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Favorite 80s Music Video

utee94

By utee94
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utee94

utee94 16080

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Video killed the radio star, that's what The Buggles told us.  And although Home Box Office primed the pump with Video Jukebox in 1981, MTV quickly supplanted HBO and became the premier source of music video entertainment.    Later we'd be labeled "Generation X" but my older brother and I had an earlier, simpler name for our generation-- we called ourselves the "Early MTV Generation" because we were in the prime years where the original MTV was targeted directly for us.

Like almost everyone else my age, I was completely engaged in the videos MTV chose to show us from 1981 to about 1994.  What fascinates me so much is that individuals and groups that might not have been noticed for their musical talent in the previous decade or two, were suddenly making it big based largely on physical appearance and presentation.  You could realistically and perhaps cynically label that as an 80s "form over substance" obsession and that wouldn't be entirely wrong, but I also think it unfairly overlooks the single most attractive thing about the era-- the music didn't have to change the world, it was  focused on being fun.  And the videos followed suit.

Anyway, I couldn't possibly name a favorite or even a top 10 or 20 videos, but I'll go ahead and post a few that I like, to start.  If anyone else is interested, I'd love to see your favorites as well. 

 

There are thousands of choices for the super-popular ones, and I probably like 82% of them.  But I'll go ahead and start with one that to me is very interesting, and not as popular as a lot of others at the time.  In the early 80s, post-apocalyptic fantasies were big sellers.  It was perhaps the peak of the Cold War and and tensions were high.  Tom Petty apparently liked Mad Max and provided this gem:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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utee94

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So, with an unashamed admission that I truly love 80s hair metal, I'll go ahead and post up one of my favorite 80s videos NOT from that genre, but instead a super-poppy video, which also happens to be one of the most famous music videos of all time.  I loved the song then, and still do.  For some reason recently, I stumbled over this on Youtube with my kids (ages 8 and 10) and they really loved it as well.  I guess it's timeless.

 

 

 

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utee94

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Could it be an 80s music video discussion without Prince?  No, it could not.

The Purple Rain album was an all-timer and, well, there was also a movie attached to it.  The song "Purple Rain" is one of my all favorites and it's not JUST because I figured out before the junior high dance that it was 8 minutes long and if I could somehow manage to trap my 8th grade crush into dancing with me for the entirety of that song, I'd get to be close to her for an extraordinarily long time.  No, it wasn't about that at all.

But that's not the video I'm going to post because quite frankly it's 8 minutes long and the last 4 minutes or so are pretty tedious and boring.  Here's the really COOL song from that album:

 

 

 

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utee94

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I remember being mesmerized by the stop-motion fruits in Sledgehammer.  And the Ronald Reagan puppet in Land Of Confusion. :)

And Thriller was a mega blockbuster, it really changed the way people approached making music videos.  But I had another favorite on that album, because I was intrigued by the sidewalk squares that lit up as he danced on them.  In later years as an electrical engineering student, I recreated that sidewalk effect with pressure switches and (very expensive) LEDs.

 

 

 

 

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utee94

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35 minutes ago, davidg said:

Two words: Tania Coleridge                     

 

Yup, she'll do. 

 

Although I'd forgotten the creepy stalker and almost rapey portions of that video.  Not sure it could be made in a #metoo world.

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As much as I love hair metal songs, it's sort of hard for me to pick a favorite video.  A lot of them were mostly concert footage.  And in this thread, I'm trying to pick the videos I found most interesting, rather than the songs themselves.

 

This one is also mostly (staged) concert footage, but it also features some pretty iconic 80s music video scene.s Not my favorite song by the band, but probably their best known video:

 

 

 

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utee94

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1 minute ago, South Austin said:

I loathed it. Robert Palmer is one of the most mediocre songwriters in music history.

Might as well face it? :)

 

And I'll readily admit that eye candy in a video went a long way toward appeasing my 14-year-old self even if I disliked the song.

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utee94

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Asia was cool because they usually tried to do something original in their videos.  Think of how much tougher it must have been in 1983 to create the visual effects of those ever-changing TV monitors.

I liked the Raiders theme in Don't Cry, too.

 

 

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UDontKnow

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As a child of Asian immigrants and English being my mother's third language, I found it amusing she loves this song - especially the Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy music video of the song.

The Karate Kid...enough said.

The "special effects" stood out to me as a kid.

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