'80s Video Hits

Before MTV, there was Countdown, the show that pioneered heavy use of the pop video and changed the way we look at music. From Michael Jackson’s cinematic “Thriller” to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s orgiastic “Relax,” these tracks and their videos helped define this brave new outlook, and the moving image became entrenched in pop.

We challenge you to listen to these songs and not remember their respective visuals. In the ’80s, music videos launched careers, championed new music, and massaged our imaginations. Who can forget Adam Ant dressed as a highwayman in “Stand and Deliver” or the Teardrop Explodes hurtling around in an old Jeep for “Reward.”

Hurling money at videos was a fad in the ‘80s, but one band that kept it low-tech and never disappointed was Madness (“Baggy Trousers”) – they realized that running around pulling faces like the Keystone Cops was a formula that worked. Meanwhile, other bands went arty, like New Order, whose “True Faith” remains a fanciful classic.

Close your eyes when listening to these songs, and you’ll be transported back to the ’80s, the glory days of the music video, a time that saw up-and-coming artists launched into the stratosphere, thanks to the creation of revolutionary techniques in visual storytelling. When combined, two great art forms — music and moving pictures — created something bigger than either: a cultural phenomenon. Relive the flashbacks with Models, Mondo Rock, Split Enz, and these other great AV innovators.