10 Cheesiest Music Videos Of The 80s
6. Word Up - Cameo
It took a while for MTV to warm up to the concept of having funk and R&B on their stations. Although they claimed to have catered to some of the more trendy rock and roll at the time, the sheer absence of any black artists and the stiff-arming by Warner Brothers that went into making Prince an MTV starlet was confusing, strange, and more than a bit racist looking back on it. As much as people may not have been interested, Word Up by Cameo had a video that you don't forget once you see it.
Complete with a blink or you'll miss it cameo (HA!) from Levar Burton himself, the entire song is already a bit of an anomaly as it is, with a singer who sounds like he's reaching deep in his nasal cavity to deliver his bars. But let's face it...whenever this man is on screen, your eyes go straight to whatever he has to protect his more delicate area.
Being an early adopter of the cod piece as fashion, the sheer weirdness factor of having it on is like someone trying to make a protective cup the new high end fashion of the day. Then again, sometimes when you're making a video, it's not about what's artistic...it's about what's memorable, and this little piece of clothing will be burned into your memory from the moment you see it.