By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
July 28, 1991
Music today looks better than ever, thanks to videos that airbrush ordinary-looking folks to pinup perfection and catapult so-so singers to superstar status. If looks can thrill, then MTV delivers the goods. The network has made music fair game for artists who sometimes control their visually enticing pecs better than their voices.
As the premier music cable station celebrates its 10th birthday Thursday, MTV bears the inauspicious distinction of being the driving force behind some of rock’s most innovative videos, and of also helping create short-lived stars who are destined to become next year’s Trivial Pursuit questions. MTV didn’t invent bad rock ‘n’ roll, but the station made it acceptable to pass off pretty boys and girls as recording artists. The problem arises not so much with these fluffy stars, but when “serious” artists sell their musical souls to get on MTV.
For instance, after years of saying he never would alter his music to get a commercial hit, Chris Isaak sold out visually to achieve the same goal. It took him six years, but Isaak finally discovered what heavy metal bands knew from the start: Sex sells.
When his song “Wicked Game” started working its way to the Top 10, Isaak made another video to replace the surprisingly boring original one that weirdo film genius David Lynch had directed. This time, Isaak recruited fashion photographer Herb Ritts and went to Hawaii to create version No. 2. The song is about a tortured love relationship. The video is about lust. Ritts may not have known better, but Isaak should have. Just because it’s shot in black and white doesn’t make it art.
Lyrically, the members of Duran Duran are amateurs, compared to Isaak, but when it came to packaging their image on video, the English pop stars were light years ahead of the Bay Area balladeer. There is simply no band that was better made for television than Duran Duran.
A quintet where each member was better looking than the next, the group consummated its marriage with MTV by producing exotic videos that capitalized on the band’s collective good looks and its penchant for shooting in unusual locations. Say what you will about their synth-heavy sound, but when Duran Duran’s videos aired, they were a striking contrast to the comparatively rudimentary ones of their competitors.
Shot in Sri Lanka in 1981, “Hungry Like the Wolf” set the standard for the genre of mini-movie videos that would follow, most notably those by Michael Jackson. A musical “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” complete with vocalist Simon Le Bon wearing an Indiana Jones fedora, the video was the perfect complement to the song’s breathy vocal delivery.
Some of rock’s best videos required no thespian skills whatsoever. U2’s languid “With or Without You” projected ethereal, dreamlike images, while the Police’s mesmerizing “Every Breath You Take” used slow-dissolve editing and caressing superimpositions to counterpoint Sting’s paranoid lyrics.
On Aug. 1, 1981, the Buggles chirped “Video Killed the Radio Star” and became the first act to air on MTV. “We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far,” they sang. “Put the blame on the VCR.” After going over hundreds of videos from 1981 to today, here are some winners and losers of the video revolution:
GOOD VIDEOS, BAD SONGS
Paula Abdul, “Forever Your Girl”
A-ha, “Take on Me”
Haircut 100, “Favourite Shirts”
KajaGooGoo, “Too Shy”
Power Station, “Bang a Gong (Get It On)”
BAD VIDEOS, GOOD SONGS
Chris Isaak, “Wicked Game” (both versions)
Robert Palmer, “Addicted to Love”
Divinyls, “I Touch Myself”
Pretenders, “Brass in Pocket”
The Go-Go’s, “Vacation”
STUPID VIDEOS, STUPID SONGS
Pet Shop Boys, “West End Girls”
Olivia Newton-John, “Physical”
Warrant, “Cherry Pie”
The Romantics, “Talking in Your Sleep”
Falco, “Der Kommissar”
