An 80s Music Video Retrospective, UK-tyle

An 80s Music Video Retrospective, UK-style
by Colin Atkins

Picture it Winter ’85, us up North were recovering from the catastrophe of the Miners strike and morale at an all time low. One video that encompassed all that was miserable about the time had a gaunt man walking the streets of London dressed like an undertaker oblivious to a younger bloke in skin tight jeans stalking him, “singing” the immortal lines “Sometimes you’re better off dead..." (you know the rest). Yes, the Pet Shop Boys’ stunning "West End Girls." In one swift swoop, the opulence seen in videos made by the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet was blown out of the water. No other group mattered as much in the UK. U2 were about to become Gods but the Pet Shop Boys had the videos that changed everything.

In the UK at the beginning of the 80s, videos reflected the harsh realities that lay before us in the oncoming decade, with Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick In The Wall" being the prime candidate. It was like a promo that seemed to have kidnapped the kids from the cornerstone of British kids TV – Grange Hill. Never before had kids looked so grim – somehow the braces and dungarees worn to such a tee by the great Red Hand Hang wouldn’t have been in fitting with the song...

Time rolled on, the New Romantic videos begin to add a bit of glamour, a bit of lip gloss here and coiffured hair there. People hadn’t looked this fantastic this side of Farrah. Then there was that boat!! “OH Rio, Rio” – looking like an advert for a holiday that most of us would only dream of taking. Seeing Simon Le Bon like a white knight astride the boat singing as it speeds through the water says it all. Never had a video fit the song so well.

The natural descendent from "Rio" is of course Wham!’s “Club Tropicana”; from the moment the jeep grinds to a halt and you hear the sound of white stilettos scuffing on sun-baked ground, you know it is a classic. George Michael singing with his li-lo-cocktail in hand was sheer decadence. (Only a handful of videos can hold the mantle of video being perfectly matched to a song: "Rio," "Club Tropicana," Jackson’s "Thriller," Kylie’s "Can’t Get You Out Of My Head" and Madonna’s "Vogue.") Here the party looked like it was just getting started – Adam Ant had his fancy dress antics along with Culture Club, Spandau had their suits. Could the times be any glossier?

Then came The Human League and their soap-opera-tastic opuses that would have made the producers of Dallas weep. Even ABBA were in on the game, with "One of Us" and "The Day Before You Came," a mini-melodrama in the space of 4 minutes of pure pop each time. Watching these videos now, look beyond the leather jackets and grey slacks and you will see the genius that they are.

The grim side of videos had to be explored by the likes of Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes”, Kate Bush’s “Breathing,” and any done at the time by Soft Cell. Bush’s in particular had the grimness that was an indicator of what was to come later on.

Two great British videos that would be the juxtaposition between the two were Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax” and “Two Tribes.” "Relax" (with it’s gay orgy) may have outraged some, but us kids who’d never seen anything like it were none the wiser and it just looked like an episode of some cheap BBC drama. It would cause outrage if made even now. Can you imagine the likes of the Backstreet Boys in garb like that?? Over here even Robbie Williams wouldn’t dare do anything like it without adding “humour.” With Frankie, though, it was the real deal. It just looks like it was filmed in a popper-induced haze.

"Two Tribes" on the other hand not only struck the fear of God into this writer, it seemed all hope was lost; nuclear obliteration was perhaps a stark reality after all. Along with Ultravox’s “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”, which might as well have been a montage of the TV movie The Day After, my mortality was realised. "Two Tribes" was counterbalanced by the arrival of Wham!’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” and I certainly wanted to “Choose Life”—could there be any another option? The long hot summer of ’84 couldn’t have been worse.

From the other side of the BIG POND, we were still seeing such glorious sights with “wonderful” choreography not seen since the days of Busby Berkeley. El De Barge’s “Rhythm of the Night” epitomises what was so great about the US videos of the time – great hair. Never has a mullet this side of Jacko’s "Bad" looked so good, Miami Vice clothes and the greatest dancing ever, plus the look of sheer enthusiasm on the faces of the back-up dancers is a sight to behold. This along with Miami Sound Machine’s "Dr Beat," Lionel Ritchie’s “All Night Long,” Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and Janet Jackson’s “When I Think of You,” had it all. The party never ever looked like it was going to stop.

The videos that are to blame for these fantastic spectacles have got to be placed in the lap of a one Mr Jackson. Yes, now is the time to mention the video of all videos: “Thriller.” Never had I been so mesmerised by such a bizarre video, that werewolf, and more importantly when he and the girl skip (like they were extras off The Wizard Of Oz) past the graveyard. You get the full Night of The Living Dead bag of tricks – the screaming girl, shuffling zombies, ones with “stuff” dripping from there mouths – and then you get the whammy. Yep, Michael’s one of them too!! (What’s even scarier is that he looked remarkably similar to my dad.)

Then it can only get better. The zombies dance! All in time with each other! PURE GENIUS. It’s when reflecting on videos such as this you realise what a genius he was way back when. Four years later with the arrival of “Bad,” you realise the spirit had gone and his star was falling even then.

We could go blah blah blah about the Behemoth that would become Her Supreme Highness Madonna – but even her videos did not come close to touching the greatness of her fellow American artists. "Material Girl" was a home goal as it was the copy of the old Marilyn film, and who cares really that she rolled about on a gondola in Venice ("Like A Virgin") or scuffed her high heels kicking a lamp post ("Borderline").

True, we have seen some of the greatest videos ever come from the Queen, but also the biggest travesty ever, ever, ever to accompany a song that should never have been released to start with. Yes, you’ve guessed right, “True Blue!” As I write, my blood boils and even reminiscing about it adorning the top of the British charts and seeing it on TV doesn’t make me remember that time with teary-eyed sentimentality as it should.

A little should be said for the pomp – rockers like Europe and Bon Jovi. All live performance videos were boring and even the flash of a pyrotechnic display couldn’t save them from the indifference I feel towards them.

One video that seems to be mentioned always in the greatest videos of all time is Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing.” Yes, it’s got these “amazing” effects that was the way forward. “So what?” is all I can say. Another “progressive” video oft mentioned is a-ha’s "Take On Me." The premise I always thought had been stolen off the UK’s “very own” Jackson 5: 5 Star who had remarkably similar drawing techniques in their UK chart debut "All Fall Down." After viewing all these promos with big bucks spent on them, I’d rather see Peter Gabriels “Sledgehammer” any day of the week, which was a super-expensive video at the time but is still as bizarre as they come.

At the end of the 80s the “indie scene” had grown and grown – we’d seen the Smiths come and go with some depressing videos, swiftly followed by Morrissey’s own solo efforts, each one as dark and depressing any other…

The American invasion of pop had ended. The growing “dance” phenomenon and the accompanying videos were all montages of flashing lights and tight cuts that would have us all on the brink of a seizure. The American big House group of the time Inner City had made a video in London for their second record “Good Life.” Even the storming beats of Sanderson’s opus cannot disguise that this was a Britain getting ready for a change.

The videos that came from the SAW powerhouse were the ones with any sparkle, though you cant help wondering whether the poor souls in front of the cameras were bleeding inside from the plastic smiles we had to endure.

It was as the 80’s drew to a close that we were left with our fingers crossed that the videos could only get better. The American ideal of having a brilliant video had ended, and we were left with cheap and tacky videos that would have the rotting corpses in Jacko’s "Thriller" turning in their graves. Thank God that the 90s were just round the corner!

Colin can be reached at naboouk@hotmail.com.