Five Classic Music Videos You Must Watch

When I'm not writing for this site or my personal blog, I write for Rotoscopers, an excellent animation website run by excellent people. Along with the news articles I write for the site, I also write a column called Forgotten Gems Of Animation, which discusses... well, just what the title says. Yesterday, I was brainstorming ideas for future installments, and I hit upon the idea of writing about animated music videos. I took to YouTube with the intent of finding content for the article, only to find myself falling down a rabbit hole of classic music vids, animated or not.

As I watched, I found myself being particularly biased toward '80s music videos. Why not? After all, that decade of videos were the pioneers. For the first time, musicians realized that a music video could be more than a simple tape of the band playing (although there's nothing wrong with that, as we shall see).  

If done well, a music video can add another layer of awesomeness to an already-great tune. It can tell a story with the song at the center, it can shed light of the meaning of the lyrics, or it can just provide us with an array of awesome images for us to forever associate with the song. Below, we'll discuss five music videos that, together, form a master class in how to do the music vid right!

5. 'Bat Out Of Hell' - Meat Loaf

Okay, I'll admit it; on a technical level, this music video isn't the greatest one ever made. That doesn't matter, though, once Michael Aday (better known as Meat Loaf) launches into his classic, over-the-top, Springsteen-meets-classical teen anthem. The instrumentation and the lurid style of the lyrics give the tune a delirious feel, and Meat Loaf embodies that so well in his performance that it's hard to take your eyes off him.

4. 'The Heart Of Rock And Roll' - Huey Lewis And The News

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I'm of the opinion that Huey Lewis & The News are one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Every song they roll out is infused with energy, joy, and love of the amazing genre that is rock and roll. This video, for one of their first big hits, does an amazing job of showing all the things that make Huey and the News great.  From the opening of the video (with the band walking across a bridge in perfect formation) to the end (with Huey's glowing heart thumping through his shirt), this video is wonderful.

3. 'Rapture' - Blondie

Oh, baby. Debbie Harry. What a beauty. Sigh... Oh. I'm sorry. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, I remember. Rap gets a bad rap these days. I can understand why some people hate the genre; after all, a lot of current rap (but not all) is about hating the cops or wanting to murder one's ex-significant other. I hate that kind of rap, too. There's a lot of good rap, too, and this song is a prime example. 'Rapture' has a great beat, and Debbie Harry has come up with an amazing, crazy story to lay on top of it. The editor of this video does a great job complementing the rap, too, by cutting the video to the beat of the music.

2. 'Dancing In The Dark' - Bruce Springsteen

  

Of course, this is only one man's opinion, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a musician who does the music video better than Bruce Springsteen. (There is one, though, and we'll get to him to a moment. But I digress.) Any Springsteen video is great, but this one is the cream of the crop. It combines a bunch of the things that makes Bruce "The Boss:" paying homage to classic rock artists by making a classic concert-style video; his amazing stage presence, and the emotion he puts into every song he sings.  You could get all those things from any Springsteen video, though. The thing that sets vid above the rest is the girl in the crowd who eventually gets brought up on stage. She embodies the joy of rock music so well that her mere presence elevates this video above almost all others. (By the way, the actress who plays that girl is Courteney Cox. She later became famous through a little TV show called Friends...)

1. 'Thriller' - Michael Jackson

Yup, no surprises here. All the music videos we've discussed are great, but this one is so wonderful that there's almost no comparison to any other video. You can say a lot of unsavory things about Michael Jackson, and a lot of them would be true, but there's no denying that the man had talent. A few years after leaving the Jackson 5 to pursue a solo career, MJ saw the movie An American Werewolf In London and had a revelation: music videos could be so much more than they had been. They didn't just have be a simple series of shots loosely hung on a song. They could tell a story, they could be ten minutes long (or even longer), and they could look just as good as any Hollywood movie. With a grand vision firmly in mind, Jackson hired the director of Werewolf, John Landis, and famous makeup artist Rick Baker. Together, they put together this little gem of a film. Everything about this film, from the horror-movie atmosphere to that famous dance to the horror-story structure, is perfect! (Incidentally, along with being shown on MTV every hour-on-the-hour, this video was also shown in theaters, right before Fantasia. That must have been a pleasant little treat for those unsuspecting kids going in to see a Disney movie.  Heh, heh, heh.)

...So, there you have it: five classic music videos you must watch. What have I missed? Let me know!