YouTube Gold: MTV’s Greatest Video
Videos got ridiculous but some, including this one, were classics.
The MTV era didn’t really last all that long, but for a decade or so, it completely changed the popular music scene. Bruce Springsteen, who once said there was no place for cameras on his stage, began to make videos, including one where Courtney Cox was called out of the audience to dance with him in a supposedly spontaneous moment.
Michael Jackson spent a ton of money on his videos and they absolutely paid off. Everyone did them - Bruce, Michael, Madonna, Prince, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney and George Harrison, in the latter’s case with the Traveling Wilbury’s, made them. ZZ Top gets a special mention for their eccentric contributions.
However, the most evocative music video ever made award goes to Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. The California crooner put out a black and white testimonial to unbridled passion that just blew everyone else out of the water. At their best, music videos were an art form. Wicked Game came out in 1989, relatively near the end of MTV’s glory days, and nothing else ever came close.