Originally published at: Some terrible 80s music videos | Boing Boing
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I’m no Deadhead, but there’s zero reason to include “Touch of Grey” on this list. It’s mostly footage of the band performing, so it’s not like it’s some high-concept train wreck.
Now if you want a truly terrible video, one so poorly conceived and executed that it all but tanked the artist’s career, I give you…
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(Yes, I know this is NTNOCN. But some of their spoof songs were legit chart hits, so I say it qualifies.)
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I don’t know where that version of the Physical film clip came from. This is the one I remember from my youth:
Source: Was Olivia Newton-John obsessive from 1979 - 1984 and changed my name to Olivia for two-weeks in 1981.
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You are correct and I updated it.
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Oh c’mon surely this version doesn’t make it to the ‘worst of the 80s list’?! I’m not saying it’s good I’m just saying it is not the worst. 
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Came for this, left satisfied.
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“Some terrible”
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Alright I can’t argue with that.
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That’s more than a little unfair. Music videos had only been around for a little while, MTV had just launched, and there were no formulas to success that these bands could follow. Bands were trying anything to see what people liked, or didn’t like.
Innovation is guaranteed to produce a lot of ”sub-optimal” results. That doesn’t make them terrible, that just means they tried a new idea that didn’t have a large popular appeal.
I honestly like most of these better than every single hair metal band video ever. There’s a formulaic approach that worked for exactly one* song because Tawny Kitaen, not Ratt; but was adopted by an entire genre of bands.
* OK, maybe two if you count Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World.
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Nah, that Dead video was dope af. It was my first experience with the Dead and, if I’m being totally honest, is still the high point (sorry, Deadheads, I really tried).
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Any list that doesn’t include this monstrosity is invalid.
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Maybe it was just my age at the time, but I enjoyed Physical.
For reasons.
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@jlw Re: Starship
I surmise you would be a cruel, cruel Dungeon Master. /s
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I feel like all the bad CG in 90’s videos yielded some far more egregious videos.
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You mean like this?
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Or this:
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Be fair, for the time (1984 or 5) this was some groundbreaking computer animation. Like TRON it looks crap and corner-cutting in retrospect, but I feel secure guessing that it was one of the most expensive videos made at the time.
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I look back at the 80s and feel nostalgia for that feeling of burgeoning creativity and optimism. I mean we were Walking on Sunshine and Dancing in the Streets! Hall and Oates had 80s hair! Michael Jackson! Everything felt possible and next up was our Star Trek future of flying cars and shiny jumpsuits.
So, so, innocent. Then the 90s came and cynically flushed all that joy away. The 80s now serves as a one-off musical fantasyland where people of all ages go to hide from reality. Well, there and K-Pop. 
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