Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Thursday Thirteen #3 (11/2/2006)


Thirteen Things about Michael


Thirteen Favorite Music Videos from the 1980's, when MTV SHOWED music videos!

1. The J. Geils Band - "Centerfold" - Okay, I was a teenage guy and there were lots of girls in negliges and sweaters and stuff.

2. Men at Work - "Down Under" - Probably the most famous video by these Aussies, I once heard that the scene at the end with the guys dressed alike carrying the box was an omage to a slavery issue in Australia's past. Never could figure out Greg Hamm's teddy bear on the rope though.

3. Hall & Oates - "Family Man" - Darryl and John never really broke past the performance video to do concept videos in the 80's, but Family Man had this cool animation running across the screen while they were shown being beat on by lots of little kids.

4. Michael Jackson - "Thriller" - Okay, despite the fact he has proven to be nuttier than a goo-goo cluster, it was and is still a landmark music video. John Landis directed.

5. The Hooters - "And we Danced" - the first hit single for this Philadelphia-based band. The drive-in theater that the video was shot at is now a strip mall, but in the 70's my family would go there, in Exton, PA.

6. Huey Lewis & the News - "If this is It" - these guys always had fun with their videos and this was no difference with the whole beach thing while Huey obsessed over the chick in the white one-piece and the guys were buried up to their heads in the sand.

7. Paul McCartney - "Pipes of Peace" - This video did not get a great deal of play, it was from the same album that had "No More Lonely Nights." The video was set in WW I, and depicted a Christmas Day armistace that lead to the English and German troops coming out of the trenchs to play soccer, exchange well-wishes, drinks, and smokes, eventually disrupted by artillery and McCartney returning to his trench with a German's girlfriend's picture instead of his own.

8. BandAid - "Do They Know It's Christmas (Feed the world)" - Still my favorite contemporary Christmas song. I love watching the video and seeing all the singers so young. There's a longer version that either shows and/or reads a letter about the production night.

9. Duran Duran - "New Moon on Monday" - The lyrics are kind of hard to make out at times, but I always liked the video depicting a resistance movement to an oppressive government and there are a lot of fireworks at the end.

10. Glen Frey - "Sexy Girl" - It wasn't a big hit, the second or third song from his solo album "The Allnighter," but it had a really pretty girl that moved into his neighborhood and got every guy's attention.

11. ZZ Top - "Sleeping Bag" - from the album "Afterburner" - it continued the rebellious neature of the guys and their keys to the magic car that changed lives in all their 80's videos.

12. Twisted Sister - "We're not gonna take it" - Glam Metal and the reappearance of Actor Mark Metcalf spoofing his role of Niedermeyer from Animal House as a drill-sergeant father.

13. U2 - "Where the Streets Have No Name" - In an omage to the Beatles rooftop performance, the boys in U2 staged and filmed a performance on a roof in LA that drew so many fans the police came and shut them down.

There are many other great ones, but these were the first 13 I thought of. Other suggestions are encouraged in the comment section.





Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)



Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!







17 comments:

Tracie Nall said...

Those videos take me back!!

Happ TT!

Anonymous said...

I don't remember who sang it but the song Take On Me was one of the very first videos I saw on MTV. I loved all the songs on your list. Brought back memories!

Unknown said...

i was a fan of hangin tough by NKOTB

Le laquet said...

So many great songs ... and Kailani's right Aha's video for Take on Me was fab too. Gone sing/hum Centerfold all day long now

ChupieandJ'smama (Janeen) said...

I loved ALL of those videos!! I was a huge Duran Duran fan (but what 13 year old girl wasn't), so that one gets my #1 vote. Happy Thursday :D

Jane said...

I'm afraid that I was not into videos in the 80's.
Thanks for stopping by my T13.

Courtney said...

I remember almost all of those songs, but we never had cable back then (still don't! lol) so I never got to see all the videos.

Blog said...

Thriller -- all the way! Great list!

Tug said...

Love musical lists...NICE!!

Di said...

We must be on the same wavelength...I did 13 songs that take me back to 1979-80 the year I was a senior in high school...before they had videos!

I remember waiting in a crowded bar for the premiere of the Billy Jean video during Spring Break of my junior year.

Sparky Duck said...

Terrific list that brings back alot of memories. Its amazing how you forget how good the Hooters were on there first album. And thanks for including U2

Anonymous said...

Egads! What a walk down memory lane. Great list.

Anonymous said...

Just have to say I hate Blogger.

That being said, I'll type this message for the 2nd time!

Did you know that VH1 is doing the Top 100 Videos of the 80s this week? It's to honor the new Trivial Pursuit game that's coming out. I didn't see much of it, but I did see the following:

Burning Down the House ~ Talking Heads

Wake me Up (Before you Go Go) ~ Wham

Under Pressure ~ Queen and Bowie

Take On Me ~ Aha

Every Rose Has it's Thorn ~ Poison

Welcome to the Jungle ~ GNR

Mr. Roboto ~ Stix

Love is a Battlefield ~ Pat Benatar

and of course, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ~ Cindy Lauper.

While I know all of the songs on your list and then some...I'm a hairband junkie when it comes to the 80s.

Poison, Cinderella, White Snake, Great White, Bon Jovi, Tesla, Firehouse...yeah, I'm still hopeless when it comes to Monster Ballads.

tiggerprr said...

I loved this list! I was in highschool during the 80s so I am a child of MTV, when it was actually really MTV.

The Hooters were awesome, I saw them in concert when they opened for Loverboy. I left after the Hooters were done.

Take On Me by aha is by far, the video that I think of when I think of the 80s. However, Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, Sowing the Seeds of Love (squeaked in in 1989) and just about any Def Leppard or Duran Duran video will make me stop and watch. There's really no comparison to 80s music IMO. :)

Anonymous said...

I don't remember "Family Man", "Sexy Girl", or "Sleeping Bag"...ah, but I remember endlessly watching Mtv just hoping one of Duran Duran's videos would come on so I could drool on the t.v.

I do remember "She's Got Legs". I totally wanted to be that girl. I still do. What a great look.

Jeff said...

I second the "Take On Me" nomination, and where's Divo's "Whip It"!

Valtool said...

To answer your question there Jeff, where are those two videos? Perhaps on someone else's list of favorites?

Whip-it to me was more a novelty song and the video didn't thrill/move me.

As for Take On Me, it was a cool thing at first, but after seeing it 55000 times over the past 25 or so years, it's lost its magic. Instead, if you can find it, the video to "The Sun Always Shines on TV" which continues the storyline from Take On Me was a song I liked more and got to like the video more too.