Van Halen - Right Now

The music video (directed by Mark Fenske) reflected on events that were
occurring at the time, both within the band and social issues in the world
around them. It used big block letters to display sentences such as "right now,
people are having unprotected sex" and "right now, someone is working too
hard for minimum wage", to describe the footage in the background. This
concept was used previously in videos like Phil Collins' "Another Day in
Paradise".

Hagar was opposed to the video's concept when it was first explained to him.
He stated: "People ain't even going to be listening to what I'm saying because
they'll be reading these subtitles". Despite Warner chairman Mo Ostin phoning
him stating that it would be the biggest music video in the group's career, he
was still so angry that he disappeared to South Carolina for a week with his
then-girlfriend.

During the actual filming, he contracted pneumonia and was suffering from a
fever, which intensified his anger over the video. Fenske says he did not
notice, but allows that he was nervous and busy since it was the first video he
had directed and he had many other things to pay attention to. According to
Hagar, the scene where he folds his arms and refuses to sing, and the end of
the video where he slams the dressing room door were not staged - he was
genuinely angry.

"For the idea of the girl setting fire to a guy's photo", Fenske recalls, "I had a
photo of me at 24 that I didn't mind burning." He says everyone in the video
was either a crew member or band member, save one - his mother. He brought
her to the Video Music Awards as his date.

The video won three awards at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, including
the award for Video of the Year. Bassist Michael Anthony said in a 2011 book
that he thought it was the best video Van Halen had ever done. Hagar was
still disappointed with the result despite the accolades it received. "I don't
think it's enough about the band." However Hagar would later reuse the video
concept and the "right now" lyric for the title track of his 2008 solo album
Cosmic Universal Fashion.

It was later used in Crystal Pepsi commercials between 1992 and 1993, but
not without enraging many longtime Van Halen fans. Eddie said that he
accepted to license the song to PepsiCo because he knew that if he did not,
the company would hire studio musicians to record a cover.


File Name:
08 Right Now - Van Halen

File Format:
mp4

Duration:
00:04:19

Bit Rate:
1617k

File Size:
49.99 MB

Video Codec:
h264

Video Bitrate:
1487k

Video Size:
720x528

Aspect Ratio:
1.36:1

Frame Rate:
23.98fps

Audio Codec:
mp3

Audio Bitrate:
128k

Channels:
2

Sample Rate:
48000