Level 42 - Who said this was a good idea?

I have been a rather consistent fan of Level 42 since their 1985 US breakthrough Something About You. I stayed through their first post-Gould brothers release, and even the largely uneven Guarenteed. I even bought Mark King's second solo album, One Man (which was really one mistake). I even have enjoyed some of the more recent live material that Mark King has released with a somewhat cobbled together band hawking themselves off as Level 42, even if King is the sole original member left. So I have some fan cred here.

With that in mind, the video for 1987s Children Say is a joke. It is so bland it makes watching Yanni exciting. Filmed after Boon and Philip Gould bailed the group, it shows mostly random shots of King and Mike Lindup interacting in crowds and mugging for the camera in between short shots of various precocious and annoying-looking children doing a neo-Bob Dylan and holding little signs with bits of lyrics or a note that a solo was playing.

Given that this band produced one of the best conceptual videos of the mid 80s with Something About You, and some rather above par performance-oriented material --the title track from Running in The Family comes to mind, of which Children Say was also taken from-- , it is a shame how fast they dropped to the point of generating about as much sizzle as reading year old People magazine issues in the dentists office.

I think the children would say this is naff. So do adults.