The 10 most ridiculous rock videos ever

10 Status Quo – Dear John

Are you a huge loser? Has your rocker girlfriend given up on you, with your brown suit and chartered-accountant glasses? How can you possibly restore your cool and your sex appeal? According to this video, you do it by dressing like Status Quo, by means of a Magic Toilet. That is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

9 Steven Seagal – Girl it's Alright

What's a fading action star to do when his paunch gets in the way of his roundhouse kicks? Well, the sales of Steve's energy drink (yes, he has an energy drink) obviously weren't going so well, so he decided he was going to become a blues legend, following in the steps of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. Actually, Steven followed in the footsteps of the likes of Minnie Driver, Keanu Reeves and Russell Crowe in making an absolute prat of himself. He spends most of this video slimily chatting up some far-eastern girl who looks about a third of his age. Also, he called his band “Thunderbox”, which is a sadly appropriate euphemism for “toilet” in the UK.

8 Survivor – Eye of the Tiger

Oh dear. Some things don't age well, and the 80's denim and leather look is pretty much at the top of that list. Never in the field of human experience has a band tried so hard to look smoulderingly heterosexual, and achieved the exact opposite in such spectacular fashion. The Village People put out less camp videos than this. And for a bunch of guys marching down the street in a strict echelon formation like the toughest heavies on the stip, they don't half look like a bunch of weenies. This video would have been way better if Motley Crue came the other way, beat them to a pulp, and snorted them. Survive that...

7 – Michael Bolton – Sitting on the Dock of the Bay

OK, sometimes it's hard to separate a terrible video from a terrible song, and MB's hideous murder of this classic is dreadful enough in itself (advice to Michael Bolton – look up “soulful” and “constipated” in the dictionary. You'll be surprised at how different the two concepts actually are.). However, the video does the song a perverted kind of justice by being just as objectionable. Amongst the points to note:

* Whilst singing a song about loneliness and contemplation, MB is surrounded by a rock band and a troupe of dancing girls, making it somewhat crowded up on the pier.
* Speaking of the dancing girls, they can't dance. Nor can they sing.
* Just look at the hair. JUST LOOK AT THE HAIR! David Attenbrough could do a pretty thorough natural history of some of those mullets.

6 Nitro – Freight Train

-Hey dad, could you tell me about the eighties?
-Sure son. Watch this, it's all you need to know.
-Dad, what the hell is that?
-That's Jim Gilette.
-No, what's that on his head?
-I'm not sure son. It might be his hair. It might be a failed Cold War experiment.
-Dad, why didn't we let the Russians invade and prevent this atrocity?
-I dunno son. I dunno.

5 Nightwish – Sleeping Sun

This video is nothing if not thought-provoking. Amongst the thoughts I have had while watching it:

* This is a song about the night. Why is it shot in the middle of the day?
* Why does Tarja Turunen spend much of this video climbing out of the bath fully clothed?
* Why is the bath in question in the middle of a field?
* Why didn't Nightwish announce that they had perfected human cloning, seeing as there's anything up to 6 Tarja's on screen at any one time?
* How come they don't all engage in a massive prima donna catfight?
* Is it just me or does Tarja look like ET?

4 Dokken - Breaking the Chains

Jesus Cartwheeling Christ. George Lynch's spectacular mullet can't quite hide his embarrasment in this spasm-inducing late-term abortion of a video. Almost no aspect of it, in any way, is even on speaking terms with "acceptable". Points to note are almost too numerous to mention, but spare a thought for poor drummer Mick Brown - at least the others have their guitars to hide behind whilst pratting their way through this monstrosity, all he can do is wave his drumsticks in the air and fervently wish he was somewhere else.

3 Iron Mask – Revenge is my Name

It's not often that a video starts with an inexplicable two-minute swordfight between what looks like two extras from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and actually gets worse from that point forward. Like many of the videos here, this suffers from “Mighty Morphin' Guitar” syndrome, as Dushan Petrossi's guitar spends much of the video changing colour and shape. Incidentally, someone should have told Dushan that if you're going to slavishly copy Yngwie Malmsteen's guitar playing, it's not 100% compulsory to copy his uncontrollable weight gain as well. Also, a small point, but Yngwie usually has his guitars plugged in.

2 Poison – Unskinny Bop

Some of the videos on this list feature the amazing morphing guitar that changes colour, or even model, from shot to shot, but nothing compares to this outpouring from America's greatest poodle-rock posers. The whole video seems to be a spectacular excuse for Poison's axemen (including the bassist, who manages an impressive 3 different examples) to show off their guitar collections. Who are they trying to impress? Well, judging by the end of the video, having a huge collection of guitars really gets you the girls. Or at least it did in the 80's. Lack of guitars seems to have been a major drawback to your love-life, to the extent that singer Bret Michaels has to make do with two women who he's clearly hallucinated.

1 Dimmu Borgir – Progenies of the Great Apocalypse (NSFW)

This is, without doubt, my favourite video ever. I love the unrestrained creative process that was obviously behind it. I don't know exactly how the creative meeting to decide on the video's script went, but I'm willing to bet that it made an episode of Metalocalypse look under-acted:

-I want this to be the most badass video of all time! Every nanosecond must be 100% metal, and contain as much badass stuff as possible!
-I want to wear loads of spikes! More spikes than anything, ever!
-I want to get crucified at the end!
-There should be a satanic mass!
-Only if I get to play an organ made of bones, on top of a hill of skulls! With snakes on it!
-It should have naked chicks!
-Yeah! Naked goth chicks! In chains!
-I want my hands to be on fire!
-I think there should be a fat guy with a meat cleaver!
-Why?
-Why not!
-My eyes should have pentagrams in them!
-And there should be comets falling from the sky!
-And a fat guy without a meat cleaver as well!
-More snakes!
-This is gonna be so badass! Those guys down the mall won't laugh at us any more now!