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Music videos (killed the radio star?)
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Nice song David. It’s great to see Ringo and George Martin on stage with Paul!
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And then there is this 1980 behemoth of a music video by none other than the Pink Floyd!
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I think one of the best videos of all time that came out before MTV is John Lennon’s “Imagine”.
Video starts off with John Lennon and Yoko Ono walking along a dark and foggy path, and then sits at his piano playing in a dark room symbolizing the darkness of fear, intolerance and conflict in the world and Yoko opens the blinds letting in more light, “enlightening” the room. So brilliant!  We hear the phrase knowledge is light.
Google Dictionary defines “enlighten” as: to give (someone) greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation.
According to Wikipedia, The Age of Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason or simply the Enlightenment) was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government and separation of church and state.
I think John Lennon’s “Imagine” is about enlightenment.
While I’ve seen some dismiss “Imagine” as being anti religion or anti God, I think quite the contrary, the song really emphasizes freedom of religion more than anything. Free will.
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…And I think the absolute best version of “Imagine” is when Mona and Lisa sing it!
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In case anyone was looking for another reason to feel old, today marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of MTV.
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David, wow it’s hard to believe 40 years has passed since those days. I remember music videos added another dimension to the pop rock music experience. Through the 70s and high school I recall the radio and record stores were the source for all the music, but then suddenly MTV, Much Music (in Canada) came on the scene and music videos were the new pop culture experience. For some reason the Police and Debbie Harry with Blondie and all their videos really stand out for me from the very early days of music videos. I think I was around 18 or 19 in those days. They use to compare the Police to the Beatles saying they were the next Beatles for a little while in the early 80s. Nice video that takes me down memory lane, thanks for sharing it.
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Can’t forget The Pretenders-
Hi Diana. In the 80’s a lot of songs still had a healthy dose of great guitar work, compared to today when finding a good guitar riff in a song is an exception.
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Dusty Springfield actually did back in the early-mid 60s what I would consider a ” video”…in a sense, she “mimed” to songs on location… for a few of her songs, one time in Belgium, and I think France or somewheres for another song, kind of like a predecessor to the 80s video thing, also the YouTube clip of her and Jimi Hendrix doing ” Mockingbird”….. then after she got popular again with her duet with Pet Shop Boys, she made a few modern day videos…before she passed in 1999.
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Hi Jung,
nice that you opened this topic. Here in Germany, music videos were neglected in the 1980s. We didn’t have MTV until the 1990s. An idiosyncratic music program for young people was broadcast every Saturday. The moderators were bizarre and music videos were only shown in small excerpts for cost reasons. It’s a shame, the 80s were my teenage years. Funny and lively. In stuffy Germany there was even a new wave scene of its own. One of the icons was certainly Falco, but also Nena (99 Luftballons- 99 Red Ballons), Peter Schilling. I don’t know how to link a youtube video here. Please enter “Joachim Witt – Goldener Reiter * Orginal Video *” on youtube. That was strong party music back then. „Take on me“ is one of my favorite videos to this day.
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Hi Jurgen,
Joachim Witt – Goldener Reiter is a very nice song, definitely has the 80s special feel to it. Thanks for the insight into the pop music scene in Germany in the 80s. Falco “Rock Me Amadeus” was certainly one of the finest songs/videos I think from the 80s, and 99 Lufttballons by Nena brings back a lot of feelings from those times and my first year at Uni trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. This was one of the great 80s videos I remember.
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Once while browsing through a record store in the 80’s I found and bought this album by a German comedy group and really loved it, even though my German wasn’t good enough to understand most of it. (The title translates “Henry Doesn’t Eat the Soup”.)
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/IQoAAOSwfdZfZXhD/s-l400.jpg
Juergen, are you familiar with this album, and do you know whether it and/or the group was well-known in Germany? Its internet presence is almost nonexistent.
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David, never heard of them but that album sounds interesting. What kind of music is it?
Jacki, Diana here is a Canadian female rocker from the late 80s I remember. She had some great songs like Black Velvet, and this one.
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