It's blindingly apparent that submitter wasn't around between August 1st, 1981 (MTV's conception) to November 28, 1997 (The day "Beavis & Butthead" aired its last episode on MTV and de facto completely ceded MTV's fading hipness to fashion, Britney Spears, lame boy bands, children's pop music and reality shows.)

November 28, 1997. The exact point where MTV became irrelevant to music.

Sure there's a point to music videos - cell phone companies need some bite-sized video content to sell to stupid consumers via their 3G networks.

Norad: It's blindingly apparent that submitter wasn't around between August 1st, 1981 (MTV's conception) to November 28, 1997 (The day "Beavis & Butthead" aired its last episode on MTV and de facto completely ceded MTV's fading hipness to fashion, Britney Spears, lame boy bands, children's pop music and reality shows.)

November 28, 1997. The exact point where MTV became irrelevant to music.

Oh get it off it... MTV was only better in the 80's because the music was better... Videos were as useless then as they are now, what are we going to talk about from the 80s? The video of A-ah "take on me"? Devo "Whip it", or "video killed the radio star"? perhaps "Girls just wanna have fun"?

Norad: It's blindingly apparent that submitter wasn't around between August 1st, 1981 (MTV's conception) to November 28, 1997 (The day "Beavis & Butthead" aired its last episode on MTV and de facto completely ceded MTV's fading hipness to fashion, Britney Spears, lame boy bands, children's pop music and reality shows.)

November 28, 1997. The exact point where MTV became irrelevant to music.

Amen.

Also, I had one of my first funny tingly feelings between my legs to an Aerosmith video with Alicia Silverstone. They served a very important point

HappyHarryHardOn: Oh get it off it... MTV was only better in the 80's because the music was better...

Niiiice. Do you see what you did there?

Cos I do, dimwit.

Videos were as useless then as they are now, what are we going to talk about from the 80s? The video of A-ah "take on me"? Devo "Whip it", or "video killed the radio star"? perhaps "Girls just wanna have fun"?

You just named three of the fluffiest dumbass pointless videos that MTV was airing in the 80's. Nice cherry-picking job there, Lou.

Back in the 1980's, truly crappy sugar-coated shiat music videos were the exception. In 2008, it's the rule. Music videos mean absolutely nothing now. Name me one groundbreaking music video to come out since oh, 2000 or so.

GAME OVER. INSERT QUARTER.

Norad: HappyHarryHardOn: Oh get it off it... MTV was only better in the 80's because the music was better...

Niiiice. Do you see what you did there?

Cos I do, dimwit.

Videos were as useless then as they are now, what are we going to talk about from the 80s? The video of A-ah "take on me"? Devo "Whip it", or "video killed the radio star"? perhaps "Girls just wanna have fun"?

You just named three of the fluffiest dumbass pointless videos that MTV was airing in the 80's. Nice cherry-picking job there, Lou.

Back in the 1980's, truly crappy sugar-coated shiat music videos were the exception. In 2008, it's the rule. Music videos mean absolutely nothing now. Name me one groundbreaking music video to come out since oh, 2000 or so.

GAME OVER. INSERT QUARTER.


read the part were I said there were as bad THEN as NOW... so no, i do not have any videos to offer.

BUt Im waiting for YOUR great video list of the 80's. please.

I just feel videos is a kind of pointless excersice and does not have much to do with music, and i agree that over time, it just made the listeners WATCH more than listen to music

I like what Arcade Fire has done in the post-MTV era.

Norad: Name me one groundbreaking music video to come out since oh, 2000 or so.

The video for Gnarls Barkley's Crazy was kinda neat. Granted, I never saw it on MTV...

MTV was there for us when the internet was not.
Sometimes you couldn't see bands or didn't even know about them unless you read about them in a magazine.
The videos were awesome! And Beavis and Butthead was The OFFICE of MTV.

Besides, sometimes you might have gotten a glimpse of side boob.
And Tawny Kitean on the hood of a car.

Subby has clearly never enjoyed the epic Fail of a Rush music video from the 80's.
Time Stand Still
The Big Money
Distant Early Warning (with minimalistic bass goodness)
Superconductor

submitter: Idolator asks if there is a point to music videos in 2008. Was there a point to begin with?

Subby has clearly never enjoyed the music video stylings of Deep Sunshine. (pops)

Just inquiring..

Can someone link a few really kickass videos (where the music is decent too) for some songs from the last 5 years.
I'd like to see a couple of good videos..
yahoo music if you can.. (they have better quality than youtube).

thanks in advance.

I know of at least one...
here

Dr.Knockboots: Just inquiring..

Can someone link a few really kickass videos (where the music is decent too) for some songs from the last 5 years.
I'd like to see a couple of good videos..
yahoo music if you can.. (they have better quality than youtube).

thanks in advance.

The music isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but Juvenile's video in New Orleans after katrina really stuck out in my mind.

Hip hop videos tend to be either great (Going back to cali, 99 problems, Drop, My block, Sabotage...none of which are from the last 5 years though) or god-awful (almost everything on the air) with little middle ground

Norad: You just named three of the fluffiest dumbass pointless videos that MTV was airing in the 80's. Nice cherry-picking job there, Lou.

OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST CALL DEVO "FLUFF."

Educate your poor self, spudboy. Start here with "Beautiful World", and then The Beginning was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution" containing the videos for "Secret Agent Man" and "Jocko Homo". Spud, you got a LOT to learn.

Uh, last time I checked, the vast, VAST majority of 1980s music videos were cheesy, washed-out-looking, low-quality, patronizing, videotape eyesores, interesting only as a time capsule for the young and as nostalgia for their parents. The only difference between then and now is the cutting is quicker and the videotape has become DV. The way I see it, the best '80s videos were the minimal, artsy ones with touches of whimsy (i.e. "You Can Call Me Al") and the crazy, overbudgeted extravaganzas that went ALL. THE. WAY, ie. Thriller. These have led to the videos from people like Tool, Radiohead, and Aphex Twin, that function to enhance and/or alter one's emotional reaction to the song, rather than simply act as a sales tool for said song and as a brand/image for the artist. Unfortunately, most of the videos then and now fall into the latter category. Would hair bands be the phenomenon they were without their hair? Would rappers command as much attention without their bling? A visual gimmick can be a good thing (Gwar, Residents, etc.), but music videos have led to a world where many artists are nothing but that gimmick. It wasn't always this way; for example, take off David Bowie's makeup and "Suffragette City" is still a great song. Wash off Kiss' paint and... um... okay, so Kiss is just the gimmick. The difference is that back then, records were the primary promotional tool.

Artists often get ignored if there's no way to sell their image. Look at how The Beatles exploded when Brian Epstein took them out of leather jackets and put them into suits!

/essentials have been bolded for people who don't want to read the whole rant

Best thing they ever aired. (new window)

Dumbear: Best thing they ever aired. (new window)

'Roll me another one!

HappyHarryHardOn: BUt Im waiting for YOUR great video list of the 80's. please.

I can produce a list of 50 videos, without even having to think much.

Also videos aren't an 80's invention, they go back to the 70's.

musicky: videotape eyesores,

Actually starting with Russell Mulcahy's videos for Duran Duran, big budget videos were shot on film. Indeed, that's why some were big budget because film costs more. At least if you're using the same film and equipment you'd use for a movie. Now if you use a single 16mm camera and flim, like Van Halen did for their Jump video, you can still do it on the cheap.

Then look harder.

/(No RRs)

Dr.Knockboots: Just inquiring..

Can someone link a few really kickass videos (where the music is decent too) for some songs from the last 5 years.
I'd like to see a couple of good videos..
yahoo music if you can.. (they have better quality than youtube).

thanks in advance.

#1
#2
#3

Torc: #3

Nice.

Queens Of The Stoneage - Go With The Flow (2002)
Video build on the album art concept
Battles - Atlas (2007)
Awesome performance-styled video
Bat for Lashes - What's a Girl to Do? (2007)
Donnie Darko crossed with a BMX Ride
Hot Chip - Over & Over (2006)
Green Screen Mockery
Klaxons - Magick (2006)
Neon Paint Spewing

If I wasn't at work I'd YouTube up the lot of them.

One of my personal favourites has always been Bentley Rhythm Ace - Theme From Gutbuster. Body Poppin' Esikmos, oh yes.

Also surprised no-ones brought up Chris Cunningham's works yet.

Dr.Knockboots:

A few that I enjoy:

TV on the Radio- Wolf Like Me (new window)

Province- Also by TV on the Radio (new window)

Flaming Lips- Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (new window)


Also, the White Stripes consistently put out some quality videos. My favorite- The Hardest Button to Button (new window)

Video DID kill the radio star.

Oh, sure, you had your pin-up idols of the 60's & 70's, but when the music video took off in the 80's, the music industry realized that a pop idol could sell millions of records based on one over-produced video, no matter how crappy the song really was.

This type of crap diluted the tastes of the average music consumer. They began to accept anything that was force-fed to them by the corporate machine.

It's no wonder that when music started permeating the internet, the masses revolted against the established distribution system and adopted a newer, more grass-roots method of discovering and obtaining new music.

And with that, the corporate music industry killed itself.

I like music videos.

The Avalanches have some great ones.

Since I Left You (link pops like a miner)

Frontier Psychiatrist (pops)

Whenever I see a music video, I always picture that it was conceived by a seven year old boy saying 'Then it would be cool if this happened'. There's no attempt at art, message or even making some correlation with the song, music videos are just a bunch of stuff that some guy thought would look kinda neat. Huge waste of time.

MTV died in 1992 when the Real World started. They started showing that garbage around the clock immediately preempting other shows like Headbangers Ball and 120 Minutes.

All downhill after that.

Heroic Poser: MTV was there for us when the internet was not.

And now that we have the internet we have fun music videos like Pork and Beans

What I don't get, is if music videos are meant to be promotional items, aired for free on TV, why they're $1.99 a pop on iTunes?

/greedy bastards, all of them

Is it really a rick roll if it's posted in a music video thread?

This just in: sometimes the delivery and performance of music is as important as the music itself.

You would never see or hear anything like this now a days.

Styx - Music Time (new window)

By the way that may have been the first music video to feature a furry.

Norad: Name me one groundbreaking music video to come out since oh, 2000 or so.

Fell in Love with a Girl (new window)
D.A.N.C.E. (new window)
Weapon of Choice (new window)

I dont know if they get any screentime on the MTV(Which became completely useless to me the day sifl $ ollie died)but the Gorillaz videos are all pretty neat, D.A.R.E. being by far my favorite.

thesharkman: You would never see or hear anything like this now a days.

This is very very true.

So, older farkers (and some of you historical younguns) what are the best videos from the 80's and 90's? What were the worst?

I call Meatloafe "Anything for Love" as worst.

monas: Torc: #3

Nice.

Queens Of The Stoneage - Go With The Flow (2002)
Video build on the album art concept
Battles - Atlas (2007)
Awesome performance-styled video
Bat for Lashes - What's a Girl to Do? (2007)
Donnie Darko crossed with a BMX Ride
Hot Chip - Over & Over (2006)
Green Screen Mockery
Klaxons - Magick (2006)
Neon Paint Spewing

If I wasn't at work I'd YouTube up the lot of them.

One of my personal favourites has always been Bentley Rhythm Ace - Theme From Gutbuster. Body Poppin' Esikmos, oh yes.

Also surprised no-ones brought up Chris Cunningham's works yet.

That Queens Of The Stone Age video KICKS SOME SERIOUS A$$. God, I love that song.

Recent good videos, in my books, include the following:
Radiohead "There There"
Coldplay "The Scientist"

even much music and much more music [both canadian] don't have many video shows now... it's all reality shows and movies and non-music video related shows.... with the occasional "videoflow" or "much top 10's" or "Megahits".
i remember in the late 80's and 90's MuchMusic was basically videos interspliced with interviews and music features and biographies and concerts.

Oh hell, I forgot about Gutbuster.

D.V.N.O, (new window)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned OK Go - 35 million hits and counting

MTV not dead until 1997 is pretty generous. Beavis and Butthead were crap long before their run was done, also.

I don't remember a whole lot after "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that was particularly relevant, in my opinion; and that was clearly not a music video in the classic sense, either.

That OK Go excursion is clearly more like a viral video stunt than a music video proper.

/going to enjoy a Vegemite sandwich while I whip it
//GTFO my lawn