MTV Ruled the World- The Early Years of Music Video

by Greg Prato

  Stories Behind the Videos: R&B and Hip-Hop

  -- Earth, Wind & Fire --

  VERDINE WHITE: "Let's Groove" was done by Michael Schultz. That actually was out before MTV came on. BET broke that video first. That video was never played on MTV. And we did another video, "Magnetic," from that album, which was a great video, but that wasn't played on MTV. To be honest, Earth, Wind & Fire was never known as a video group. It was like doing a movie. We had done Sgt. Pepper [the movie] a couple of years before, so it was really just an extension of that. But when Michael Schultz did "Let's Groove," I thought he did a great job.

  -- Eddy Grant --

  STEVE BARRON: When "Electric Avenue" and "I Don't Wanna Dance" came in, I had been shooting two videos a week in freezing cold London. And we got a call saying, "We've got this artist, Eddy Grant. He hasn't done much for a few years. He's in tax exile, and he's in Barbados. You'll have to fly out to the Caribbean and shoot it there, because he can't leave the country because of the tax thing." I heard both his songs, and I'm not a good A&R person. I know what I like, but I'm not good at judging what's going to be a hit and what's not. And I thought, "We'll go there for a week. We're not going to shoot every day. We'll just do it over a couple of days, and the crew needs a real break. Let's just chill out." To be honest, I really did not think that these videos were going to go out very wide at all. I thought it was going to be something that might not get a lot of airplay, so we "crashed them out" a bit, did it a bit by the numbers, and then spent a chunk of that week having cocktails by the pool. And then I got my "just desserts," because a month later, both of these videos were on Top of the Pops, for five consecutive weeks. And I was like, "Oh my God, I wish we hadn't sat out by the pool. We could have done something much better than this!" So that was my comeuppance. I think at the time, I always had a storyline, and sometimes — for reasons [like] budget, circumstance, or cutting room, things didn't work — and the storyline would be the last concern often. But I would have had a storyline for that, and for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. It would have had a whole set of reasons for things. But in the end, you end up with what you've got. That was probably too many cocktails by the pool.

  -- Herbie Hancock --

  BOOTSY COLLINS: OK, no way were you not going to play this one. This guy just came in with a new sound that kinda dated the "English robot music craze." Now we had a real musical genius, who somehow came up with a smash that would fit the MTV format. Thank God Herbie stepped off the total jazz platform for a minute — as did George Duke and others — to get a foot in the door of the total market, that they so much deserve. This was a brilliant move on Herbie's part.

  -- Lionel Richie --

  BOB GIRALDI: My real favorite is the dance in Lionel Richie's "Running with the Night." If you look at it, you'll see each male dancer strut out his arm, so a female dancer can grab hold of it. It was based on, again as I was growing up, I would go to a dance with a gal...based on, "If you come to a dance with me, you go home with me." Lionel loved that. He thought that was right on with what was "Running with the Night." And I just loved the opening, when Michael Peters cha-cha's down that hallway in the apartment to knock on the door and put his arm out, for the beautiful girl to grab hold of it. The most beautiful dance or rhythm I ever watched, out of all the years of doing videos, is when Michael Peters and his date leads each one of the dancers and their dates up the stairs, as they crash this ridiculous wedding that Lionel's at. It's just mesmerizing to me, to watch them take those stairs. The symmetry, the beauty of dance — it's just marvelous. Lionel and I became pals. He was fun to hang with. He was very collaborative, very approachable. He, more than any artist I ever worked with, tried very hard to dance and do what was being done with that music in those days. Obviously, not being Michael, he tried.

  BOOTSY COLLINS: He brought the more settled-down country-side of the upper class black hood, which I think worked very well with what MTV was doing at the time. He could not go in there singing "She's a Brick House" with the Commodores, but as a solo act, it was cool. He was a much gentler black fellow.

  BOB GIRALDI: "Hello" was nothing to do with what he wrote, and he said to me — he called me "Mr. G" — "Mr. G., this has nothing to do with what I wrote, you know that?" And I said, "Of course I know that. It has to do with what I wrote. And if you wanted to do what you wanted, you should have come up with it, given it to me, tell me what was in your mind, and let me see if I can interpret it!" He said, "No, let's stay with what's in your mind, because you're the director, and you were inspired by it to this." And he went for it. He loved acting in it. And then they fell in love, and the world fell in love with them falling in love. And yes, I was criticized, especially by some of my English brothers. The Brits thought it was schmaltzy and saccharine, and there's "no place for that kind of saccharine in music videos." I disagreed.

  -- Tina Turner --

  TONI BASIL: I actually did a couple of [videos] for her, and I was her first choreographer, after she left Ike. I was the original choreographer of "Disco Inferno." Her style, it's just incredible, and it's because she comes from street. And then she turns around and makes it so "her own," as did Michael.

  VERDINE WHITE: Her videos were great. Now, prior to Private Dancer you know, she was great before. And this was a whole generation that had never seen her. The Private Dancer record was a great record for her. She looked great. Great legs. [Laughs]

  DARYL HALL: I will include her in the "Michael Jackson world," because she's a fantastic dancer. I think that she revitalized a long career through that and showed what she could do. She's always been one of my favorite singers and she's — at least in those days — a hell of a dancer.

  -- Oran "Juice" Jones --

  ORAN "JUICE" JONES: During that time when I was filming the video [for "The Rain"] — I remember this vividly — there was a meeting, with a bunch of cats, and I won't say their names, but they're all prominent in music and entertainment now. But they were saying I was privileged to be sitting at that table for a minute. It had nothing to do with the video, but it was most impressive because it had an impact on me. At this meeting, these cats sat down and said, "We have something here — hip-hop music. We've got to make this into a culture. We've got to make this into a lifestyle so that it will survive and it will last forever. What can we do?" And those cats sat down there, the same way that Willie Lynch described how to create a slave, that's how they described how to make hip-hop, how to create that and place that in the mindset of America and the world. And oddly enough, it had nothing to do with making the video, but it's the most memorable thing that I remember during that time, that one meeting. It was crazy, man. Hip-hop was something that was intangible. It was a concept. I mean, these cats, to have that vision, I was just happy to be there. That took place in the trailer, making the video. And the cats were sitting there. At first, I'm amped, I'm hyped, I'm doing a video, I'm having a ball. And these cats sat down, and I could see what they were talking about was much more important than what I was doing, because this was something that was going to survive. I was just thankful to be a part of it, to see it. But that's why no matter what happens, years from now, nobody can tell me that hip-hop, just all of a sudden, you woke up and it was there. No. Cats actually sat down and planned and plotted. And from that instance, I understood a great concept of business and how this business runs. Right there in Soho in New York [was the video's shooting location]. What "The Rain" represented was an alternative option — take the money and take the stuff back you bought her and kick her to the curb, but keep it pimping, keep it funny...not funny, but clever. Because we're not gorillas. You don't go beating up. A lot of cats came after that with the same concept. The most important thing to me is I couldn't do it all, so I just tried to do it first. The whole thing was a blast for me, because I'm from the hood, and we didn't have access like that. We were down in an apartment in a loft down in Soho that was like a million-dollar loft. We were shooting the video, and
I'm looking around, like...I didn't realize how broke I was until I made some money. [Laughs] That whole series of events for me was crazy, because I was being introduced to a whole new world I didn't even know existed. And I think that's what hip-hop provided for a lot...not for a lot, for everybody.

  -- Run-DMC --

  FRANK STALLONE: Probably one of the great videos is ["Walk This Way"], when you had Aerosmith and Run-DMC. What was interesting about it was Aerosmith was all but finished. And again, hip-hop and that type of music — which had nothing to do with them — was just dominating. I don't know if it was Jimmy Iovine or someone [Rick Rubin], but it worked. It really worked. Two different styles melded together for that song. Aerosmith really went on from there. That's all they needed, a kick-start on that situation.

  ORAN "JUICE" JONES: Run-DMC — what made them who they are is the fact is that they really stayed outside the box. Russell [Simmons] had a lot of influence on Joey [aka Run], but he kept them outside of the norm. And I particularly remember Joey especially — Darryl [aka DMC], too, to some extent, but Joey more so — really being concerned with "What's next? Where is it going? I want to get there first. I want to do it before anybody gets there." And it's kind of dangerous when you do that. I mean, it's a good thing, to blaze a trail and set a trend. You're the first one there, and it's a beautiful thing. But the downside of that is there is no barometer by which you can gauge your success. You're the only one there. There's no telling, "Are you good? It's new, but is it worth anything? What does it mean?" There is nothing there to gauge it against. You're just the first kid there. For him, that was what they wanted to do. They wanted to be the first. "King of Rock," "Rock Box" — I can remember the first day Russell came in screaming, "Oh, oh, you've got to hear this!" I'm like, "What the fuck?" It was me, Larry Smith, Kurtis Blow — a bunch of cats were there. He put on "Rock Box." "Oh my God...what the fuck is this shit?! Yo, rock guitars?" We didn't know nothing about that. But that's what they wanted to do. And, oddly enough, they weren't even sure about it, because "Rock Box" was the b-side of the record. I forgot exactly what the [a-side] was, was it "It's Like That"? I know "Rock Box" was the b-side, and then they turned it over, and they played those rock guitars. Russell convinced radio to turn the record over, and they played those rock guitars, and that was it. It was a wrap. I looked at that and thought that hip-hop, one of the greatest impacts it's had is that it's taught us not to be scared. Hip-hop has showed us how to trailblaze, like Star Trek — "To boldly go where no man has gone before." That was hip-hop. But you never really saw it like Run and them did, because Run-DMC really went where nobody went before. They went culturally where nobody went before. The impact that had, they were trailblazers. They made their mark.

  CHUCK D: [Michael Jackson was] kicking down a big door. And then Run-DMC kicked down the door with "Rock Box" in 1984. That was a really big thing. It did a lot, because it allowed rap music to be seen around the country. It also gave a lot of artists a chance to understand there was a reason to make videos. I mean, [Public Enemy] intentionally didn't make a video for our first album [Yo! Bum Rush the Show], because we said, "Who the hell is going to show it?" BET had yet to come into serious video playing, and MTV didn't have anything until Yo! MTV Raps [in 1988]. It wasn't until Yo! MTV Raps that we decided to make a video. And back then, the label would pay half, and you had to cover half of the cost. So I said, "Why am I spending money on something that's not going to be seen?" The only reason why I started to like MTV was Yo! MTV Raps, with Ted Demme, Ed Lover, and Doctor Dre. They were boosting our genre into the stratosphere. That was very important. Yo! MTV Raps was the only reason why I gave a damn about MTV. And also after that, the MTV News with Kurt Loder. People I respected a whole lot. I thought they did MTV News the way the were supposed to have done it. Information about music in the news was something that really made me pay attention to the rest of MTV.

  ANGELO MOORE: They broke down doors, which is great. I can say nothing but good things about that. I just wish that a lot more of it would happen, man. If more of it happened, then the doors would be open a little wider. They would give the chance for the porthole of a lot of different cultures and genres of music to come through MTV, because it's still one-sided.

  Duran Duran

  ALAN HUNTER: Duran Duran was probably the first big "poster band" for MTV. Their video for "Girls on Film" was so groundbreaking, because it was so sexual. We only showed the "PG version." The "R version" we saw in the office, and they had to edit out various stuff in it. But it drove Middle America crazy, because it was so out there. That was in '81, our first year.

  NINA BLACKWOOD: Duran Duran I absolutely loved right off the bat. When we would do interviews, they would match each of the VJs up with the artists they think they would click the best with to do interviews, and I got Duran Duran. I think they were so innovative, cool, and stylish. They were absolutely perfect for the medium.

  SERGEANT BLOTTO: That's the first completely over-the-top, "Let's blow the budget on this sucker." But I think Duran Duran should always be recognized as the pioneers that they are and the inventors of the "turning over the table in slow motion" move [a scene from "Hungry Like the Wolf"], which I believe is probably one of the defining stylistic moments of MTV.

  JONATHAN ELIAS: Certainly, their videos...they broke ground on so many pieces of visual material. And they really thought about art in a more holistic way. They knew about artists, and they knew about film and painting.

  PHIL COLLEN: I loved them. They were clean-cut pop guys, and girls were just going bonkers over them. Again, it solidified their image — these clean-cut, playboy guys, jetting around on yachts and on beaches. It created that image of what their sound was all about. So all of a sudden, you put them into a bracket, and you actually knew what they were about. Again, mainly down to the videos.

  GREG HAWKES: Eh...I thought they were fluff.

  DEBORA IYALL: Who cares. I just didn't get it. For one thing, it was totally sucking up to upper class taste and sort of want-to-be-materialist class system. I just couldn't care less. I don't want to be on a sailboat with a bunch of models, and nobody I know wants to do that or is going to do that. That isn't our life, and we don't aspire to it. I'm one of those people who did not grow up wanting a house on the hill. So seeing that, it was just like watching something embarrassingly "suck up." Sorry Duran Duran! We actually turned down a tour with...if it wasn't Duran Duran, it was one of the other bands that was like Duran Duran. Later, we thought maybe we should have done it. [Laughs] But at the time, it was just like, "No way!"

  CY CURNIN: Duran Duran had the big budgets to go poncing around in James Bond locations. But hats off to them. They made MTV look expensive and took us away from reality. In the real world, Reagan and Thatcher were busy sewing the seeds of dysfunction. Now we are reaping that crop. Fuck them!

  MIKE SCORE: Duran Duran's first album [Duran Duran] was brilliant. It was right where we wanted to be and right there in that era with them. I didn't particularly like them much after that. I thought they went too commercial, and we probably went a bit too underground-ish, too electronic, more in the "Devo era." But we were fans of Duran Duran. We didn't have huge backing, but we knew they did. Once we started to do stuff and they were coming up, we knew they were going on to become huge. Because everything that they did was backed to the hilt, whereas everything we did was kind of like, "Well, we'll try this, and we'll try that." We knew we could go out, tour, and do it live, probably more than they did. So I think they needed MTV a bit more than we did at the beginning, until they got more established.

  THOMAS DOLBY: I really liked Duran Duran. Because of their image, they were sometimes poo-pooed as musicians, but they're actually really good musicians. Some very interesting song compositions. What did I think of their videos? I was jealous. [Laughs] I wanted to be a poster boy, too, but I didn't look like Simon Le Bon, so I went the other way and did the "mad professor thing." If you can't compete in the handsome stakes, you
might as well be a character. You had him, Sting, and Adam Ant. There were a lot of real heartthrobs at the time. I just thought I'd go the other way.

  COLIN HAY: I thought their videos were great. I thought that was a band where they really shone, in terms of videos, because they're all good-looking cats. And if you like that kind of music, it really went hand-in-hand, the songs and the videos.

  MICHAEL SADLER: Duran Duran's videos were absolutely stunning. The music was almost secondary to their [videos], because you are talking film at that point, especially "Hungry Like the Wolf" and things like that. It's a real emphasis on making it like a film and extremely entertaining. Really well shot. The band itself — it was so well-managed, and the image was so well-controlled that it was outrageous. Just attention to detail. If a music video is supposed to be 70% the song and 30% the visual enhancement, that brought it up to a 70/30 of the visuals. I don't want to say the song playing at the moment was immaterial; it was more like a film, where the song was enhancing this cool mini-movie that the director had come up with.