Monday, April 29, 2013

#7 - Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Artist: Tears For Fears
Album: Songs From The Big Chair
Video: From DailyMotion.

This is the third and final Tears For Fears video on the countdown, topping off the best year of their career.  Three videos placing in the top third of the countdown, not too shabby.

A fitting anthem for the Cold War era, "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" warns of the consequences of a mad quest for power.  It has Big Brother-ish overtones, very appropriate for the time.

Amazingly, "EWTRTW" nearly didn’t make it on the album.  It was the final song added and was recorded in only three days.  It turned out to be the band's first number one song on the Billboard Hot 100, holding that position for two weeks.  Oddly, the band never had a #1 hit in their home country, the U.K.
 
In the video, Curt Smith drives an antique sports car around the Southern California desert.  Many interesting things are featured in the video, including life-sized dinosaurs, hawks, airplanes, dune buggies, a little boy in a cowboy outfit, and two dapper gentlemen dancing next to old style gas pumps.

One of the cities featured is Cabazon, which features a great grocery store called Hadley Fruit Orchards.  Every time I drive through that area, I like to stop in and buy some dried fruits and nuts.  Check it out.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

#8 - If You Love Somebody Set Them Free

Artist: Sting
Album: The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Video: From YouTube.

Back to back videos in the top ten are pretty impressive.  So many artists appear in consecutive videos on this countdown (Phil Collins at 14/15, Bryan Adams at 38/39, Chicago at 75/76), it makes me wonder if MTV was just being lazy in making the rankings.  Calibration, indeed.

Sting certainly had a busy 1985.  In addition to launching his solo career with a Grammy nominated album, he starred in two films, performed at Live Aid, and sung the famous "I Want My MTV" line on Dire Straits' "Money For Nothing".  He also had another kid that year.

"If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" has a jazzy and improvisational feel.  His first American solo hit, it peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The song's message is diametrically opposite to the haunting Police classic, "Every Breath You Take".  It seems that Sting learned to be less possessive over the years.

As great as "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" album was, the 1987 follow-up "...Nothing Like The Sun" was a worthy successor.  I saw Sting in concert during that tour, and I wore the T-shirt for years and years.  Not consecutively, though.

The video is colorful, there is some kind of camera trickery going on.  The band members are shot in such a way that they appear almost animated, moving in a herky jerky way.  Then at random times they become translucent.  It looks like the video takes place in a penthouse apartment.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

#9 - Fortress Around Your Heart

Artist: Sting
Album: The Dream of the Blue Turtles
Video: From YouTube.

Another debut on the countdown, this time from Sting.  Fascinatingly, the top ten features six artists who make their first appearance in the countdown in the top ten.  We're dealing with the real heavy hitters now.

Sting left an extremely successful band, the Police, in order to launch an equally fruitful solo career in 1985.  "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" is his first solo album, and it is superbly strong - every single track is solid.

"Fortress Around Your Heart" is a deep and thought provoking song, which would also fit nicely in a book of classic poetry.  Great lyrics, using the imagery of war to illustrate the parallels between love and battle.  The song peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The video is shot on a stark, bare set which looks rather like a fortress, featuring a raised stage with a staircase.  Sting in a black sleeveless shirt is practically the only human to be seen, save for cameramen.  It's pretty much just really tight shots of him playing guitar and staring into the camera.  He makes it look pretty bad ass.

The tight facial shots prompted my wife to comment on Sting's beauty and bone structure.  I don't know about that, but it is hard to believe that this man started out as Gordon Sumner, English teacher.  He was a young teacher, the subject of schoolgirl fantasy.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

#10 - Can't Fight This Feeling

Artist: REO Speedwagon
Album: Wheels Are Turnin'
Video: From DailyMotion.

Welcome to the blog, REO Speedwagon.  What an outstanding way to kick off the top ten.

This band's roots can be traced back to 1967, and they still perform today.  It's very hard to believe that these guys have been around for nearly half a century.  One of my personal favorite 80's bands. 

"Can't Fight This Feeling" is simply a totally awesome song, and of course it was a #1 hit single.  It is about a friendship that is blossoming into romance.  In the video it is referred to as "I Can’t Fight This Feeling", but I don’t remember the "I" ever being included in the song title.  I’m nearly positive my cassette tape of "Wheels Are Turnin’" didn’t feature the “I”.

Universally, it is one of the most beloved of all the '80s power ballads.  In 1985 it set a world record for most appearances on tenth-graders mix tapes.  Also, if you fail to hold a lit lighter aloft while this song is playing, it is considered a misdemeanor offense in some states.

The song has been featured in many movie soundtracks and TV shows over the years, including this memorable rendition.

I found the video a bit odd and difficult to understand.  It seems to be a progression of scenes over the course of a lifetime, beginning with a baby and ending with an old man.  In between we see stuffed animals flying in the air, people with snowy television screens where their faces are supposed to be, and assorted general strangeness.

No matter though.  Mad respect to the Speedwagon for recording this treasure.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Secrets and Mysteries of The MTV Top 100 Music Video Countdown of 1985

Before we dive into the top ten, I think this is a good time to peek behind the curtain, if you will.  Let us examine this glorious cultural artifact that was presented to the world on December 31, 1985.  Of course, we are talking about The MTV Top 100 Video Countdown of 1985.  The greatest videos of 1985, ranked in order from 1 to 100.  A brilliant and inspired idea.

I have somewhat of an affinity, or some might say an obsession, with this list.  Just in case profiling 90+ videos didn't make that clear enough.

My main point of curiosity is the ranking itself.  With 100 spots available, very often there will be an awesome song that seems to be ranked much too low.  It also works the other way, with an unspectacular song attaining a high chart position.

But this ranking, this "countdown" if you will....how was the placement of each video determined?  Oh, can't anyone explain how?

If there's anyone I would trust to provide the real story, it would be original MTV VJ Martha Quinn.  Who is a better authority than someone who was actually there, one of the hosts of the countdown on that New Year's Eve day in 1985?

I have studied the original videotape from that day.  (As you can see above, I purchased my prize from rockadelicdave).  Martha contributes witty banter in between videos, relating all kinds of fun facts about the artists.  But in the midst of the light-hearted anecdotes, we can discern a serious clue.  After detailing all the awards won by Don Henley's "The Boys Of Summer" video (criminally low at #65, by the way), she faces the camera and states the following:

"The Top 100 Countdown of '85 was calibrated by how long the video stayed on our weekly countdown show and by the highest position it reached in its duration on the countdown."

Whoa!!  Say what now?!?!  Carve that into a stone tablet!!

There is method to the madness!  "Calibration" is involved!  And not only that, her revelation includes three very important components:

1) "our weekly countdown show".  Each week, MTV aired the Top 20 Video Countdown, which broadcast the most popular videos of the week in descending order from 20 to 1.  This was broadcast every Friday night, as I recall.  Possibly, the weekly countdown rankings were also somehow calibrated.

2)  "how long the video stayed".  A video debuts on the countdown, and if it is popular, it returns the following week, possibly with a higher ranking.  Over time, it declines in popularity, tumbling back down the countdown and exiting from whence it came.

3) "the highest position it reached".  Pretty self-explanatory.  Somewhere between 1 and 20.

So perhaps this "calibration" involves steps 2 and 3 above.  Or the rankings are decided through a series of shady backroom deals.  But I'm choosing not to believe that.  Martha has spoken.

Then the implication is that a formula, an algorithm if you will, has been applied to each video's chart performance, factoring in peak ranking and duration.  Whereas we have Song A, which appeared on the countdown for a short amount of time and peaked at a low position (say #14), and Song B, which appeared on the countdown for a long period of time and peaked at a higher position (#8, let's say).  Maybe Song B achieved a higher ranking on the Top 100 countdown by virtue of its greater peak position and staying power.  Right?

Fair enough, but then the question becomes how to differentiate those videos that have a similar peak and duration?  How would that be calibrated?

It shouldn't be difficult to reconstruct this formula and find out how the top 100 countdown was built.  All we need is the raw data, that is, each weekly top 20 countdown list from 1985.  That would give us all kinds if valuable information.

Look, we know there were more than 100 videos made in 1985.  I have already detailed two huge hits (link) which missed the countdown completely.   Shouldn't we also know which videos ranked 101-120, for example?  Don't those videos also deserve to be profiled in a blog that focuses exclusively on music videos from 1985?  Of course they do.
Now, about that raw data.  I have scoured the interwebs, and the greatest intelligence I’ve found on the subject was in a chat room thread on a music community website called UKMix.  A few inspired folks have provided several Top 20 weekly video countdown charts from 1985. 

These honorable scholars had to derive the MTV charts from old Rolling Stone magazines, where the countdown results were published on a semi-weekly basis.  But alas, the publications did not begin until sometime in mid-1985, so no countdowns exist prior to May 1985.  Other than these postings, there is apparently not a shred of evidence regarding the weekly countdowns of 1985.

There's got to be some intern that worked at MTV in the mid-80's who can provide the missing documents, or even just bread crumbs that might lead to the missing documents.  How else might we learn the secrets and mysteries of the MTV Top 100 Music Video Countdown of 1985?

Look, if Martha said there was calibration, I believe her.  But I sure would like to do the math myself to verify.

The UKMix chat room posters have given me hope that the answers are out there.

One day, perhaps the secrets and mysteries of the MTV Top 100 Music Video Countdown of 1985 will be no more.