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Favorite 80s Music Video


utee94

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3 hours ago, bamachine said:

Back then, a stiff breeze could give me a woody, so yeah, I also fell in love about 30 times a day. MTV was great at feeding into that.

 

As for the Femmes, I never saw any of their vids on MTV or VH1 but knew of them from listening to local college radio. Saw them with Drivin' N' Cryin' in '90 at JSU. I seem to recall seeing the Pixies and even once, DNC with their one charting song, Fly Me Courageous. Lots of college kids loved them and the Violent Femmes but not enough could afford to buy their music, to put them higher on the charts.

It was standard practice to stay up late and watch 120 Minutes for all the hip stuff the college kids were into, before there was an MTV2.

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1) Totally in with Higgy and South Austin on TFF Everybody Wants to Rule the world, such a great song off a great album featured in one of my favorite 80s comedies of all time (and as an electrical engineer I can't tell you how much Real Genius shaped my world view and especially my stress-handling-capabilities when things got tough in my undergrad classes).  I'm cool with acknowledging it as a quintessential 80s song and I'm pretty surprised it took that long for TFF to come up, honestly.

 

2) Chad-- thank you very little for the 30-years-too-late protip on 120 minutes.  Maybe it was past my bedtime and I wasn't allowed to watch?  Or maybe I was watching Letterman and learning phrases like, "I lost my dolly... down the crapper!"  Either way, sure wish I'd known this a long while back.  Then I could have totally reverse-hipstered my indie-rock friends and told them they were lame as soon as they found out about any band I'd already heard of. :)

 

3) Dolemite, I like you, that's why I'm going to kill you last.  :) I'll be honest, I phrased the thread title this way on purpose for 2 reasons:

a) I used "favorite" instead of best in an attempt to avoid the typical shag/surl asshattery of arguing "GOAT"

ii) I said "video" instead of song because I wanted to focus on the craft of the video itself, rather than the song, while readily admitting that the two will always be interlinked.  That said, I hate rules and if you want to post up your favorite 80s song then feel free.  That decade of music is the soundtrack of my Coming of Age story, probably like most of you, and I wouldn't want to limit a tribute to it for anything.

 

I'll also add that I really enjoy hearing the commentary on why people loved these videos.  Anyone can post up links to their favorite 80s songs or 80s videos, but there's always a REASON for that interest, and that's what I like to hear about.

 

Anyway, thanks everyone for contributing so far, it's been cool to get some reminders of ones I'd forgotten.

Edited by utee94
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 My fam had moved out to the country where there was no cable, and for a while I was deprived of videos.  But for Thanksgiving 1989, we went to my aunt's in the big city:  Mineral Wells.  She had cable and I stayed up watching and the most fucked up shit I had ever seen came on.  It's my vote for maybe not the best 80s video, but one of the quirkiest.  It definitely made me go "What the fuck did I just watch."  Wanna see it?  Here it goes:

 

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9 hours ago, utee94 said:

I'm pretty surprised it took that long for TFF to come up, honestly.

If the thread was about favorite songs of the 1980s, Everybody Wants To Rule The World would've been my first post.  But we're talking videos, and I think the video for that song was okay, but not particularly great compared to many others in this thread.  In fact, most of the great videos of the 80s featured songs that are pretty meh.

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OK, so outside of the Godley & Creme videos, which were so different from everything else, probably most of my favorite videos are comedic, whether intentional or not.  This one is both.  Just so much going on here, super-bad acting, giant props, most whitest white-boy dancing, and a damn good song too.  

 

Why so serious, Billy?  The "oh so deep" video, with over the top bad acting, plenty of those to choose from, but I love this one.

This one I love.  The whole Dick Tracy/film noir vibe

 

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3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

 My fam had moved out to the country where there was no cable, and for a while I was deprived of videos. 

 

I grew up in the sticks. After seeing those videos on MTV, while I was in the hospital, at home I had to watch Night Tracks and Friday Night Videos.

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3 hours ago, UTCzech III said:

Why so serious, Billy?  The "oh so deep" video, with over the top bad acting, plenty of those to choose from, but I love this one.

 

 

Don’t make me cut you, bitch.  That acting ranks right up there with Barney Rubble. 

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---------------------Just Kidding---------------------------

 

 

Some great ones mentioned already.  But this one always kept me watching until the end when I was twelve years old.

 

Edited by dcbc
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9 hours ago, South Austin said:

If the thread was about favorite songs of the 1980s, Everybody Wants To Rule The World would've been my first post.  But we're talking videos, and I think the video for that song was okay, but not particularly great compared to many others in this thread.  In fact, most of the great videos of the 80s featured songs that are pretty meh.

Wasn't just talking about Everybody Wants To Rule The World, but I gotcha.  Honestly though, many of the ones listed so far have been both good videos and good songs, so I'm not sure I'm with you on your last assertion.  Regardless, it's all good. :)

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15 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

If  we're talking about great videos that shaped us in puberty, this one has to be near the top. And in case The Decade Nazis try to say something, it was on an album released in 1989.

 

I hear ya.  That's why I didn't post George Michael's Freedom.  It was released in 1990.

Linda Evangelista.  Mmmmmm...

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38 minutes ago, DeathTongue said:

I hear ya.  That's why I didn't post George Michael's Freedom.  It was released in 1990.

Linda Evangelista.  Mmmmmm...

Yup, and Billy Idol's Rock The Cradle of Love was 1990 as well.  But since those aren't 80s videos, it's a good thing we're not mentioning them. :)

Betsy Lynne George, though.

And reading up on it, that video was released on May 1, 1990, so it'll officially be 28 years old tomorrow.  But still, not an 80s tune...

 

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Most of these I used to have on a VHS tape, I used to tape Night Flight on USA, which was way cooler than MTV until they finally got 120 Minutes and Liquid Television and things like that.  Night Flight showed lots of avant garde stuff, unknown bands, etc.  With cartoons, old drug movies, and shit like sprinkled in between.  

So,we've got the computer/space/future theme:

 

(More Donnie Iris)

 

The scorned lover/stalker theme...

 

The we have a great idea for a video, who cares if it doesn't have anything to do with the song theme:

 

and the totally artsy/surreal theme:

 

 

 

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