MTV Ruled the World- The Early Years of Music Video

by Greg Prato

  -- Bon Jovi --

  FRANKIE SULLIVAN: Bon Jovi always did great videos. Again, most of his were based around the band, being a rock n' roll band and performances. I saw "Wanted Dead or Alive" the other night on TV, and watching it this many years later, I realized it's a story about a rock n' roll band that was having a hard time. And when you look at it, you can see it. Jon's really tired, and they've been out there pounding it, doing what rock n' roll bands do on the road.

  -- Dire Straits --

  STEVE BARRON: I was doing quite a lot of post-production videos. I was working at a company in London. They had what was an early CGI computer graphics machine called the Bosch FGS-4000. It was a big machine that could generate these three-dimensional graphics. It was doing quite a lot of big logos for corporations like IBM. I'd keep walking past this guy, Ian Pearson, who was working away on these logos, and said, "Could you create characters out of these lumps and blocks?" And he's like, "Yeah. There's nothing you can't do." At the same time, Warners was saying, "We've got this track, 'Money for Nothing.' But Mark Knopfler hates videos. Would you want to do something with it? But he might be resistant to it, because he doesn't want to do anything other than see the band playing. It's all about the music." So I took the effects of that FGS-4000 machine and another machine called Paintbox, which I was starting to see, which painted the images. And I thought, "Well, instead of just having the band directly playing, you'd have them 'painted' as well." The irony of all this is that these two characters in this song are slagging off MTV. There's a layer of irony I can put on it by having them be part of television, having them be the pixels that make up television. I thought, "There's a good motivation. Maybe I can sell that to Mark." But I had nothing to show him. I couldn't show him an IBM logo. He'd be like, "Whatever." So I flew to Budapest to do the live part of the shoot, and I think in retrospect, Warners had told them that that was all they were doing. "Oh, there's this guy flying over to do this live thing." And they pushed it into my hands to tell him over dinner that actually what I wanted to do was completely mess with the live performance, and create these two characters! So I pitched it to him over dinner, and I remember a sort of sinking feeling, as I pitched him something that had never been done before, that I had nothing to show him what it would be like. It was obviously in his power in the end. And, in the end, there was actually someone else at the table — his girlfriend at the time — and she had been watching a lot of MTV. I pitched on about how [MTV] needs a real "refresh," and how this would be the way to do it. And she was like, "You're right. It's getting really stuck." So, anyway, it prevented the "no" from Mark...but it didn't get a "yes" either. Because it got neither, I just took the footage back and began the process of the concept. So out of that, we did those characters.

  Madonna

  ALAN HUNTER: If you wanted to talk about style and fashion, you'd point to Madonna solely, singularly, as the head of that. I'm not saying that young girls adopted fashion quicker or more heartily than boys did back then, but certainly, little girls watching MTV were more apt to go to the store and either find or demand some trendy fashion they saw Madonna wearing. There's no doubt that the new wave invasion from the U.K. influenced people's style of dress. They started wearing different kinds of shirts and maybe putting more gel in their hair. The mohawk didn't come from "Joe Dirt rocker" as much as it did from the new wave people. Madonna certainly made MTV more about trends, lifestyle trends. Her clothing was one factor of it, the style of her videos, after "Lucky Star," which was her against a white backdrop, and her bangly, jangly clothes, which were a totally big trend in fashion. After people saw Madonna with all of her bangles, bobbles, and wraps, all the little girls were dressing totally like her, with the scarves and the bandana look. But that video was so simple. After that, she got a lot more conceptual with stories. She was absolutely at the top of the heap, when it comes to setting trends — both fashion and style. And there's no doubt that she helped motivate "the strong female" in the rock n' roll business. Short of the Joan Jetts of the world, who were sticking it in the eye of the punk world, Madonna said, "You can be at the top of the entire heap, not just as a female." She made a lot of little girls feel like they could be empowered. She sat with Mark Goodman in an interview a year or two later and talked how she was looking for her new "boy toy," so she was in charge.

  EDDIE MONEY: She had a big influence on kids and fashion. The girls started wearing that real "moppy look," with the big bows and very '80s. But to tell you the truth, I was never really a Madonna fan. I never thought she was much of a vocalist, but she was definitely an entertainer. She knew what she was doing.

  DEBORA IYALL: She fascinated me. And her fashion caught on almost immediately. When "Lucky Star" came out, suddenly, everybody had the cut-off leggings, the wrestler boots, the short skirt over the leggings, and the hair tied up however she did it. That really influenced fashion. And I was attracted to it. It was simple. It was her dancing with two people. It was amazingly effective for how simple the shoot probably was. But she was also very charismatic and compelling, and the camera knew how to get in there. And they lit her to love her skin. I thought it was kind of embarrassing, though, when I saw the video for "Like a Virgin," of her in Venice, writhing around on the gondola. I was just embarrassed for her. [Laughs] But what do I know? And I liked "Borderline," because I was really attracted to the graffiti community, and it seemed like she was hanging out in the Bronx and being kind of a homegirl. I thought, "Well, that's kind of interesting. In one video, she's a dancer, and then in this one, she's a homegirl...OK."

  STEVE BARRON: I did Madonna's first video as well ["Burning Up"]. She was a new artist that Warners were very excited about. I also remember it was one of the tracks I was not too fond of. I really liked some of her other songs, like "Borderline," and over the years, tons of other tracks. "Burning Up" didn't inspire me visually. We nearly killed her, on her first video, because we had a cherry picker, looking down at her on a lake. We weren't quite over the top of her, and I asked them to push out the arms so we could be over her. As we reached over her head from 50 feet — with 22 tons of metal — I looked back and saw as we were extending, the back wheels of the crane had lifted off the ground, and we were totally on the tipping point. And the guy hadn't even noticed. So I said, "Stop!" He stopped and did the little bounce thing, and we were going to come down on her. She would have totally been dead. We just held our breath, and I said, "Take it back. Take it back." If he would have pressed the button the wrong way — one more inch — we would have been down on her. We just moved it back inch by inch, until the wheels sat back down on the ground, and I said, "Alright...we do that shot another way!" I remember her being a real character. I met with her in this squat in Manhattan, before we started filming. She was doing all this sort of, almost sort of "tease-y type talking," with her head on the side. That's where I got her to "roll around on the ground sort of thing," with her head down on angles, because our first meeting was a bit like that.

  STEWART COPELAND: I remember having great respect for her, because she was around the "Studio 54 days," and she was a scrubber, without much going for her. But just through tenacity and strength of will, she forced herself onto the world and had a big career. And I have enormous respect for her, because she wasn't drop-dead gorgeous by any means — she wasn't even that great a singer — but she just had a mind like a rock. We were all happy to see she used her force of will to succeed. Other girls were prettier, other girls were better singers...other girls were actually guys, but Madonna had none of that going for her. She was just a scrubber who was determined to conquer the world.

  MIKE RENO: Sexy. Very desirable. I have a funny little story. I was in the studio cutting a track, I think on my second album. And there was someone on the phone. I could see through the glass. So, finally, I stopped singing, and I said, "How come you guys were on the phone for like the last half an hour?" And they said, somebody is calling for you, but you're busy." And I said, "Well, who
is it?" And they said, "Madonna." I thought it was kind of curious, because she hadn't had an album out yet. It probably could have been her. Maybe I was somebody she looked up to, I don't know. She came out with her bunch of songs, and I thought, "Wow!" She kind of reminded me of a "New York girl," all bundled up, and you couldn't tell if she had clean clothes or dirty clothes or if they were from the night before. But it worked for her. She was something to watch. Some of the stuff was a little light, but you know, it doesn't mean I have to love it. I loved what she was doing. She definitely changed the way things were done. When that camera was on, she knew she was working, that's for sure.

  ALAN HUNTER: I remember distinctly, about '83, we'd be sitting around the green room, shooting the shit, and a producer would come in and say, "Someone has to go interview this 'Madonna person' tonight at the Limelight." Before we all got to know an artist or before they were big, it was like, "Oh crap, I've got dinner tonight." You know, everybody running not to have to go do the interview, unless we had a desire for that particular music or something. I didn't know her very well, and before I could say, "No," Martha and Mark had already said, "No." They had something else to do, so I got the gig. Lucky me. I remember it was really hectic. The club was hopping. The Limelight was the best dance club in town. I had kind of a long day as I remember, and I didn't get as much chance as I would have liked to have to bone up on her. She was relatively new, so there wasn't this massive history. It's not like you're going to interview Pete Townshend, y'know? So I didn't have a whole lot of prep. I then had the producer yelling in my ear. We were backstage, but it was still pretty loud. She was trying to prep me by yelling, "She just did this, and her song is that." "Borderline" was the tune. So I just had to wing it. Again, when you were interviewing a new artist, it was a little easier to say, "Well, tell me about yourself." The world doesn't know you quite yet. I was very green at the time still. Interviewing people was definitely a chore for me, because I didn't have quite the chops. I wasn't a journalist. I was a music lover, so I tried my best. But we got along great. She was very accommodating and accessible, but cool. You could tell that she had a "force" going, and she was not going to suffer fools easily. And she had a real focus. She didn't have a lot of idle chit-chat in between takes. I remember standing there waiting to get the camera rolling, and that was always the worst part, when the camera guys had to load in a tape. You're totally ready, and the artist is sitting right there, anxious to go on. And you're like, "OK guys...got the tape yet?" You're trying not to make small talk, and you're trying not to ask any of the questions you're going to ask. But she was sweet. She was certainly not as "coiffed" as she became later. An artist starts off with the clothes that they can grab, and the hairstyle is not quite what it will turn out to be. I remember she could probably use a little "eyebrow plucking."

  BOB PITTMAN: Madonna — the same thing as Michael Jackson — she has to go down in history as one of the first real video performers. She put on a show and always put on a show. Don Ohlmeyer used to be the head of programming at NBC, a legendary sports programming guy, retired now. Don was at RJR and Nabisco, and ran the agency that did all the buys for it. So we did the [1984] Video Music Awards show together. Don was in there directing the creative, because he himself was a director and a fantastic creative guy. And I can remember that Madonna was almost an unknown artist. We had put her on, and she jumped out of a wedding cake in rehearsal, and her top came off. And at that time, you go, "My God...her top came off!" And you realize, probably, she took her top off. But she had the sense of how you create an event. And did it again and again. I remember Don going, "Oh my God, who is this girl? Where did she come from?" And what we were looking at is the first of these people that really knew how to use the medium.

  BOOTSY COLLINS: Now this girl was just what the doctor ordered for MTV. She did for MTV what Elvis did for rock n' roll. It is something about her that is simply sex-rated, but at the same time, the kids got away with watching it, and they all love her rebellious ways. Who wouldn't? She knew how to get what she wanted, and she did.

  JELLO BIAFRA: One woman I was close to said she liked Madonna because she brought back pretty bras and vintage lingerie. I couldn't disagree with that one.

  ANN WILSON: She dominated. When she came along, she was a real actress. Maybe she didn't succeed in movies as an actress, but in rock videos, she was queen. And she knew how to talk to the camera. God, her fashion sense, she could dance — she did it all. She was like a "twelve-trick pony." She was amazing.

  TONI BASIL: Fabulous. But she was a dancer. And she's a drummer, which I think is very interesting. It contributed a lot to her dancing, her rhythm.

  JOHN OATES: I remember having an argument with Madonna a few years later. We did a conference somewhere. We were both on a panel, and the subject of music videos came up, and I said, "I was never interested in being an actor. I always wanted to be a musician." For me, videos were just a means to an end, to expose the music. And she really objected to it strongly and said, "Well, you're wrong. You just don't get it. The video itself is a medium. It's a new medium. It's a whole new thing." And I understood exactly what she was saying, because video really was part and parcel of what she was. It became just as important a component of her career, or her art, for that matter. But for us, who had been around for 15 years before she made her first record, we thought differently. She really embraced it and used it for its fuller potential.

  LITA FORD: She had some beautiful videos. Really well-thought-out. Every one was so different. You never knew what to expect from Madonna. The earlier videos, they're really different. I mean, all of a sudden, she changed. There was a huge change in her life, where she became thin and very muscular, and her whole body, everything changed about her. But her earlier videos...sometimes the simplicity of a video is better than spending tons and tons of money and making it really complicated. And sometimes, it doesn't always turn out that great. But if you can take the simplicity of, say for instance, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" video, where she just sits on a chair and sings the song, and that's it. It's magic. It's simple. It shows the beauty of the song and herself. I think Madonna could do the same thing. She didn't need all this stuff buzzing around her. But back then, I think she was doing the appropriate thing for the time, because maybe she was a little weight conscious or whatever. Which women do get. I know I do. If I put on two pounds, I'm like, "Oh my God, I've put on two pounds! Give me a sweatshirt and cover it up!" But the videos themselves were great. They're simple, basic, great videos.

  GEDDY LEE: Madonna is very smart. She really understood her opportunity. And I think she maximized those moments to become this chameleon, image-wise. She really got it. She really understood what MTV could do for her and came up with these ever-changing visual styles that had a tremendous impact. Probably the biggest factor in her success was the way she was able to manipulate her image successfully. Many people tried, but she was really good at it. She hired the right people, and she was right on top of it.

  PHIL COLLEN: With Madonna, she realized she could create "Madonna," and that's really what she did. She said, "OK...I can sit in this pool of mediocrity" — because there were a lot of artists out there that were doing her thing — "Or I can take this whole image thing and really go for it." And you saw her image change, and also, musically. It all changed at the same time. That was really cool on her part. I think she just changed the whole thing around. She was like, "I can create an image. I can create an iconic character." Which she really did. If you look at the early videos...like any artist, they're still trying to struggle to find who they are, their identity. But I think especially in Madonna's case, she actually saw it as an opportunity to totally change — to do a 180 — and go somewhere completely different. It was just a great, calculated move on her part. She saw what she could actually create and become.