MTV Ruled the World- The Early Years of Music Video

by Greg Prato

  DAVE MARSH: He had allowed Columbia to release a video clip in the U.K., I think to The Old Grey Whistle Test, of a performance of "Rosalita" from 1978. And then one of the guys at CBS came up with an idea of using still-footage to create a Nebraska video [for the song "Atlantic City"]. In fact, they did play that on MTV, and it was quite popular. If you look at my book, Glory Days — which is in that Two Hearts compilation now — you'll see a discussion between Bruce and me about him and Jon Landau arguing about whether he should make "the big noise," a la Born in the USA, or "the quieter noise" of Nebraska. Once he made that commitment, then it was pretty clear to anybody that he was going to need videos for the songs, at least the singles tracks. Of course, I don't think anybody thought there were going to be that many singles...or at least I didn't. I thought two or three, not five or six!So they went and did that "Dancing in the Dark" video. Jeff Stein — who did The Kids Are Alright, the Who movie — tried to go in and make a "Dancing in the Dark" video. That failed, and then Brian De Palma came in and rescued the whole thing, with the Courteney Cox "Dancing in the Dark" video that you actually got to see. Which had its own set of problems. The problem was for a lot of Bruce fans, it seems way slicker than he actually is. It had something done to his teeth, so that his smile was like a totally different smile than he had before. He had dental work done. And it wasn't a very authentic-looking "Bruce crowd." [Laughs] Courteney's role was — not her fault — a jive version of what actually went on on-stage, because he actually did pull people up from the audience and dance with them. But it lacked all of Bruce's on-stage spontaneity. And I think that he paid a creative price for that. Or maybe it's not even a creative price; maybe it's just an image price. But he was, at that point, having it both ways, in terms of being one of the two or three biggest performers in the world and being still a very serious artist. And this was a chink in that armor, in a sense that he couldn't have it both ways with that particular video. There are other videos. I mean, if you look back at the "Born in the USA" video that John Sayles made, it looks very dated, partly because of Bruce's costume. But he was having it both ways, because he had the big anthemic song, and he had the soldiers. And they did their best to make a statement about, "That's not about politics," and they didn't do such a bad job.

  DEBORA IYALL: Great song ["Dancing in the Dark"], but the video to me was all about unveiling the personal physical transformation Bruce Springsteen had undertaken. Dude discovered weightlifting! The video was fun for seeming relaxed, live, and joyful. Bruce got down and danced throughout the whole song. Clarence Clemons was incandescent. I liked that he chose a boyish girl to come dance with him on stage, a very young Courteney Cox. ["Glory Days"] is memorable for Little Steven in his scarf, unabashedly mugging it up, and continues with Bruce's framing of his songs firmly in working class experience. Patti Scialfa plays a mean tambourine, too! "I'm on Fire" pivots in me from a point of deep longing that I've known almost all of my life. The American edge-of-town landscape I saw transformed into suburbs, to well past the gasoline-scented auto body shop I grew up next to. The Thunderbird is as unattainable and as iconic an object of desire as the woman is for him to most of us, in contrast to our familiarity with "a knife edgy and dull." I have vivid memories of when the auto body shop owner brought a mare for his stallion Appaloosa to a small corral out back that bordered our corrals. There's nothing as primal as those horses’ vocalizations in the video or in the song — as human desire is so often deferred and sublimated — but those Western-style yodels he does do get me where my cowboy fantasy lives. When he walks away after dropping the keys to the Thunderbird in the mailbox, I was relieved he didn't mess with that woman from the house on the hill. Maybe he'll be going home to someone more like me.

  NINA BLACKWOOD: He was one of the last artists to get on board. He was very skeptical of videos and didn't really want to do them at all. ["Dancing in the Dark"] was a total iconic video, but what I thought of as his first video, because it was the first one he "acted," was "I'm on Fire." I remember thinking, "Because he hates videos, is he going to stay under the car the whole time?" [Laughs] And "Dancing in the Dark" really has transcended and has become an iconic video of the '80s. And lo and behold, who would have ever thought that Courteney Cox would go on...and Brian De Palma, he had the best guy directing it. I'm sure he doesn't mind them anymore because he's done so many. I was really impressed with "I'm on Fire." For some reason, Springsteen reminds me of a young Robert DeNiro. I don't know why, his eyes, and there's something about his face that does. He's very expressive without trying.

  CHUCK D: I think Bruce Springsteen's performances went far past his videos. I'll tell you, my most influential Bruce Springsteen video came way later — "Streets of Philadelphia," when he was walking through Philadelphia. I just loved that video. That's my favorite Bruce Springsteen video.

  JULIAN LENNON: To be honest, I found those kind of videos a bit too "gung ho" for my liking!

  Stories Behind the Videos: Rock

  -- Queen --

  ROB HALFORD: I think you can marry Queen with Michael Jackson in a lot of ways, just because of the extraordinary depth and fearlessness of "This is who we are. This is what we're about. We're not really listening to the critics. We're not really listening to curry public favor. We are Queen." Everybody knows that I'm a huge Queen fan. I have one iPod that is just full of everything that Queen ever did. Every one of their videos — much like Jackson — were totally original and unique and told a story and was interesting, exciting, entertaining, funny. They remain, still, a powerful force. Again, we've lost two massively powerful people, Freddie and Michael. But their music lives forever. That's the main thing.

  TODD RUNDGREN: "Bohemian Rhapsody" certainly took it to another level, long before there was an MTV. You could say that they lay some sort of foundational element with "Bohemian Rhapsody," that certainly helped MTV. It was obviously a formula that could work for others...but other "formuli" I guess prevailed. I have to admit that not a lot of Queen videos stand out in my mind, because the thing that you always remember about Queen is Freddie Mercury's performance. That strutting around with the half-a-mic stand. Whenever you recall a Queen video, if it isn't "Bohemian Rhapsody," it's something with Freddie strutting around.

  JOE ELLIOTT: They weren't even called "videos" when Queen did that in '75, were they? They were "promos." It became a video. When we first saw it...because Queen made a decision — and bless them — they just broke rank and said, "No, we're not doing Top of the Pops. We'll send a film in." And instead of it just being them purely live, with that middle bit, it gave them an excuse to go a bit wacky. It had not really been done much before. It has often been called "the first video ever made," but that's a load of shit, because I've got the video for "Honaloochie Boogie" by Mott the Hoople from '73, and it's definitely a video. It's got Ian Hunter putting money in a jukebox, the song starts, and then he leans on the jukebox with a cigarette in his fingers, mouthing the words, with half his face showing, and the band carrying on behind him. That was like, "directed," and that's three years before "Bo Rhap." Somebody else would probably tell you, "Well, I can think of a better one. Frank Zappa did it in '69, or the Monkees did it in '67." You can keep going all the way back to other than just performance. But of course, the Queen stuff was great. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the best of the lot. I thought "Radio Gaga" was a great video — when they sat in the car and then the bit with the crowd doing the clapping. Again, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when you see it. We put the hand-claps in "Animal," because we wanted to try and create the same effect...but we failed miserably.

  PHIL COLLEN: "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first "video video" I think that everyone had access to, really. It was great. It was like a short film. In that case, it really put the song over. A lot of cases, the director would miss the point of what the artist was doing, and were just doing a visual version of what they thought was great. But with that, that was the very first video that hit home. It was a very
influential song/video, all the way around. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was almost like an old rock n' roll song, and Freddie doing his thing out there, as camp as ever, it was great. It got who Queen were. It was a fun little song. And the fact that it was covered by Dwight Yoakam — it sounds like a total country song anyway — it shows the power of the whole thing. "Radio Gaga" I think was a take-off of Metropolis. They used images. Great stuff, really good video. Back then, videos actually meant something, so after the initial glut of just putting a performance video out, it was kind of nice when you saw things like "Radio Gaga," which really did represent the song and the band. We all loved Queen. It was a blueprint for Def Leppard.

  MICHAEL SADLER: Considering Freddie's flamboyant and theatrical nature, I'm sure he embraced the concept of creating images to accompany the music. I also wouldn't be surprised to find out that he had a lot of input into the concept and execution of the videos. "Bohemian Rhapsody"? Classic. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"? I can only imagine that he had a great time doing his Elvis thing. "Radio Gaga"? Perhaps a little silly, but appropriate. The people from the film production company probably controlled a lot of the content, obviously using the video to help promote the movie. Having said that, though, the crowd scenes for the chorus gave anyone who hadn't seen the band live an idea of the grandiose nature of their performances. Do I sound like a fan? Damn right. Queen with Freddie Mercury was one of a kind.

  -- David Bowie --

  JON ANDERSON: I just loved everything David's done. I like his work, I like his style, [and] I like his approach. "Let's Dance" was one of the great moments of that period. Everywhere in the world — and I was traveling around the world — you'd hear that music and see the video. He could do no wrong for me.

  TODD RUNDGREN: I liked the videos from Lodger better. They were nice videos — the ones for Let's Dance — but I liked the ones from Lodger and Scary Monsters. They're just more...David's always trying to be "ute" in a way, and they just seem more naturally "ute." The Let's Dance ones are just too slicked up. They're too "new romantic" for me, I suppose.

  DAVE WAKELING: We did two shows at Milton Keynes, and he came in to see how everybody was doing, and to say that he really loved going on stage after us. The night before, the audience was just "ready to rock," he thought. And Saxa — the old Jamaican chap, who was always in search of his favorite beer — said, "Come and look in this fridge" and grabs David Bowie by the shoulder and around the neck and leads him to the fridge. He points in there and says, "Do you see any Red Stripe?" He says, "No, I don't." He says, "You get it!" So David Bowie dashes off, and about ten minutes later, this other guy comes back with a box of Red Stripe beer. Saxa says, "Wow, that guy was quick, wasn't he?" We say, "That was David Bowie! We were having a nice talk with him until you came in." Saxa thought he was a waiter backstage! Because he had his "Thin White Duke" stuff on — a black vest, black pants, and white shirt — he looked like a New York waiter. A lovely chap, and I wish we'd done more shows with him.

  -- Rod Stewart --

  CARMINE APPICE: "Hot Legs" was done in some little town up near Fillmore, California. It was in the middle of nowhere, in the sticks. That's the one where we're riding on the truck and in an old gas station. It was really hot and dusty, and I remember all the townspeople were just hanging around us all the time and going, "What's going on here?" It was pretty off the wall. Well, first of all, we didn't know the song ["Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"] that well. If you look at the video, there's a drum fill at the end. I don't even play what's being played on there. In those days, pretty much my whole career, whatever's played on a record was just played on that particular one. When you played live, things changed. So we had never played the song live, and we never really listened much to exactly what we played on the record. If you look, a lot of the stuff was not in synch with what was going on on the record. But it was a lot of fun. I remember that gorgeous girl that played the lead with Rod, and she had the one scene where Rod was in the bed with her. You could actually see her nipples. [Laughs] We'd always try and barge into her dressing room to try and catch her with her clothes off. And we had a lot of chicks in the actual video, like in the bar scene, sitting down and talking up a lot of chicks. When we did it, we didn't know it was going to be such a huge record. That was the second album I did with Rod. ["She Won't Dance with Me"] was an interesting one, because we were on tour in Europe. We flew into London, and we did two videos — "Passion" and "She Won't Dance with Me." That was fun because, there again, there was a skylight on the first level roof, looking into the girls’ dressing room. [Laughs] I remember we were up there, we call it "bogging." We'd go up there and watch those three girls that were in there get dressed and changed for the video. It was all done on a soundstage, and they squared off a certain area, which had lots of polka dots. I had just a rented drum kit, and we all had on "sex police" t-shirts, which was a thing we used to do in the Rod Stewart Group, where if somebody had a chick, we'd "sex police" them and wreck whatever he was doing. Actually, I wasn't in that video ["Young Turks"]. That's about the time I left the group. I did do one video on American Bandstand with "Young Turks"...but let's not talk about it.

  ERIC BLOOM: You've got to remember. [Rod Stewart] was already well-known and a big star. So, "Here's Rod Stewart's new video" had some cache right from the beginning, before you watched any of it. And he just comes across so likable and to girls so sexy and cool, and he has a great voice. The fact that his videos played that all up — he's a very smart man and a great talent.

  -- Pat Benatar --

  BOB GIRALDI: Pat...I didn't have much of a relationship with Pat. Michael Peters worked with her very intimately [for "Love is a Battlefield"], because he had the task of trying to get her to change and become less a singer, more a dancer. And I had the problem of getting her to be more an actress. And don't forget, that was the very first time that dialogue started a video. Yes, I've been criticized many times by people who think the music should remain pure. And yes, I am responsible for using my imagination to put onto film what I think the music means to me, way more than what the music was written by the artist about. It's really my interpretation. But as I told Lionel, "If you don't want my interpretation, you should come up with your own interpretation." I write my own. Like with "Hello," absolutely having nothing to do...and that video has got as many hits [on the Internet] as any video ever made, strangely enough. People love it and cherish it in Europe and all around the world. And had nothing to do with a blind girl being in love with a teacher, but that was what it meant to me, that was what I kept seeing as I kept playing the record. And the thing with "Love is a Battlefield" had nothing to do with "dime-a-dance." That was my own ridiculous experiences as a kid, going to a dime-a-dance and being tossed around by women. I loved the video challenge, because I loved the music, and the artists were less important to me personally, but they were terrific. I loved just coming up with my own interpretation. Pat and I only did one video together, and it ended up being a sort of a rallying cry for young girls. I put my young daughter in it actually, as a cameo, and I loved the video. It was the first time that dialogue...which, subsequently, was criticized that "There is no room for this kind of..." It's like I'm doing a showtune, or I'm using great artists' tracks as scores to a movie. And in many ways, you can interpret that. But they seemed to enjoy it now, and it accomplished what it set out to be, marketing a new single or new album. And the thing that I respect the most about Pat is, while she was uncomfortable, she never gave up and ended up doing a fairly good interpretation of dance. And those dancers...if you take your eyes off Pat and look at those dancers behind her, those girls kick ass. Oh boy, do they. Especially when they walk out on the street. They're just slamming. It was wonderful to watch. We did that on Fourteenth Street, which is now called the Meatpacking District, in a bar there. Shot all night long and walked off into the sunset as the sun came up.

  -- The Shoes --

  ALAN HUNTER: The first hour [MTV was on the air]
was populated with bands that no one ever heard of. "Who the hell are the Shoes?!" Because the catalog was limited. I remember the guy looked like Peter Frampton. This was the height of "We can't afford more than just the small club, with the five lights in the background." These guys are wearing clothing that look like a nerdy little band of the late '90s, kind of like Weezer or Wilco, except for the guy with the long Frampton hair. This is definitely like, "Who in the hell is this?" Four guys, three guitars, and drums. They were forgettable, I would say, but they had to play something, MTV did. I don't know the story behind who programmed the first 24 hours, except they took every video that they could get their hands on and put it in the mix. Why they wouldn't have made that first hour packed with every big star in the world, I don't know.

  JEFF MURPHY: After recording Present Tense in England, we saw that they had video music shows, which America didn't have yet, and the label decided it would be a good idea to shoot some videos for the European market. We shot all four songs ["Too Late," "Tomorrow Night," "In My Arms Again," and "Cruel You"] in one day. They were filmed at a soundstage in L.A. in the fall of 1979, September or October. It was a long, 20-hour shoot, and we filmed "Tomorrow Night" last, because it was decided to use fog on the set, to try and diffuse the harsh look of video tape and try to give it a softer "film look." We filmed a short interview before the songs, and the interviewer was inexperienced and extremely nervous — he was later edited out — which also made us very nervous. But the songs turned out OK.