WGN Morning News Blog

The first music videos were the ones created by life, riding in my parents car, listening to the AM radio to maybe something like Gerry Raferty's Baker Street or "The Things We Do for Love" by 10cc. I'd watch the people walk to the beat of the music, sometimes even correlating with the lyrics. I never thought much about it. But it certainly made the music more powerful, and made me look at life a little differently. It made ordinary people seem like they had a sexier step in their walk, or make watering the lawn seem edgy.

So when the moody 70's music about love and war passed, and the glittering disco lights dimmed, music videos were just what we needed to sell 80's pop. MTV is celebrating its 25th anniversary and I am one of those people who had a friend with cable in 1981, and would sit mesmerized to images of white horses, fog, and shattering glass. None of it made sense, but the experimentation was wild and fun. When all you had to reference was a one-camera shoot of four Beatles standing shoulder to shoulder, bobbing, smiling, and singin' "yeah yeah yeah," the doors were open to anything.

OK, so this is where I officially transform into the cranky old man who lives across the street. The few videos out there today are nothing more than scantily clad women dancing and gold-grill pimps with fancy chrome wheels. Yawn. While MTV likes to view itself as cool, rebellious, and artful, it has become more about commerce.

I want "my" MTV!! (of 1981.)

Lately much respect is being paid to all that is retro. We're experiencing a resurgence of the '80s sound from bands like The Killers and The Bravery.

"Eugene," a character in "The Spazmatics," an '80s cover band of nerds, says Gen-Xers at their concerts know all the lyrics and that new, young fans are loving the '80s too.

"Music is a very cyclical thing. It goes in 20-year patterns. Now that we're in the 2000s, music from the '80s is becoming popular again," Eugene said.

He thinks what MTV lacks today is the variety you used to get by watching just that one channel.

"In the '80s, you would see anything from a rock video to a Missing Person's video. Nowadays they have specific shows for specific music." And the old-school videos are relegated to the "classic" MTV channels.

But you can tap in to these cool, old MTV videos -- on demand -- at a Web site I found called www.1500videos.com.

You'll see '80s staples like:

>> The cheap white backdrops of "My Sharona" or "Mickey."

>>Androgynous performers like Boy George and Annie Lennox.

>>Special effects that would make any Cable Access director proud.

And then, there's the randomness.

The Blow Monkeys' "It Doesn't Have to Be This Way" features a game show host, a football player, the paparazzi and a refrigerator--all for no apparent reason.

Scritti Politti, Sly Fox and other one-hit wonders are all there on the site. Their careers built, perhaps, more on chiseled looks, fast edits and odd camera angles, than on musical talent. In that way, '80s-era MTV videos have influenced everything from commercials to newscasts to movies and even the artists themselves. You can thank MTV for the fact that with few exceptions, you have to look sexy on video to become a successful musical artist. You don't see all that many Tom Pettys these days -- artists with compelling song-writing skills and faces made for radio.

But with all of the good-looking, highly polished pretty people, MTV is missing the serendipity of low-budget images that seem like a bizarre dream. I can't explain why ABC's "Look of Love" features an Austrian hornblower, a flying nun and a sad clown -- all I know is I couldn't stop watching.