“If you could define it, I wouldn't have any use for it.”
- From the novel, Daisy Jones & the Six
I saw this question recently, “What's the greatest music video of all time? That's funny. Like that can be answered in some objective way. Based on what? Popularity? Innovation? Artistry? There is no right answer. It's like, What's the greatest pizza of all time? Whatever you say, you're correct.
Oh sure, there are numerous lists along the lines of “Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Music Videos” “ and So and So's list of The 50 Greatest Music Videos Ever” and they have the MTV Video Music Awards every year. There are lots of self-appointed authorities out there to tell you what to think. But as we saw recently with The New York Times' selection of the 30 Greatest Living Songwriters, authorities can be imbeciles. Your and my selections are as valid as anyone. Like any subjective thing, it's fun to argue and debate because, again, there's no right answer. What if there's a visually amazing video but you can't stand the song? What if you love the song but the video completely wrecks the images you already had in your mind? How do those things factor in?
We who lived through the trendsetting cultural force that was the first decade of MTV, have a different perspective than those who came along after, I think. The videos from that time are deeply ingrained in 80s kids' psyches. They were common touchstones that everyone discussed. “Have you seen that new video by______?” You'd wait for new and favorite videos to come around in the rotation. That was back when you actually had to wait for something.
If you check the lists, a lot of the same picks show up near the top and a good many are from those early years. Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer is often at number one. Other top contenders are Take On Me (a-ha), Billie Jean and Thriller (Michael Jackson), Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana), Money For Nothing (Dire Straits), November Rain (Guns N' Roses), Like a Prayer (Madonna), Losing My Religion (R.E.M.), Nothing Compares 2 U (Sinead O'Connor).
There are newer videos from this century that are now on lists, lots of hip-hop and rap, stuff I never saw. If they would have existed back in the day I would have at least seen them and had an opinion. Once the world fragmented and MTV fell out of fashion, no one saw anything they didn't care to. There went the common culture.
If you feel strongly about a video GOAT or have favorites, please list. I'll just comment on three that have always stayed with me, none of which are remarkable, production-wise. Two are just concert settings, but isn't that what rock and roll is at its essence, people on a stage singing and banging on instruments?
I've discussed some of this before, but this first selection goes along with it. My last year in the Marine Corps was spent out in California's Mojave Desert. It was 1980/81, months before MTV would make its debut. There was a TV station out of LA that broadcast, at random times, what was then a whole new concept, music videos. I think there were only a handful in existence because they played the same five or six over and over. I was always excited when I happened upon the show. I'd watch intently on my 16" Sears black and white set.
One of those videos I talked about previously was the campy I Got You by Split Enz. I still pull it up today just for a smile. The one I'm talking about here though was by a little outfit called Blondie. I knew who Blondie was. They'd had a radio hit the year before, Heart of Glass. I'm sure I'd seen pictures of Debbie Harry and the band, but that would have been it. So, on the screen comes this video of Blondie in concert (staged and altered though it was) cranking through a most infectious song, Dreamin'. If I was trying to explain the concept of charisma, I think this video would be a good start because Debbie Harry sure had it.
The second memorable one occurred a decade later in the fall of 1991. It was a Saturday morning and I had MTV on for background while I was doing things around the house. As you know if you were alive to experience it, much of MTV then was videos on repeat. New ones came along now and again but mostly it was those that were currently popular shown over and over. On this day, though, I was walking through the den and a black and white video was starting. It was new to me. I had missed the little intro script at the beginning of who the band and song was so I just stood there watching, rapt. It was another concert scene with a scraggly looking bunch on the stage playing through a throbbing, hypnotic tune to a mosh-pitty kinda crowd. The lead singer (Eddie Vedder, as it turned out) had something about him that was hard to look away from. Whether he was just passionate or having some kind of fit, it was hard to say. Whatever the case, he too had that impossible to define charisma quality. At the end, up came the information I needed…Pearl Jam/Alive. That was about two weeks before Nirvana's video Smells Like Teen Spirit debuted. The Grunge era had begun.
I saw a friend that very afternoon, a music guy. I needed to talk to someone about what I'd come across. I asked if he'd seen the video by a band called Pearl Jam? Was he familiar with them? He had not and he was not. I said, “Man, there's something different about those guys. They've got something extra. I think they're gonna be big." Every decade or so I get a thing right.
Lastly, for pure enjoyment, I give you Paul and Chevy in You Can Call Me All. It makes me happy like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It's Chevy at the peak of his Chevy-ness.
Whatcha got?