Rob Zombie is one of the most visually attuned musical artists around. (Is he still around? I think I remember reading that he died in a freak bungee jumping/blood transfusion accident.) I read an interview with him once (before his untimely demise) where he said he would buy albums entirely based on their covers. Maybe you can judge an album by its cover. Shouldn't you be able to, though? The artist is involved in creating the album cover, so I think it should be representative of its contents. Same with books. The cover is a great way to judge! I think we all have a good idea what this book will be like:
Dragula was Rob Zombie's first hit as a solo artist. On his own, he had total control over the look of his video and how he appeared in it. Here's the video he made:
This video is awesome. Everything looks fake and ridiculous and I love it. The picture we will be looking at is this:
Rob Zombie has dreads, is wearing a huge amount of make-up, has a crazy beard, and is driving a ridiculous car (the Dragula).
I guess I just love talking about people with dreads. Once again I don't have much to say about them except that it was the '90s. I don't believe that Rob Zombie was from Jamaica, but I haven't done any research so he very well could be. Let's go ahead and say he managed to crawl his way out of Kingston and onto the charts.
Zombie's make-up is of the category called corpse paint. According to Atom and His Package on his song Me and My Black Metal Friends, corpse paint is a scary name for make-up. He also mentioned that in Norway "there's nothing to do but kill each other and play guitars in the snow." I think all of that applies to Rob Zombie. He is trying to look as scary as possible on what is, in essence, a dance song. When it comes to musical genres, image is almost everything. There isn't a real difference between Cradle of Filth and Yes except Cradle of Filth has a scary name and scary make-up. That is why Cradle of Filth is black metal and Yes are prog rock.
Now, the car. The name "Dragula" is awesome but it implies a drag racer. That is not really what we get here. This is a better view of the car:
It has a skull on the shift lever and its exhaust pipes coming directly out of the engine look like devil horns. These are both awesome. The car itself looks more like a hot rod than a drag racer. It reminds me of what's-his-face's car from American Graffiti:
I guess there is a drag race in that movie, but that is definitely a hot rod. Totally boss.
Rob Zombie's clothing in the video can be better seen in this shot:
For some reason he is dressed in an old-timey coat. Is he wearing breeches? I guess it is hard to tell. Some things we are just not meant to know.
-PTD
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