Retro Videos of the Week: "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and "Wherever I May Roam" by Metallica

This weekend is Lollapalooza.  It will be my 11th overall, and I'm just as excited about this one as I was for my first one in 1994.  Two of the acts I'm most excited to see are Paul McCartney, who is headlining Friday night, and Metallica, who are headlining Saturday night.  I did not feel much like choosing between the two for Retro Video of the Week, so I went with a video from each.

First is McCartney's collaboration with Michael Jackson, "Say Say Say" (obviously before the King of Pop bought the publishing rights to a bunch of Beatles songs and refused to sell them to McCartney).  When it comes to collaborations, it doesn't get much bigger than this:  a Beatle and the King of Pop.  Certainly, audiences in 1983 and 1984 ate it up.  On the heels of their previous collaboration, "The Girl Is Mine" -- the first single released off of Thriller, in late 1982, which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- "Say Say Say" climbed all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for six weeks in December 1983 to January 1984.  On top of that, it came in at #3 on Billboard's Hot 100 for the year 1984, #9 for Billboard's end-of-decade charts for the 1980s, and #40 on Billboard's all-time chart.

The video is a classic from the early MTV era, featuring McCartney, Jackson, Linda McCartney, LaToya Jackson, and even Art Carney.  It's more short film than music video, and I definitely remember watching this video when I was a kid, thinking "who's that old dude singing with Michael Jackson?"


Second is Metallica's "Wherever I May Roam," off of their monster 1991 self-titled album (aka "The Black Album").  It was the fourth single released off of the album, and it got up to #82 on the Billboard Hot 100.  I have always like the line "rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond, call me what you will."  The video is comprised of scenes from the band while on tour.  All in all, just a badass song.