I liked “Send Me an Angel” by Real Life. The video was an homage to Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete.
I liked Missing Persons’ videos, although I’m afraid it was more for the lead singer’s skimpy costumes, than for the quality of the music or the videos.
“Words” is one of those videos that has that indelible 80s cheese all over it, but yeah, it’s hard to forget Dale Bozzio’s skimpy costume.
I was in hospital, stuck in a Stryker bed with a back and neck broken in 3 places and bored out of my skull [and swaked on some decent painkillers] and it was the middle of the night, and one of the nurses told me I needed to check this out - and she flipped it about 45 minutes after midnight, to see music other than Lawrence Welk!
I also miss the original MTV, all music and some funktastic people talking about all sorts of stuff that was actually age appropriate =)
Half the day? I remember the early 80s and a number of channels only planned 8 hours of programming, repeated 3 times in a 24 hour period [I knew that if I missed something on the Comedy Channel, 8 hours later it would be on again. ]
I tend to put youtube on and let it sort of gently burble in the background [other than my kindle, which I don’t log in, and leave it on cat tv for the furrball. She will watch burbs and skwirlz for hours.] I sort of occasionally go down a rabbit hole, however over the past few weeks it seems to cycle on Pink Floyd - 4 or 5 concerts seem to be in cycle. I got bored once, and tracked what videos played over a weekend, and got depressed because of the acts I watched, the older ones [pre 1990 call it] at least half the original musicians were passed on =( I mean, even if you just play Pink Floyd you can just watch the musicians vanish from the lineup, then look them up on wiki, and dirt nap. But then again, I am 62 and the music of my youth are all 75 or older and passing on fast =(
I’ll bet my daughter’s dancing in musicals is due to me picking her up as an infant and dancing to early MTV videos.
“Take on Me” was directed by Steve Barron.
Barron also did a couple of others you might remember, like “Billy Jean” and “Money for Nothing.” And about a million more.
Look at the list in that link. Absolutely nobody can touch him as the best music video director. Miles above anyone else.
Addressed by David Bowie in this interview.
Right—that’s why you were supposed to “Call your cable company, and tell them ‘I want my MTV!’”
I also watched Friday Night Videos, but my main source for music videos was Night Tracks on Super Station WTBS.
No on-screen VJ’s, just back-to-back music videos that I used to stay up all night watching on Friday and Saturday nights.
That song might make my top ten list, and the music video was great!
Assuming that’s not a rhetorical question - yes, there is a reason.
You’ll find “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” on Stevie Nicks’s first solo album (recorded between sessions with Fleetwood Mac), Bella Donna, from 1981. Tom Petty’s sound was already established by then, and the execs at MCA insisted the song belonged in her stable rather than his. If you got Petty’s Hard Promises back then for the low, low price of just $8.98, though, you’ll hear her on the track “Insider”.
I heard this being discussed on the radio one day while driving in my car, and the DJ played “Leather and Lace” (also from Bella Donna - where Stevie Nicks sang with Don Henley instead of Tom Petty), and I had to remark to myself that the songs were 40 years old by that point.