10 Things I Learned from Laura Branigan’s ‘Gloria’ Video

With her uniquely throaty but pow­er­ful voice and a string of early ‘80s chart-toppers like “How Am I Sup­posed to Live With­out You”, “Soli­taire” and “Self Con­trol”, Laura Brani­gan is a music icon we lost too soon . It’s a shame that most peo­ple are unaware of her sta­tus as a hit-maker for other artists, with songs like “Power of Love” that would later become a gigan­tic suc­cess for Celine Dion.

But her biggest hit was “Glo­ria,” a song that I maintain–despite its extreme level of perky pop cheese–is one of the most moti­va­tional songs ever recorded. And in my world the only thing bet­ter than a cheesy ‘80s song is a cheesy ‘80s video.

Behold:

Here’s ten things I learned from it:

1. Laura was pos­si­bly drunk dur­ing the film­ing of this video.

You know that feel­ing of invin­ci­bil­ity you get towards the end of a wed­ding recep­tion when you’ve had too much to drink, the sweat from danc­ing all night has made your hair go flat, and your feet hurt like a moth­er­fucker but all you want is for the DJ to play that one last dance song that you just know is going to be amazing–because  any  song you hear at that point is going to be amaz­ing and you WILL dance to it while singing along with every word? That’s how Laura Brani­gan looks in this video.

It’s a kind of aloof, slightly dazed expres­sion (as she sways her hips and points at noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar) that says:

2. Some disco balls and a glit­tery top are all it takes to make a video.

I didn’t think it was pos­si­ble to make a music video lazier than Survivor’s video for “Moment of Truth” but god­damn if Laura Brani­gan doesn’t suc­ceed at it.

3. But how many disco balls does it take, exactly?

Four.

Five if we’re count­ing Laura, who could cer­tainly pass for one.

4. Laura Brani­gan has unpar­al­leled hip-shaking abilities.

Laura’s already shak­ing her hips even before she’s through with mak­ing her big entrance and the hip-shaking action doesn’t stop ’till the video ends.

5. I need this awe­some light­ning bolt belt.

6. Laura switches mic hands thir­teen times.

THIRTEEN TIMES!

7. Ran­dom zoom shots!

I guess the cam­era guy zooms in on one of the disco balls at  3:27  because he fig­ured we don’t see enough of them through­out the video.

8. Stand­ing on dif­fer­ent shapes is fun.

Laura prefers the cir­cle, though.

9. Fix a bor­ing video by walk­ing around a bit.

Walk­ing from Point A to Point B and then back to Point A for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son again like Laura does at 2:05  is a good way to break up the monotony.

10. You’ve never seen upper body chore­og­ra­phy like this.

Laura pulls out all the stops here, employ­ing clas­sic ‘80s video chore­og­ra­phy like “The Power Fist” as well as some sig­na­ture moves that I’ll attempt to point out below:

• “The Rodeo” — 0:16 ‚  1:32  and more at 2:01
• “The Lazy Wrist” — 0:25
• “The Final Count­down” — 0:37
• “The Left Turn Sig­nal” — 0:52
• “The Head­trip” — 0:58  and another at 1:54
• “The Statue of Lib­erty” — 1:03
• “The Power Point” — 1:14 ‚  1:42 , and again at  3:04
• “The Pas­sion Play” — 1:18  &  2:38
• “The Hand of Glory” — 1:45  &  2:51
• “The Roof Raiser” — 2:09
• “The Karate Chop” — 2:39
• “The Hair­stresser” — 2:54

And after a cer­tain point she just starts blend­ing them all together in an indis­tin­guish­able mix. Her tech­nique is masterful.

If Laura Brani­gan were alive today, I would thank her for this glo­ri­ous, glit­ter­ing gift she has given the world.

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