13 Comments
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Beth Lisogorsky's avatar

Opposites attract was a very “Roger Rabbit” moment for me and I loved it. The grace and agility of Abdul’s dancing coupled with an animated scat cat - doesn’t get any better. It instantly put a smile on my face.

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Matt Fish's avatar

It's incredibly charming. :) Thanks for reading!

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Tony Daniels's avatar

Great list with classic videos. One of my absolute favorites was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - You Got Lucky. At the time, I thought that whole mad max vibe was really cool.

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Matt Fish's avatar

Great pick Tony, that TP video is great too! Thanks for reading. :)

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Mark Nash's avatar

A great list! The song that immediately came to mind was Sledgehammer but Thriller was the obvious first choice (which only became apparent after I opened the article).

Growing up in Bermuda we didn’t have MTV so I didn’t see much in the way of music videos until I went off to university in the late 80s. I’ll have to start thinking about 90s videos as that’s right in my wheelhouse for music video consumption.

Godley and Creme’s “Cry” was also a great video in its time. We may look back at it now and scoff because we could almost create something better on our phones with the right app, but almost 40 years ago it was cutting edge: https://youtu.be/6a_PRcVYX7g?si=K3yQtY7IyA-suWad

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Matt Fish's avatar

Thanks for the comment, Mark. :) Absolutely with you on the "Cry" video—it broke new technical ground for the medium, which is a feat on its own. I'm tackling the 90s in the next instalment of this series, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the coming weeks.

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Mark Nash's avatar

Really looking forward to the 90s column!

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Amos's avatar

For several years of my childhood I thought the "Sledgehammer" song had something to do with the 80's slapstick cop show satire "Sledge Hammer!" In fact, in an era when these things were much more ephemeral, so you just caught a song randomly on the radio or a show randomly on TV (or more likely half a show or half a song), I think I believed it was actually the extended version of the show's theme song.

They do have vaugely similair chord progressions to my ears. (Keep in mind I was 9 or 10 years old.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fdCYTzzQIfI

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Matt Fish's avatar

I had never made that connection Amos but I can defs see where your 9-10-year-old self was coming from. Thanks for reading! :)

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Dan Pal's avatar

It's hard to argue with your Top 3!

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Matt Fish's avatar

Classics for a reason! Thanks Dan.

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Reka Blazsek's avatar

Woo, I love all of these! Sledgehammer was one of my favourite 80s music videos as a teen. 😊

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Matt Fish's avatar

One of the best songs of the decade too. Thanks for reading!

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