10 Best Hard Rock Music Videos Of The 80s
2. Beat It - Michael Jackson (1983)
This was another display of one genre being expertly mixed with another to create one of the most defining sounds of the decade. Teaming the King of Pop up with one of the most accomplished guitar players in rock, created a sound that only deserved a visual counter part of equally high calibre.
The only logical conclusion was to set Eddie Van Halen's infamous guitar solo to a couple of street gangs, settling their differences through the medium of dance...
On the surface the video has a pretty straightforward narrative. We're shown groups of men assembling for some kind of epic showdown. All the while, Michael Jackson seemingly can't take all the potential infighting. His way to deal with this, is to exercise his frustration by busting out his signature dance moves in various abandoned gang haunts. He then turns up and encourages both gangs to forget their differences and boogie their troubles away. It's a simple message really, if only we could solve all the worlds issues with '80s synchronised dance routines.
This seems like the only fair way to settle the next US election. If Donald Trump and Joe Biden settled things with a dance off, perhaps it would have healed the current rift in America.