Music videos from the ’80s that were way ahead of their time (and a few that haven’t aged well)
MTV launched on August 1, 1981, with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” which is either the most self-aware opening statement in television history or a remarkable coincidence. What followed was a decade of formal experimentation in a medium with no rules. Some of what emerged was genuinely visionary. Some of it was genuinely not.
Michael Jackson — “Billie Jean” (1983): Ahead of its time
Rolling Stone describes “Billie Jean” as the video that shocked the world and demonstrated how far the art form could go. The light-up sidewalk, the haunted fragility before the dance, the choreography that made the impossible look easy; a template directors spent the next twenty years trying to replicate. MTV initially hesitated. Then rushed it to air. The correct decision, made belatedly.
Peter Gabriel — “Sledgehammer” (1986): Ahead of its time
Stop-motion, claymation, pixilation, steam trains running across a man’s face, two supermarket chickens dancing. The animation team went on to create Wallace and Gromit. Rolling Stone ranks it among the greatest videos ever made. Gabriel told the magazine he wasn’t sure the song would have been a hit without it. The video remains contemporary in a way most 1986 anything does not.
A-ha — “Take On Me” (1985): Ahead of its time
Pencil-sketch animation and live action combined in a way nobody had thought to combine before. It saved a single that had already failed twice. Nobody who has seen it has forgotten it, which is the only metric that matters.
Madonna — “Like a Prayer” (1989): Ahead of its time
Pepsi pulled a $5 million sponsorship. The Vatican condemned it. Rolling Stone placed it among the most important visual statements of the decade. It has not aged. It has become more resonant, not less.
Michael Jackson — “Thriller” (1983): Still the benchmark
Fourteen minutes. Rick Baker’s creature design. John Landis directing. The choreography reproduced on every continent. Rolling Stone notes that after Thriller, budgets and ambitions changed permanently. It didn’t just raise the bar. It built a different kind of bar.
ZZ Top — “Legs” (1984): Hasn’t aged well
A beautiful woman, a car, ZZ Top’s beards, and some light objectification. Rolling Stone’s retrospective notes the more hair in the band, the more women were objectified in the videos. It’s a period document now. A fair place for it.
The Cars — “You Might Think” (1984): Hasn’t aged well
It won Video of the Year at the first-ever MTV VMAs. Ric Ocasek pursues a woman through her daily life; her lipstick, her bathtub, taking the form of a fly. Rolling Stone acknowledges it comes off as creepy today, which undersells the case. What was coded as romantic persistence now reads unambiguously as something else.
Pat Benatar — “Love Is a Battlefield” (1983): Ahead of its time
Women in a line, facing down a predatory authority figure, dancing as defiance. Rolling Stone places it in the tradition of empowered 1980s female artists who refused the decorative role. It holds up completely.
Cyndi Lauper — “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” (1983): Ahead of its time
A video about women’s freedom made before that was standard subject matter, directed with a feminine anarchic energy not remotely produced by the male gaze. Rolling Stone documents Lauper’s visual identity as defining a specific 1980s aesthetic. The content has outlasted the aesthetic. The video is still arguing for something.
The bottom line
The videos that have aged best are the ones that make arguments rather than images. The ones that haven’t aged are the ones making images at the expense of someone else’s dignity. That’s not a 1980s lesson. It’s a general one.
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