may have taken his technology
and turned it into something evil.
The Roboto is a model of robot which does mean you.
Jobs in prison, Kira escapes the prison, overpowering Roboto prison guard.
Okay, so we have the Roboto, which is a model of robot.
Okay, hold on.
So is it...
Did it just...
Yes?
Did they create a name to just make it sound a bit more Japanese, so they can also, like...
It certainly seems that way.
So the Roboto is only one model.
So I wonder what model
Hadway's robot was.
Machine and mensch.
Oh yeah.
So these aren't machine and mensch, these are Roboto's.
Oh god, this is so bad.
Clarifies it.
Crystal Claire, sleep well tonight.
Yes.
Okay, okay, okay.
Focus there, focus.
Okay, so from what you said,
the Roboto is a model of
robot which does many
job's in the prison, but then it's also
prison guard. Is the prison guard a menial
job? I don't think it is. I wouldn't say so. I think
that these robots really need to talk to their
union representatives. Yeah, what the fuck?
That doesn't sound like a menial task
to me. I'm starting to think of like, we are the
buddies in the story. Robots are
like, not... Well,
here's another part that adds to the confusion.
There's one point where he's thanking the robot
in the lyrics. Thank you for breaking me
free, you know that stuff. But is he referring to
Kilroy, I think,
But is Kilroy the evil robot the singer?
Okay, is he referring to the singer
dressed as a robot, or is he referring
to a robot that helped him?
Who cares?
Unfortunately I do, I don't know why.
Okay, should we
like, go back to the lyrics
and do them line by line?
Is that going to help? Oh, why not?
It's called from Japanese Corner.
Konnichiwa.
Genki.
Thanks.
How is mister in Japanese?
Can you hear me?
Yes.
The actual Japanese, as Nelly has posted there,
the word mister is a romanization of the word mister
because there is no word mister in Japanese.
They use different honorifics.
So it would actually be double-added,
but mister is, there's no word mister in Japanese,
so they've just taken the word mister
and romanized it into Japanese characters.
So it's actually like M-I-S-U-T-A, mister.
there's no word
like that in Japanese
that is an English word
that is being pronounced
in Japanese
ah okay
yeah
so they've just kind of
shoved it in for the effect
yeah they've been like
what is the word
mister in Japanese
and then it's come out
with that
and they go
okay cool
without having the knowledge
to go
there's no word
mister in Japanese
language
because they have
different honorifics
depending on your station
so sometimes it's
san
sometimes it's sama
depending on like
your relationship
to the person
rather than mister
cool that clarifies that
this is why he's a teacher
because he can actually
explain shit
thank you Scott
from Japanese linguistics corner.
What corner will we have next week?
Find out.
So we're going back to the lyrics.
Okay, so which part of the lyrics confuses you, Dave?
Maybe we can work through it together.
Sorry.
Mainly verse two.
I've got a secret.
I've been hiding under my skin.
My heart is human.
My blood is boiling.
My brain, IBM.
If you see me,
so if you see me acting strangely,
don't be surprised.
I'm just a man who needed someone
and somewhere to hide
to keep me alive,
to keep me alive, somewhere to hide, keep me alive.
That makes it sound...
Well, even the two half of the lyrics make it sound different, actually.
Because I'm like, does that...
I don't know.
It just gives me a bit of, like, data vibes,
like human body kind of, but IBM brain.
It's just a man.
He's just a special man who needs someone,
somewhere to hide, to keep me alive.
He's just a man with parts from Japan.
I hate this.
Then verse three is that I'm not a robot without emotions.
I'm not what you see.
So that suggests that he looks like a robot.
I've come to help you with your problems so we can be free.
I'm not a hero.
I'm not a saver.
Forget what you know.
I'm just a man whose circumstances were beyond his control.
So he's an unwilling participant in the robot army thing.
So he was a cyborg, but not like cyber man, but doesn't want to be.
He was not completely.
Wasn't that the plot from a Doctor Who episode?
Sounds like it would be.
Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto, for doing the job nobody wants. Yikes.
I kind of interpreted jobs no wanted as just like they were using the robots to do like menial labor and stuff like that.
Cool, but where are the humans then in all this?
Which is why it doesn't make any sense, because the humans seem to be fighting the robots,
but if the robots are doing menial labor for them, why are they fighting them?
Oh, hold on. The problem's plain to see. Too much technology.
Machines to save our lives. Machines to dehumanize?
Kind of reminds me of the plot of Total Annihilation,
if you ever played that.
I have not played Total Annihilation, no.
Basically, people wind up converting,
getting converted to robots,
but then the people who've been turned into robots
start fighting the people who don't want to get turned into robots.
So maybe that's what's going on.
I'm still confused about that.
Machines to save our lives, machines dehumanise.
Is it just like all those machines, they do both?
Through whatever they're doing with the machines to save the humans,
Maybe they're losing their humanity in the process.
Maybe they need some cybernetic enhancement
to survive whatever's going on in the world.
But what has that to do with the lyrics?
I give up.
Shall we move on?
I'm sorry, yes, I give up.
I think we've got plenty of...
Yeah, I'm sorry, guys.
I can't...
What episode are we up to?
16?
Episode 16 has officially broken us.
Hope you enjoyed.
And now we need to stand in a quiet room for half an hour.
Bye.
We'll be back once we get our cybernetic enhancements installed,
which may or may not remove our humanity,
or may or may not make as menial fucking slave robots,
and may or may not cause some sort of uprising in a prison break.
And why does it all end in them going to a gig?
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, Dave. I don't know.
I don't know.
Okay, okay, let's do it.
Instant dad before we move on.
What?
No.
I'm just not.
I am not a fan of rock opera, sticks, and this song.
This video is a dullest dishwasher, which matches the song perfectly.
This song almost had me for a split second, with its dystopian themes,
and what almost felt like Nodes the Blade Runner.
Two things I love, but it didn't deliver, and ultimately fell flat.
It's repetitive. It's very dark and does nothing for me.
I won't be singing this in the shower.
As you can tell by the mental breakdown I've just had during this episode,
this video made my fucking head hurt.
It's a decent looking sort of Blade Runner ripoff, like Neil was saying.
The leading man seems to put in quite a good performance as a flamboyant rock opera frontman.
But I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the fuck was going on.
Despite having an explanation on Wikipedia, it still doesn't fucking add up.
Picture me as the meme of the guy with all the red string and the board
trying to work out a conspiracy.
and going slowly mental.
That's what I...
Yeah.
I've never been a fan of sticks,
but this song is particularly bad.
Although the video,
in my humble opinion at least,
deserves to be in the
so bad is good category,
nothing is really redeemable
and overall it can be viewed
as a pretty racially insensitive video
by our modern standards.
Although to be fair,
so can for a lot of other songs
from this era,
turning Japanese and looking at you,
but the cheese is so stringy.
You almost can't avert your eyes.
However you should.
This sucks ass.
So my favourite moment is the cool
matte painting slash model at 3 minutes 25 seconds.
That's pretty much it.
That's the bit where he's coming out of the prison
and the airplane things looking for him, isn't it?
Yeah.
I still can't figure out whether it's a model or a matte painting.
I think it might be matte painting,
but it looks pretty nice.
It's really well done.
It's hard to tell in our 240p YouTube video,
but yeah, it was pretty cool.
I did appreciate that
and my worst moment is
just the general
fetishisation of
Japanese culture
my favourite moment
was four minutes in
after whatever
has happened
the lead singer
screams in a
blazing falsetto
into a clearly
unhappy robot
and you just see
the robot eventually
just sort of
swat him off
like a fly
I find that hilarious
and the worst moment
was two minutes
ten seconds
a disappointing
lack of commitment
to doing the robot
because he kind of
starts doing the robot
but he just does
one arm movement
and then stops
I'm actually doing the robot right now
but yeah he didn't commit to doing the robot
which is just funny
Favourite parts, theme is Nelly
that one scene got me excited
but it lasted for what like
four seconds and then
disappointment afterwards
The worst part?
Oh the song was too long
Simple as that
I think at the four
four and a half, five minutes
I think it could have cut a minute
The thing is at the end interesting stuff started to happen
so that should have been in
before that cut
so yeah
it was too long
and the ending
should have been
a minute before
the end of the actual song
the shorter version
I mean
total side rant
but I think I mentioned
this earlier
but I watched
the first Blade Runner
for the first time
in like 10 years
last night
oh my god
what a fucking good film
it's good isn't it
I know everyone knows that
it's so morally grey
I love it
yeah we watched
occasionally every
like once a year
or so
that's in 2001
I or no for this video
no
it's a no
from the very depth of my soul
from the depths of my soul
to you listeners who can email us
at gone2farcast at gmail.com
we'd love to hear your thoughts on any recommendations
for videos, look at the show notes
for links to Instagram
and email
and all that jazz twitter
are you ok?
if you're enjoying the podcast
Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast player of choice.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please send a bad review to my report to make a strictly
bad video in song.
Say goodbye, everyone.
Bye.
Goodbye, everyone.
Bye.
And cut.
That did.
Oh, God.
Yeah, that one nearly broke me.
Fucking hell.