In the first part of our series spotlighting music videos in the 1980s, we looked at some of the more unsung clips from the era. The dawning of this artistic platform was an exciting time for all involved: musicians, video directors, and artists — diving headfirst into a new medium with little in the way of definitive standards. Working against a tabula rasa and with low barriers to entry, the possibilities were endless. As we peer over into a mineshaft of archived content, we find a lot of quality work that held up well and others that… um, well, you be the judge. There are a number of items that factor into a video’s obsolescence.
Technology: Many of the earliest music videos from the 1970s and early 1980s were promotional stock, shot mainly on film, giving them a grainy but consistent look that pretty much ages at the same rate across the board. They were often straight-ahead clips of the bands performing or assuming characters. We’ll give these a pass. However, as cable TV and video dance clubs proliferated, a torrent of opportunities for enterprising directors and film students opened up, and many of these were recorded on video cameras, giving many early videos a bright, washed-out look. Couple that with some cheap DIY effects, and you have a recipe for chaos. We’ll table a discussion of some of the most primitive efforts, featuring giant bunny rabbits and disembodied heads (here’s looking at you, Thompson Twins) until next time, but will highlight the ones that, through technical precision, achieved a finished look or took a particularly creative approach.
Theme: While the themes of pop songs and the videos we love are universal (love, war, pestilence, agriculture), some themes tended to crop up more (power + corruption + lies, materialism, conspicuous consumption, girls on top of cars, love in a battlefield). In much the way we gauge the timeliness of movies, the more topical, trendy, or specific a video is to the era, the more dated it looks once insider trading, breakdancing, and the Cold War fall out of favor as inspiration to busboys and poets.
Style: Related to theme is style. The more contemporary, hip, and of-the-moment the clip, the more doomed the video is to age. Except, as we know, for goth or anything in black. Certain hairstyles become so specific to an era, and they become Samuel Jackson catchphrases. As parachute pants, Members Only jackets, and South Beach activewear hit the dustbins of history, so too must we cart our beta recordings of these gems into their final resting place, VH-1.
Artistic Statement: Rudimentary music videos and performance clips go back to the origins of rock music, in many instances, low-budget films that substituted extended live performances for plot or dialogue or home videos dubbed to a soundtrack. As demand for videos heated up, and before record labels and management moved in the direction of conceptual videos helmed by big-name directors (John Landis and his extended clip for “Thriller”), the earliest videos were straight-ahead performance clips, or some variation, with bands wanly lip-synching or engaging in good clean band fun, pillow fights and such. Artists were also given free rein to conceive their own work. Some of the most dated attempts can be found where musicians themselves engage in ham-fisted attempts at acting or directing and in the earliest attempts at conceptual art, where without adult supervision, they took flight and never really ever returned to Earth.
The qualifier is when certain styles or themes recur. Like electro/disco. Adam Sandler/wedding singers. War and pestilence. Videos that have the hindsight to cast the artists in situations that they might envision their grandchildren themselves in, or anything that, say, Kathleen Hanna touches, will live on.
This collection of 1980s music videos on clips that have, remarkably, stood the test of time. These videos endure in part by breaking new boundaries (in technology, style, subject matter), hashing a theme that (perhaps fortuitously) has been recycled time and again in pop culture without exceeding our patience, or boldly taking on a theme or style in currency that may still be rooted in the back seat of Doc’s DeLorean, but whether due to execution — or plumb determination — has managed to win a continued place in our hearts.
Visage – “Fade to Grey” (Polydor, 1980)
At first glance, this clip might appear to be the second music video ever shot, immediately following the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Overexposure. Expressionless, minimalist models present a nightmarish specter of mimes that appear to come to life. And yet timeless. The video to this synthpop classic was shot crisply, with slow, measured movements that seemingly take weeks to develop. Add in that the music anticipated the electroclash fad that rocked turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, and this video has a reasonably indefinite shelf life, longer than, say, the revivalists who brought renewed attention to synthpop (Oh where, oh where are you Fischerspooner?). Ultravox’s Midge Ure wrote the song’s lyrics, and in a bit of serendipity, Adam Clayton developed his part for U2’s “New Year’s Day”, while trying to learn this song’s bass line.
ELO and Olivia Newton John – “Xanadu” (Universal, 1980)
Ok, here’s a shocker. At the time, this cheesy, over-the-top production number had sharks jumping all over it. That’s even before the Go-Gos water-skiing stunt for “Vacation” had the unfortunate timing of being released right around the time that Jaws 3 featured a similar shot of water skiers meeting their demise in a one-sided collision with killer sharks. Roller skates? Olivia Newton-John, paired with screen icon Gene Kelly? Maybe someone should pair the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton with vaudevillian George Burns (crap, that really happened!). So, in a major upset, I looked at this for a certain top-five spot of old and decrepit, and lo and behold, this video looks timeless.
As with the Visage clip, when executed as well as this, it achieves iconic stature as the model for unhinged, overstimulated show numbers, with all eyes mugging for the camera. That sounds a lot like a certain darling TV musical show on the air featuring kids who like to mug for the camera. Watching this now, you’re not entirely sure if this was shot back in the day or was staged as a throwback ad. Other aspects of this, such as roller disco and crowd-sourcing, are all in a big way. You could imagine this breaking out in Grand Central Terminal. A young hipster ad executive might conceive of a piece like this, digitally inserting the screen legends. Back then, directors had the foresight to film these legends.
Kim Wilde – “Kids in America” (EMI, 1982)
For being such an iconic song about kids living in America, Kim was a Brit. One of the most recognizable of the initial wave of 1980s pop hits, this clip essentially serves as a template for a first-wave video. You’ve got a lead singer delivering a relatively flat, expressionless delivery choked with emotion; you can hear the anxiety in her voice once the song takes off. There’s simple staging: the band is on a soundstage that looks like a schoolyard, shifting to some inner room for the final verse, where Wilde’s watching some green dinosaurs while rebuffing the creepy advances of her bandmate. It was close between this and the Knack’s “My Sharona”, another brilliant period piece, but Wilde’s trance-like dance moves win this hands down. Wilde nearly outdid herself in 1987 with a stellar clip to her remake of “You Keep Me Hanging On”.
Thomas Dolby – “Europa and the Pirate Twins” (EMI, 1984)
Thomas Dolby was also on the leading edge, actually using his own interest in technology to burnish an image as the mad scientist in “She Blinded Me with Science” and using an array of the slickest tricks for “Hyperactive”. One of his lesser-known and unsung videos was the clip for “Europa and the Pirate Twins”. Weaving in at least four different scenes — including a black and white external shot wrapped around Europa, a shot of him playing with his wireless and telecomputer, a shot of burning stuff, and some black and white stock footage of Ziegfried Follies — this video zips along. Showing off his belief in the brave new world of technology through his characters, Dolby would remain ahead of the game, starting Headspace, creating a new downloadable file format, and then writing ringtones for phones. It is one of his earliest singles, and it is overshadowed by some other hit singles. This video is a keeper.
INXS – “The One Thing” (Atlantic, 1982)
Here’s another clip, shot on film, with a warbly sound that jumps right out at you in the current day. This video demonstrates kids’ tendency when they’re just out of school to do things in large groups before they’ve had a chance to couple up. It also shows off the tendency of musicians to surround themselves with glamorous models, even though one could not imagine the artist and model pairing up — oh, wait, forgot, Ric Ocasek. But this bacchanal feast has a lot going for it — Roman-style overconsumption seems to be making a statement about our carnal instincts — that may be revisited as the global commons deals with the issue of living beyond one’s means.
This two-in-one clip offers some insight into the video editing process, how content gets repurposed, and the degree of artistic control one could exert in emphasizing different aspects of the video. Sadly, this video is bittersweet, as years later, singer Michael Hutchence met his demise. While the group got a nice little return and payout when it went the reality show route, this video captures the band just as it hit its stride in the US and Europe after a steady career in Australia.
Public Enemy – “Fight the Power” (Def Jam, 1989)
Old school hip-hoppers had their “The Message”, enjoyed “The Breaks”, and had their fun like the Sugarhill Gang. However, unlike the message-oriented artists that would come out later, the initial revolution would not be televised. One of the lingering controversies of the day was the seeming inability of African-American artists to enjoy access to video outlets like white artists. MTV was accused of being insensitive or worse in not providing black artists with opportunities; this is in marked contrast to today, where R&B and hip-hop artists dominate the airwaves.
While Black artists could get videos shown on other networks such as NBC or TBS, MTV was resolute in sticking to a rock-dominated format. When finally given the opportunity, hip-hop made its move for the hearts and minds of young male music fans, in part through the massive success of Yo! MTV Raps, the daily program that made stars of the likes of Will Smith and LL Cool J, and even helped focus attention on Ice-T, the gangsta-turned-musician-turned-holiday celebrity.
Public Enemy not only unleashed a whole new movement of politicized, message rap, it also raised the bar on discussion. “Fight the Power” brings the group’s cause to the people, a sprawling outdoor shoot featuring delegates from various representative burghs. The video and exposure from the movie Do the Right Thing were critical to bringing Public Enemy to a legion of new fans.
The Minutemen – “This Ain’t No Picnic” (SST, 1984)
The Minutemen’s debut video in 1984 is a tightly made, well-executed clip that handles what might potentially be a tricky subject — “the President is sticking it to the little guy” — in a creative, winning manner. Shot for $600, the video shows our heroes singing their tale of woe until the black and white image of Ronald Reagan flying a WWII airplane shows up and strafes the band as they sing. President Reagan was a polarizing figure; he has been canonized by the American right wing, while his detractors dredge up unfavorable memories of declaring ketchup as a vegetable, undertaking a controversial arms deal, and engaging in class warfare by generating the image of a welfare queen.
A video that was too specific in criticizing his policies or which showed images of the Teflon man would likely have aged as opinions of Ronnie softened after his death. This video works, though, in that it engages in clever satire that tweaks the President by bringing up associations with a B-movie actor who served as caretaker for Bonzo. In contrast, many of the songs submitted for the Rock Against Bush! album were a little too strident and personal. Using black and white also gives the video an old-school sheen.
Black Flag – “TV Party” (SST, 1982)
Another video from one of the veterans of the hardcore underground, “TV Party” (along with its singer, Henry Rollins) has aged really well, on so many different levels. Who can’t identify with sitting around and having a couple of brews? The TV show references might seem dated, but these shows have been frozen into our collective consciousness thanks to networks like TV Land and Nickelodeon. When one looks at the current network lineups and sees reboots like Charlie’s Angels, it seems only time before we’ll see a new Love Boat, Fantasy Island, or Family. And to those prone to sit around, “TV Party” provides a rallying cry.
Madonna – “Like a Prayer” (Sire, 1989)
One of the most accomplished artists of the video generation, Madonna made her image as the mysterious Desperately Seeking Susan thrift store fashion icon. Madonna is an example of the danger faced by a prodigious artist who seems to be everywhere at once and constantly reinvents herself: the earliest or most dissonant images are doomed to irrelevance. As Madonna has aged and continued to be proficient, many of the earliest videos that made her — “Lucky Star”, “Borderline”, etc. — have aged. At least she avoided the “Cher atop a battleship in her stockings” as she desperately tries to “turn back time”.
Yet, it was her clip for “Like a Prayer”, a big risk that initially backfired, that endures today. Controversy erupted around the depiction of her dancing near the altar in her underwear and kissing a saint. Pepsi pulled her as a sponsor, cutting an ad with “Like a Prayer” running in the background. Oddly, the commercial got canned, but the video stuck. This video is a prime example of genre storytelling at its best.
The Police – “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” (A&M, 1981)
Few videos capture the carefree and playful young musicians’ exuberance than this classic from the Police‘s Ghost in the Machine album. Much like “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” — that song about that book by Nabokov — this video shows the playful camaraderie of the band before it imploded behind the scenes. While the Police’s oldest videos look worn out, both “Every Little Thing” and “Spirits in the Material World” were shot while the group was recording in Montserrat, where the steel drums, the welcoming crowd, and the frenzy of a homecoming style parade created a warm environment. It also adds up to a fun, slightly irreverent video, as when the band members scuffle in the mixing room over control of a song and then playfully romp with a hat-changing routine that serves as an excellent reference to Waiting for Godot.