The 40 Finest Music Videos of 1981: Team Checklist

24. Earth, Wind & Fire, “Let’s Groove” (dir. Ron Hays)

This used to be a rather excessive-budget, technically formidable video for its time, reflecting EWF’s popularity as undoubtedly one of many premier R&B acts of the old decade. The video capabilities digital outcomes created by director Hays the use of an analog pc system. Bruno Mars wasn’t even born when “Let’s Groove” used to be a success, but the video clearly influenced his 2013 “Adore” video. “Let’s Groove,” an ultra-catchy, ultra-industrial, defiantly disco atomize (launched extra than two years after disco used to be pronounced wearisome) reached No. 3 on the Sizzling 100. Alas, it used to be the closing high 10 hit for this massive band. — P.G. 

23. The Stray Cats, “Rock This Metropolis” (dir. Julien Temple)

The Julien Temple-helmed movies for Stray Cats’ “Rock This Metropolis” and “Stray Cat Strut” in actuality generated a rockabilly revival out of thin air, with the Brian Setzer-led trio’s iconoclastic sound and image making them a phenomenon on all facets of the Atlantic in the early ’80s. “Strut” used to be the extra memorably cartoonish of the clips, but “Metropolis” used to be earlier and extra kinetic, a Saturday night’s value of enjoyment in 2: 40 of bowling, jukebox demolition and swing dancing — presaging the following time Setzer would purchase over MTV with an unlikely retro wave. — A.U.

22. Appealing Spires, “Are You Ready For the Sex Girls?” (dir. unknown)

Concept to be one of many earliest and purest examples of a tried-and-correct MTV staple: pairing a conceptually straightforward track video with a track that will per chance no longer have much less to quit with its visible. In this case, fresh wavers Appealing Spires (led by Sparks’ then-fresh rhythm half Leslie Bohem and David Kendrick) matched an inscrutable lyric, loosely about sexual frustration and fascination, with a video that featured the duo baking a lemon meringue pie. It mustn’t work, clearly, but the non-sequitur clip finds its absurdist brilliance slowly — helped by sporadic moments of synchronization, like dough being slapped in time to a synth hit — and by the end, you are fully salivating for that damn pie. — A.U.

21. Rick Springfield, “Jessie’s Lady” (self-directed)

Costing no longer as a lot as $1,500, the video helped catapult the photogenic (to position it mildly) Springfield to stardom in allotment on account of his angst-ridden efficiency (calling on his Regular Scientific institution performing chops). Shot partially at 3: 00 a.m. in the alley unhurried the Guitar Heart on Sunset before he and his band received chased off, the clip perfectly captures Springfield’s seething, barely restrained jealousy every time he sees Jessie with the lady he so desperately covets. Springfield’s skinny tie and boxy suit might per chance also simply appear dated, but unrequited ardour below no cases goes out of style. (Points too for the cameo at the end by Springfield’s dog, Ron, who also appears on the Working Class Dog album quilt) — MELINDA NEWMAN