Video Killed Us All

As you all probably know by now, I am a big fan of music. A huge fan of music. Just cannot do without it. Every drive is heavenly with my iPod on. I’ve got about 2000+ songs in my iPod, and the list is growing constantly. I guess my taste in music is quite varied, from Erasure, Roxette, James Blunt to Avril Lavigne, Depeche Mode, Avenged Sevenfold and Backstreet Boys?!?! Oh yeah, if it sounds good, I’m digging it. Doesn’t matter if you’re 17 or 70.

But what I really want to talk about today is Music TeleVision (MTV). I’ve witnessed many videos down the years, some good, some cringe-worthy and some disappointing in that they don’t match up to the song. Quite a waste, if you know what I mean. But I have managed to narrow down my all-time top 3 videos from all generations. And here it goes.

3) ‘Take On Me‘ by a-ha

One of my favourite songs of all time, period. Not to mention it had one of the best-looking and most charismatic singers of all-time, Morten Harket on lead vocals. But this song and the video, were way ahead of their time. Who can forget that legendary, opening synthesiser riff? This song has CLASSIC written all over it. It exploded onto the scene in 1985 and catapulted the Norwegian trio to super-stardom, seemingly out of nowhere. They were simply too good to be true. The super-unique video, using unheard-of animated cartoon sequences to plot a moving story of a young, wide-eyed girl drawn into a comic-fuelled a-ha fantasy world, will probably never be topped. 28 years after its release, I’m still diggin’ it. Enough said.

2) ‘Going Under‘ by Evanescence

No cartoonic shenanigans or romantic love story here, but what blinds me in this is the sheer sexiness and power-rock grooves exuded by Amy Lee, Ben Moody and gang. The sheer titanic riffs of the song and over-the-top chorus bring the world to a standstill while watching this. An extremely classy, power-packed, riveting video this is. Add to that the horror-shock value of weird and deformed alien-faces watching Evanescence perform in concert brings this over the tipping point (plus the nice alien ‘twist’ right at the end). This tremendous song is simply brought to life by the video. I love the part where Amy Lee surfaces back from under-water and looks like she is almost out of breath before being lifted back onto the stage. Also the part where Ben Moody gets air-transported around the screaming crowd while still playing his guitar. Lovely. I also need to mention the unbelievable, almost dominatrix-like sexiness of Amy Lee as she belts out the number on stage with her high-ponytailed hair. Pretty amazing.

1) ‘It’s My Life‘ by Bon Jovi

The mother of all videos. Perhaps never to be topped. The ultra-cool rockers from New Jersey shade it with their iconic, world-changing hit. This video is all about storyline. A young, fresh-faced boy has all of five minutes to race down from his home to join his haughty girlfriend at a rock cavern-set Bon Jovi concert. Cool? From watching it on his computer in his room, our energetic friend speeds down via rubbish trucks, out-runs a pack of chasing dogs, out-manoeuvres a posse of Elvis Presley look-alikes, escapes death about 5 times while flying all over the place (including a Mission Impossible-style high-speed bridge fall-cum-miraculous body-contorting roll past a speeding locomotive), blends in to a marathon whilst grabbing the free Evian along the way, and even manages to quite hilariously fall through the sun-roof of a rap mogul’s car while negotiating the long jam near the cave concert setting. All the while huffing and puffing with the pace of a Carl Lewis. I could actually feel tears from my eyes while watching the video, as I succumbed to the greatness of it all. And that, my friends, means it’s No. 1.