The MTV Video Music Awards "Video of the Year" Nominees
Winners listed first, all other nominees follow
The 1980s
1984
The Cars - You Might Think (Robin Sloane): Supposedly one of the first music videos to use computer graphics (courtesy of the Quantel Paintbox), and boy does it show. All the stops were clearly pulled out here, but I’m skeptical that this was to the video’s advantage. Because there’s so much happening at any given moment, not much of it leaves an impression. There are a few clever moments (the sudden shift from day to night, the flattened girl, the face explosion at the end), but it’s really more of an effects showcase than anything else. To be fair, the band pulls it off with aplomb, and they work in the CGI settings far better than many will later down the line. It’s fun and suitably 80s, and no doubt won the award this year for its technical achievement, but I don’t think it’ll be making my list.
Herbie Hancock - Rockit (Godley & Creme): Holy animatronics, Batman. Props to Godley & Creme for coming up with something that matches the texture of Hancock’s music in a visual setting. These weird free-floating limbs (and a lone pterodactyl head) all flapping, kicking, and generally flailing about in time to the rhythm reminds me of the origins of synthpop as dehumanized and isolating, and yet it’s still a joy to watch. Bizarrely compelling, but marred by the inclusion of Hancock himself playing keys on the television. If this were just the mechanical bits, it would be a stronger piece.
Michael Jackson - Thriller (John Landis): What’s there to say about this one that hasn’t been said? It’s the most famous music video of all time, according to the Library of Congress, and the first music video inducted into the National Film Registry. Somehow, it didn’t win the award this year! Everything about it remains iconic, though - the B-movie allusions, the red jacket, the absolutely inspired zombie dance. It’s going to place fairly high on my list, I think, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it took home the whole pot. It’s really stunning, and you owe it to yourself to see it for this project, whether for the first time or the hundredth.
Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Edd Griles): A fun appearance by Captain Lou Albano as Cyndi’s father (alongside her real-life mother) saves what is an otherwise fairly terrible mashup of formless 80s video effects and hammy lip syncing. However catchy the song, this video is not great! Seek out Time After Time instead, if you’re looking for a Lauper fix.
The Police - Every Breath You Take (Godley & Creme): Some nice practical effects in this one, like the curtains pulling away to reveal a piano in front of a brightly lit window, but I can’t shake how out-of-place Sting looks playing the upright bass. Guess what most of the video focuses on? It’s pleasantly abstract, and surely a novelty at the time for that reason, but there’s really nothing under the surface, and the fact that it was in such heavy rotation on MTV says a lot about how barren these early years were.
1985
Don Henley - The Boys of Summer (Jean-Baptiste Mondino) (Not on YouTube): Notoriously litigious Don Henley has kept this one off YouTube, so I won't be able to provide a link here, but it can be found on other sites with a quick Google search. Reportedly influenced by the French New Wave (almost certainly
The 400 Blows), the video shows the singer at three stages of his life, played by three different actors. Not the best video ever made, but it's no surprise that it won, based on the other videos this year. It does have a few merits worth discussing: the ending, in which Henley reveals he's been "driving" in front of a rear projection screen the whole time. That's vaguely Godardian, right?
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Don't Come Around Here No More (Jeff Stein): Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but the end of this video is absolutely responsible for breaking open the floodgates for a lot of vore fetishes. Beyond that, it’s notable for...shallow-focus lenses? The least convincing Mad Hatter costume ever? I’m not sure who decided to pair the lyrical subject matter with an Alice in Wonderland theme, but boy does it not work. Please, for the love of God, don’t vote for this garish monstrosity. I beg you.
David Lee Roth - California Girls (Pete Angelus): A banner year for goofy parodies trying to appear slightly literate, it seems. This one opens with a
Twilight Zone-esque narration that leads us (and a bus full of unsuspecting tourists) into “the Sunlight Zone,” which I can only assume is referring to the titular state but I wished referred to the center of the orb itself, because the secondhand embarrassment here made me long for death’s sweet embrace. David Lee Roth (occasionally wearing a goofy hat) sings at once into the camera and into a bunch of faceless sex organs. Is this supposed to be sexy? Is it supposed to be silly? Why the bizarre narration, which serves absolutely no thematic purpose? It’s an utterly inane, forgettable video, just like the cover. Enough David Lee Roth, please.
David Lee Roth - Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody (Pete Angelus): Ah, shit. Look, this is just terrible. It’s at least *differently* terrible, in that its secondary characters are more likely to give me nightmares, but at the end of the day it’s Roth in a bunch of outfits dancing and singing through various hallmarks of early 80s culture (look, it’s Cyndi Lauper! Billy Idol! And assless chaps that give a priest a heart attack -- remember???). I know at the end of the day we’re supposed to vote for the video itself, not the song, but these two Roth spectacles are as unbearable as the songs they're paired with. I have a pretty trained palate when it comes to cheese, but even I couldn’t stomach these. Abysmal.
USA for Africa - We Are the World (Tom Trbovich): Speaking of celebrity cameos… You know this one -- it’s the recording session in music video form. Rolling Stone has a
minute-by-minute breakdown, Vulture has a list
ranking all 37 vocal contributions. Undoubtedly memorable for those who were introduced to it at the time (it’s the first thing my mother looked up when I showed her how YouTube worked), but I’ve never thought much of it as a video. Sure, there’s a small thrill in seeing your favorite artist belt out their given line (and seeing which ones don’t actually know what they’re meant to do -- lookin’ at you, Bob Dylan), but at the end of the day, it’s just a laundry list of 80s celebrities singing into microphones.
1986
Dire Straits - Money for Nothing (Steve Barron): I think this is the year things start to get interesting. So we start off with a deconstruction of MTV as selling a particular image of musicians -- an unflattering CG portrayal of a working-class couch-dweller leaps into the middle of a Dire Straits concert playing on his television, and then declares “that ain’t workin’.” It’s almost as if the video is aware that it can’t possibly capture the reality of being a musician *or* a disgruntled blue-collar laborer, and decides to make both as stereotypical as possible. So the band is all bright lights, quick cuts, and screaming crowds, and the workers are cigar-chomping, bearded, and literally square. It’s a smart way to work around the problem of an unreliable narrator in the music video world, where a band singing a song could seem even more of an endorsement. And because the CGI is deliberately low-res, it’s actually aged pretty well. It’s not hard to imagine a band having fun with this exact aesthetic today.
a-ha - Take On Me (Steve Barron): Another winner for Barron. Something you may not know about this video: it’s not the only one for the song. The original, featuring the band miming against a solid blue background, can be found
here. But this is the one everybody remembers, and rightly so. The combination of live-action and rotoscoped animation is absolutely iconic. The story here starts as a fairly generic fantasy/romance, but the movement back and forth between the two mediums allows for some really kinetic setpieces: the chase between the protagonists and the opposing racing team, the crumpling of the comic book, and the finale, where Morten Harket flits rapidly between the opposing worlds. Well worth a revisit, or a first look if you’ve never seen it.
Godley & Creme - Cry (Godley & Creme): Another relatively strong video that, in previous years, would have been a clear winner. Godley & Creme turn this time to a bevy of anonymous faces (including one that looks just like Laura Dern, and, disappointingly, a cocker spaniel) that blend and dissolve into each other. There's not much to say beyond that central gimmick, other than this duo sure does love their black & white.
Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love (Terence Donovan): This video, shot by famous British fashion photographer Terence Donovan, was apparently notable enough to be parodied by “Weird” Al, Shania Twain, and Richard Curtis in
Love, Actually, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me, because there’s so little going for it outside of its central premise, the novelty of which wears off in about twenty seconds. It’s Robert Palmer backed by some emotionless fashion models in all black, trying their best to shimmy to the song’s beat. That’s it. That’s the video. I genuinely don’t understand why this was considered interesting even for its time, because there’s nothing distinguishing it from any number of pre-MTV lip sync videos floating in the ether. Might as well face it: it’s a shit video.
Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere (David Byrne and Stephen R. Johnson): Yep, this is definitely a Talking Heads video. David Byrne jogs away endlessly in the corner in front of various backgrounds, which is fun and vaguely Zoetrope-like. I do wonder if it’s a slight dig at the usefulness (or lack thereof) of picture-in-picture televisions, which were made commercially available three years before the release of this video. Given Byrne’s obsession with screens and their potential, I wouldn’t be surprised. There are a lot of fun practical effects here, too, like the entire lifespan of a couple in fifteen seconds and the kaleidoscope of revolving objects circling Byrne at the song’s close. I do like that thematic consistency, too: everything revolves because it’s on an individual “road to nowhere.” Maybe a little on-the-nose, but I’ll take anything that even remotely piques my intellectual curiosity after the Palmer video. Promising signs for Johnson’s future video, too. Of which...
1987
Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (Stephen R. Johnson): Everything pulses. Sperm shoot out. Eyes dilate. This is a song about sex, and a video about...well, a lot of things. It’s got dancing chickens, a singing face made of fruit, a simulated roller coaster ride, and more. Aardman Animations, and the Quay Brothers (yes, those Quay Brothers) give us just about every effect they can think of here, and to attempt to list them all would be a fool’s errand. Of particular note, though, are the steam train that creates tracks around Gabriel’s head, clouds that pass across his sky-colored face, and the living house towards the end. Gabriel lay under a sheet of glass for a full sixteen hours to make the beginning section, which is a stunning achievement in and of itself. It’s a remarkable, memorable video, and almost certainly making my list.
Genesis - Land of Confusion (John Lloyd & Jim Yukich): However I feel about the song (it’s my least favorite from Invisible Touch), there’s no denying the staying power of this video, or the horror of its Spitting Image puppets. Subtle it ain’t, but clever and well-directed it definitely is. There’s something endearing about the practicality of the whole thing, in a year that seems dominated by stop-motion and other video effects.
Paul Simon - The Boy in the Bubble (Jim Blashfield): This video’s at its best when it’s doing something abstract rather than trying to concretely illustrate its lyrics, because while its effects are distinctive, they don’t hold a candle to those of the Sledgehammer video. Paul Simon also looks a lot less comfortable than Peter Gabriel, although I wonder to what extent that’s deliberate, given the subject matter. This would probably make my list if we were doing 50 (maybe 100), but as things stand I don’t think it’s strong enough to make the shortlist.
U2 - With or Without You (Meiert Avis): There’s one effect here that’s kind of neat: dimly-lit ocean waves that double as fog on the stage behind the band members. And it’s clear that Meiert Avis is going for some kind of consistent theme here -- Bono and a presumed love interest moving in and out of the light as a kind of representation of the lyrical themes of the song. That doesn’t make it tremendously interesting, unfortunately, because Avis decides he’s got to have the band looking absolutely ridiculous in slow motion, and that’s what takes up the majority of the video. Shout out to the tambourine player, especially.
Steve Winwood - Higher Love (Peter Kagan and Paula Greif): Dancing! Lens flare! Some awkward black-and-white insert shots of Winwood and his band! Another case of a spectacular song with a serviceable video that’s finely choreographed but only threatens to be anything more exciting. And what a bizarre ending — one of the solo dancers we’ve been watching is suddenly the obligatory love interest? The shoehorning of a “story” into what is literally the final shot doesn’t work at all. Everybody has phenomenal hair, though, Winwood included.
1988
INXS - Need You Tonight / Mediate (Richard Lowenstein): Literally a video of two halves, the first superimpositions upon superimpositions and the second a Dylan tribute. Director Lowenstein claims that he created the first half by cutting up 35mm film, photocopying the original frames, and laying them on top of the rest of the video. It's a neat story, but the technique doesn't wind up looking that much different than anything The Cars did back in 1984. Which is to say: both halves are ok, but they don’t merit much more consideration than that. I’m surprised this won considering the strength of the next video.
George Harrison - When We Was Fab (Godley & Creme): Relatively minimalist, but fun -- Harrison, in front of a nondescript brick wall, strums a guitar and lip syncs while the rest of the video happens around him. Ringo shows up with a cello (and eventually a drum set), some extra hands come out of Harrison’s oversized coat to play other instruments, and generally harmless mayhem crosses the foreground layer. I could do without a few of these extra effects (the fringing on much of the chroma key is obvious to the point of distraction), but I did enjoy this one nonetheless.
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love (Meiert Avis): More singing and strumming against a wall, except this time trying to be *moody*. That same slow-shutter/black-and-white effect from last year’s U2 video makes a return appearance, now with added meaningless snake. No prize for guessing who directed this one...When Bruce finally breaks out into a colorful bayside carnival it's a welcome relief, because it's the first moment of the video that feels like Bruce Springsteen and not a U2 knockoff.
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Barry Devlin): Bono and crew walk past a bunch of brightly-lit shopfronts as ordinary citizens stare with complete apathy. Power to the people I say -- if these chucklefucks in their vests and hats came to my house and made everything run in slow-mo I'd be pretty upset, too. It's all a blur, quite literally, as we get lots of long-exposure movement around neon and halogens. Devlin tries his best to ape Meiert Avis's style, only in color, but it really doesn't work, and by the end it's actively vertigo-inducing.
U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name (Meiert Avis): Meiert Avis's triumphant return! And he actually tries something different here, which can be summed up as "U2 tries to replicate the Beatles' rooftop concert and gets into trouble with the police." The first half of the video is a lead-up to the song itself, providing some background for the main event in the form of DJ broadcasts announcing the location, and it's unsurprising to find out that much of it was staged. The band apparently kept trying to get in trouble with the police to give the video a more dramatic through-line, but everything was basically fine, apart from one small kerfuffle. How very U2. The rest of the video is a perfectly ok documentation of the band playing on a rooftop. I'll give it this: it's at least a little more interesting than much of the generic lip syncing we've seen thus far, but only because of the non-music portions. It feels like most directors haven't figured out how to meld those two seamlessly yet.
1989
Neil Young - This Note's for You (Julien Temple): In which Young rails against Michael Jackson, Steve Winwood, and, for some reason, Spuds MacKenzie, the Budweiser spokesdog. The actual performance aspect of this video isn’t really notable (it’s Young and crew playing in a dimly-lit bar), and I don’t think the satire has aged all that well. I suspect this won because it was controversial — Jackson sued over the use of a lookalike whose hair catches on fire — rather than on its own merits, which are facile at best (the above image is about as clever as it gets).
Fine Young Cannibals - She Drives Me Crazy (Philippe Decouflé): This is a breath of fresh air after several videos trying to be very moody and arty, and I’m tempted to praise it for that alone, but I don’t think there’s much movement of the form here. This could have shown up in 1984 and it wouldn’t have been out of place — there’s a lot of split screen (probably my favorite gimmick of the video involves this structure breaking down), some weird costumes, and, of course, lip syncing. Beyond that, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Michael Jackson - Leave Me Alone (Jim Blashfield): Michael does “The Boy in the Bubble,” and it’s all very literal...until it suddenly isn’t. I did chuckle aloud at “just stop doggin’ me around” being paired with a golden retriever in a business suit, and there’s an excitement to the whole thing being a sort of demented Disney ride through Michael’s mind (the Liz Taylor segment is a lot of fun). It’s far from the best Jackson video, but it’s at least visually engaging, which is more than can be said for a lot of these videos. Take a look for kicks, but it probably doesn’t deserve to be on any lists. There's a spirited defense
here, though, if you want to justify putting it on yours. (Fun fact: this video won a Golden Lion at Cannes for its Visual Effects.)
Madonna - Like a Prayer (Mary Lambert): I probably don’t have to say much about this one, except that it’s the first of these that could be called remotely lurid, which is amazing given the reputation of the music video as a genre. And apparently this one was extremely controversial at the time, with the Pope calling for a boycott of Madonna throughout Italy for her religious blasphemy. So you'd expect something wild: Madonna dry-humping a cross, or stripping down from a nun's habit, or otherwise badmouthing the church. Ultimately, of course, it's very tame. Madonna’s a good girl who witnesses a murder and falls in love with the black man who is framed for it. She gets some words of encouragement from a sort of angel, dances around with a gospel choir, and sees that black man as a saintly figure in a vision. She goes to the police and reveals what she saw, and they set the innocent man free. It's a nice plotline, and a welcome change of pace amongst all these terrible engineless mood pieces. And apparently people have enjoyed it enough that it has its own "Themes and analysis" section on Wikipedia (
no, seriously). There's not that much to delve into, I don't think -- the framing and burning crosses are obviously meant to represent a refutation of the KKK, the stigmata Madonna receives a sign from God that she should be doing more, etc. Still, I'll take any of that over the terrible Neil Young satire. The embarrassing lip syncing is kept to a minimum, thankfully, which lets us enjoy it when it’s there (provided mostly by the Gospel choir). Probably should have won this year.
Steve Winwood - Roll with It (David Fincher): Hope you like extreme close-ups, because that’s pretty much the whole video. Steve is a bandleader in a jazz bar, there’s some skin, some instruments...look, I like Steve Winwood, but I’m really struggling to say anything new about this video. It’s well-lit, successfully emulating a dingy speakeasy in the 30s? I'm astounded to discover that this was directed by David Fincher, because it's almost totally nondescript compared to his other work. Maybe Winwood had something in his contract about making the blandest music videos possible? Whatever. Just go watch any of Fincher's Paula Abdul videos instead; they're infinitely more interesting.
In sum: a really rough start. The 80s were a perfect era for the genesis of the popular music video, but it did them no favors -- most of these are style over any sort of substance, and mostly style that hasn’t aged well. If you knew the order in which I did these write-ups, you’d see a slow descent into frustration and eventually utter disengagement with the format. You may still be able to figure it out: there are only so many ways to write “this is fine, I guess” before you start to question your drive for doing thirty more years worth of these. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be doing the rest (I can try, if people really want to see them), or just going for a highlights reel, but either way, they can’t be worse than most of this bunch. You can see Godley & Creme develop something of a style, and they do at least make interesting videos compared to many other directors, but that doesn't mean they're always good. Check out the Jacksons, the Gabriel, the Talking Heads, and the two you probably already know from 1986, and feel free to call it a day.
Best Year: 1987
Worst Year: 1985
