10 Best Music Videos Of The 1980s

By AT Steel / May 1, 2020

It's remarkable to think that four decades ago, the music video was still in its infancy to an extent. Sure, Bohemian Rhapsody had played around with some revolutionary conceits, but it'd be more common to find a simple concert clip from Top of the Pops back in the seventies.

But at the turn of the era, along came MTV to help change everything and the music video became an essential tool in shaping the landscape of the charts. Artists lived and died in terms of success on the strength of their accompanying clips more often than not - and we've run our eye over to pick out ten of the best from the period.

There's no definitive answer to this question of course, and there's a veritable litany of artists - Duran Duran, Janet Jackson, George Michael, Tina Turner, The Police, Eurythmics, David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Queen, Talking Heads, Prince and Bon Jovi to name a dozen - who could have had multiple shouts on this list without even getting on there. (And that's before we add all the good one-off acts missing in action too, plus the indomitable "Weird Al" Yankovic!)

But we've gone for those with style, those with soul, those with spirit and panache - as well as a few that helped break new ground for the medium and elevated it to giddier heights than ever before.

10. Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

One of the more pleasingly playful clips of the era, the former half of Simon & Garfunkel saw his record Graceland driven in part by the strength of this absurdly catchy, worldbeat-tinged number, ostensibly about an apparent midlife crisis.

Its video is the true gem though, featuring Simon and Saturday Night Live alum Chevy Chase perched in a room surrounded by instruments as the latter lip-synchs the song, cutting across his more diminutive partner who is relegated to playing assorted musical backing throughout (Chase towered over Simon by more than a foot in height, leaving their finale dance as a comedy of differing proportions).