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Best 80s Music Videos Playlist - Top 500 Songs of the 1980s Find our playlist with these keywords: If you liked this playlist, we recommend you also listen t...
- Tom Eames
- UB40 - 'Red Red Wine' UB40 - Red Red Wine (Official Video) You might not have realised it, but Neil Diamond first recorded this song back in 1967. UB40 feud: Reggae band's complicated history and why the Campbell brothers fell out.
- Phil Collins - 'Another Day in Paradise' Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise (Official Music Video) This ballad saw Phil Collins sing the tune from a third-person perspective, looking at a man crossing the street to ignore a homeless woman, imploring listeners not to turn a blind eye to those in need.
- Culture Club - 'Karma Chameleon' Culture Club - Karma Chameleon (Official Music Video) This was the song that made Boy George an even bigger star around the world.
- Rick Astley - 'Never Gonna Give You Up' Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video) If there's one song from the Stock, Aitken and Waterman era that has stood the test of time, it's Rick Astley's international number one smash.
- Tom Eames
- 4 min
- The Police - Every Breath You Take. The Story of... 'Every Breath You Take' by The Police. Dark and moody, this black-and-moody video perfectly summed up this song's tale of dangerous 'love', complete with Sting looking rather menacing indeed.
- Genesis - Land of Confusion. Genesis - Land Of Confusion (Official Music Video) Genesis as Spitting Image puppets? What more do you want? Plus, it acts as a mini-history lesson of what was going on at the height of the Cold War in the Thatcher/Reagan era.
- Ray Parker Jr - Ghostbusters. Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters. This was the era where movie theme songs were taken seriously. Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman also helmed the song's music video, getting the main cast members including Bill Murray to dance with Ray Parker Jr at the end.
- Tina Turner - What's Love Got To Do With It. So simple, but so effective. This video saw a passionate Tina Turner walking down the street in a leather miniskirt, shot in New York City during the spring of 1984.
- Biz Markie, ‘Just a Friend’ Lighters up for the late, great Biz Markie, one of the most beloved music heroes of the Eighties or any other decade. The Diabolical One.
- Nena, ’99 Luftballons’ A German girl sings about nuclear apocalypse in a perky New Wave bop about the end of the world. Yet it’s also a doomy teen romance, at a time when half the hits on the radio were about the end of the world.
- My Bloody Valentine, ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’ The dawn of the shoegaze era. My Bloody Valentine give an early taste of their power on their debut album, Isn’t Anything: Irish guitar madman Kevin Shields’ tremolo overdrive and feedback-loop noise, Belinda Butcher’s breathy vocals, awesome power-klutz drumming.
- Bobby Brown, ‘My Prerogative’ The sound of New Jack Swing. Bobby Brown dishes the dirt on celebrity gossip, as the young Harlem prodigy Teddy Riley soups up a beat that would rule the radio for the next few years.
- Thriller — Michael Jackson
- I Wanna Dance with Somebody (who Loves Me) — Whitney Houston
- Physical — Olivia Newton-John
- Take on Me — A-Ha
- Land of Confusion — Genesis
- Beat It — Michael Jackson
- Faith — George Michael
- I Want to Break Free — Queen
- Smooth Operator — Sade
- Purple Rain — Prince
It’s impossible to make a list of the best music videos of the 1980s without mentioning Thriller. Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit changed the course of music videos throughout the next decades, introducing the idea of them doubling as short films. The video sparked a dance craze and spun Jackson’s career in a whole new direction. The singer poured his o...
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) remains one of the biggest songs of Whitney Houston’s career. But the song itself is set off to perfection by the stunning music video, released in 1987. The video used special effects to depict two versions of Houston, one in color and one in black and white, to depict two versions of her life. It gained ...
Only the most naive could overlook the obvious sexual innuendos in Physical. It is said that the 1981 music video was initially intended to be more overt; however, Newton-John reportedly got cold feet before shooting began. To tone down the suggestiveness, the scene was moved to a gym. With the neon leotard fitness craze of the 1980s in full swing,...
It’s hard to imagine a more classically 80s music video than a-ha’s 1985 Take On Me. The special effects are iconic, combining hand-drawn animation with real-life footage through rotoscoping. This was groundbreaking for the time, leading to the rise in animation in music videos that remained popular well into the 1990s. The music video was wildly s...
Genesis’ 1986 music video for Land of Confusionis a mish-mash of all the most 80s tropes you can find in one performance. The video features a grand assortment of political commentary, animation, melodramatic acting, and puppets that reportedly terrified children. Nowadays, watching the five-minute video feels nothing short of bizarre, but it was w...
In yet another example of Jackson paying his own way, the 1982 music video for Beat It was completely self-financed. CBS reportedly wouldn’t give him the cash, so Jackson laid down more than $150,000 for the shoot. It was clearly worth it, as the intricately-choreographed short film became wildly popular on MTV. Beat It, along with Thriller, helped...
The end of the decade saw George Michael rising to fame. His 1987 song “Faith” rose to the top of the charts. It was helped in no small part by the music video, which depicted the singer in a black leather jacket and blue jeans, playing the guitar with an unshaven face. The video helped cement George Michael’s public image as a sex symbol, which wo...
Queen’s 1984 videoI Want To Break Free featured the band members, including Freddie Mercury, dressed in drag as they performed. British fans recognized it as a parody of the soap operaCoronation Street. But it was widely speculated to be a statement about coming out of the closet from Mercury. We’ll never know what the real intention was, as Mercur...
Sade’s wildly popular 1984 hit Smooth Operator was only improved by its ultra polished music video. The video surprisingly doesn’t seem very dated; instead of gaudy 80s-era fashion or music tropes, its storyline is just as captivating today. It depicts the titular smooth operator, a swindler making his way through an upscale nightclub. Accompanied ...
It is hard to choose which of Prince’s music videos ranks highest. The singer’s career peaked during the 1980s, during which time he proved that he was a master not just of music, but also of musical performance. Purple Rain became one of Prince’s best-known songs and remains one of his best music videos, alongside When Doves Cry,Kiss, and Raspberr...
- 4 min
Apr 29, 2022 · Discover the iconic bands, pop stars, and chart-topping hits that helped define an era; these are the best 80s songs, reviewed and ranked for 2024.
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Here, we’re celebrating the 200 hits from the 1980s that we’re still listening to most—and “Africa” comes out on top, a song as beloved by those who made it a worldwide smash back then as by the younger generations discovering it for the first time now.
