BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
Pantera is one of the most famous and most loved modern metal acts. For the early part of the 90’s, these guys put some of the hardest and best stuff you’ll ever hear. While grunge was starting to hit it’s boiling point and Metallica was taking a place in the mainstream, Pantera was unleashing hell on the pits of clubs across the country and world.
Their albums will go down as a “How-To-Make-Metal” for years to come. Every dirty little kid to pick up a guitar with the intent of destroying the world’s earholes should take these albums and take notes. What we get is pure and carnal aggression layered on some of the most complex guitar accompaniment of all time.
It’s hard to argue with any of this. Even if their stuff isn’t you thing, you can’t deny the impact this band had on music. We’ve heard about the live shows, we know the albums are epic, and the personalities and story of the band is as infamous as they come. But what about their music videos? Do their music videos stand up to the legend?
In today’s column we’re going to check out the music videos of Pantera. Let’s hope for the best…
Track: "Cowboys from Hell"
Album: ”Cowboys from Hell”
Year: 1990
Director: Paul Rachman
This is a really energetic live video from back in the day. Paul Rachman directed this video after shooting the band do their thing at a venue in Dallas called “The Basement”. We see tons of kids rocking out, stage diving, and smashing around into each other. Meanwhile, the band doesn’t hold back in their performance. The cuts are quick and we get to see a great dose of good early 90’s heavy metal fun. It’s aggressive, but it doesn’t feel as angry as what I know to expect from Pantera moving forward.
Rating: 6.75
Track: "Psycho Holiday"
Album: ”Cowboys from Hell”
Year: 1990
Director: Paul Rachman
This video is pretty much the same exact situation as their debut video. It’s the band doing their thing in the same venue in Dallas with the same director piecing this anarchy together. The little difference is the editing. We see more of the crowd rocking out and since it’s a slower paced song, we get lots of slow motion cuts. I can’t imagine there being a whole lot of “down tempo” tracks to pick footage from so the slow-motion is probably a nessessity as much of an artistic POV. I think this one has more interesting shots and is cut better, but the first video has more action cuts that made it easier to get into.
Rating: 6.0
Track: "Cemetery Gates"
Album: ”Cowboys from Hell”
Year: 1990
Director: Paul Rachman
The video is pretty nifty. The band rocks out in a live atmosphere, but there’s also creepy cuts of a cemetery of the band standing around like they’re at a really casual funeral that no one was invited to. The song is a classic, but the video not so much. A kid yells at a guy who is obviously not a priest at a funeral. It’s a lot of bad acting on top of some really emotive and overly dramatic singing. He looks like he’s singing a ballad, but the song is still hard as shit. I at least appreciate the change up of the attempted narrative. It looks decent enough.
Rating: 7.0
Track: "Mouth for War"
Album: ”Vulgar Display of Power”
Year: 1992
Director: Paul Rachman
I like how this video looks. It’s black and white and obviously a legitimate produced video. They band rocks out and does their thing in an isolated set area. The camera roams and gets some great candid close ups of everyone doing their best to be bad asses for the camera. We finally star getting cuts of people rocking out behind a military looking net and then some cuts of key words pop up in bold font. Eventually the video goes to color and the crowd shows up and rocks out. This video is actually bad ass. It’s simplistic, but it’s still scary as shit. This is more of the identity I associate with Pantera in my admittedly limited knowledge of the band. This video was ahead of its time at the time. It’s still bad ass today.
Rating: 8.0
Track: "This Love"
Album: ”Vulgar Display of Power”
Year: 1992
Director: Kevin Kerslake
The band rocks out on a roof top as smoke and weird industrial stuff goes on behind them. Meanwhile the video cuts to shots of a prostitute earning her money and doing her thing. We’ve seen this kind of thing in videos before, but the point of view here gives it a much dirtier and less glamourized job. The blue hues of the roof top stuff contrasts nicely with the warmer and more rust looking cut aways. The band just rocks the hell out of this one. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this video and I’m just as in awe of it and the song as I was in the 90’s when my little mind was blown by it.
Rating: 8.35
Track: "Walk"
Album: ”Vulgar Display of Power”
Year: 1992
Director: Paul Anderson
This is my favorite Pantera song. I know I’m not alone. The riff, the lyrics, the attitude, and everything just comes the fuck together here like no other. My first exposure was thanks to Rob Van Dam using this in the old ECW and from there it opened the doors to Pantera for me. The video is brutal. It’s all live, but it captures that chanting drive the song has. You just want to punch the air and head bang to your best ability. Songs like this is why guitars were invented. The video is fine, but I’m bias so it gets more credit than it should.
Rating: 9.0
Track: "Planet Caravan"
Album: ”Far Beyond Driven”
Year: 1994
Director: Michael Boydstun
This video was always weird. I remember seeing it back in the day and always wondered what the hell is was. Now a million years later I find out it’s visuals from some computer generated digitally animated piece from 1991. At the time this had to be one of the craziest animated things out there. Technology has advanced leaps and bounds since them. The music and the animation complement each other nicely, but it’s pretty forgettable after you’ve seen video games past like Playstation one. I still appreciate the innovative approach and the look back at how far we’ve come with digital design.
Rating: 6.75
Track: "I'm Broken"
Album: ”Far Beyond Driven”
Year: 1994
Director: Wayne Isham
We see a light bulb and bam, the band is rocking out in a small space. You’d think this was a rehreashal type of shoot. The band rocks out and goes at it with a full on assault of metal.
The cuts bounce around and get a lot of interesting takes. It’s cut quick and has just enough of a texture to it to be interesting looking. This video doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a great moment captured of the dudes killing it.
Rating: 6.0
Track: "5 Minutes Alone"
Album: ”Far Beyond Driven”
Year: 1994
Director: Wayne Isham
The light bulb is back and it fixes itself as the song kicks into gear. We get tight guitar shots and crazy blurred motion stuff of the vocals. It looks clean and crisp. The cuts and direction are cool. I like the freeze frames, the layering, the cuts, and the tight shots of randomness. This is a really well done video. It’s just them rocking out, but the way its put together makes it stand out amongst their collection for sure. The intensity is captured very nicely.
Rating: 6.95
Track: "Drag the Waters"
Album: ”The Great Southern Trendkill”
Year: 1996
Director: Dimebag Darrell
The opening of the video has a creepy narration, but it then it goes right into the only video from this amazing album. It’s a washed out black and white video of the band rocking out. We then get cuts of dudes getting busted by the cops after a drug deal. We see corrupt business men with cheap women. There is just something really brutal and primal about this video. It feels like the video someone new would put out. The band just goes at it and puts their shit out there. It’s in your face, it’s no bullshit, and it’s full of angeriffic fun. That’s right, bitches. I said “angeriffic fun”.
Rating: 8.0
Track: "Revolution Is My Name"
Album: ”Reinventing the Steel”
Year: 2000
Director: Jim Van Bebber
This video is a lot different than the others. It looks great and bright. The colors pop and it’s got much more of a story going on. We see the band rocking out in an isolated area while the video cuts to really crazy little kid shots of the band going nuts. The little kid versions of them even have the crazy facial hair. It’s a really cool and weird video. It’s funny, but in a disturbing way. The band is really captured in all it’s glory here. The tongue-in-cheek aspects of the band seems to be missed out on way too often. The video pokes the right amount of fun at the things they hate without getting too cheesy. It’s just a fun video. Headbanger’s Ball named it the 15th greatest metal video of the 21st century back in 05 for a reason. Metal videos don’t get made like this anymore.
Rating: 8.75
Track: "Piss"
Album: ”Vulgar Display of Power”
Year: 2012
Director: Zach Merck
This is crazy. The video was made long after the band was done. The song was allegedly unheard until recently. They put it out there and them put a video out to go with it. It’s a lot of people just rocking out at their homes and with their friends. Then this is all cut in with interesting and pretty looking metal heads in a pretty studio environment. It’s nothing too bad, but it just lacks anything resembling the band. It feels like a commercial for a TV show that no one wants to see. It’s really kind of a letdown.
Rating: 6.0
What is YOUR favorite Pantera video?
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