Inside my skull, Kylie Minogue is Exhibit A for how the pleasures of pop music can be contextual. If I had spent the last twenty years living in London or Sydney, I would have heard Kylie’s countless singles on the radio, seen her tweak her image in dozens of videos, and read lots of glossy […]

posted 22 July 2008 in 1988. 5 comments

Back from the commercial break, we are joined again by Kevin Seal, wearing a black jacket over a black t-shirt. “This is the top funky one hundred of 1988,” he says, and then hypes the “Big Bang ’89” New Year’s Eve event later that night on MTV: “We’ll count down the minutes to midnight, in […]

posted 17 July 2008 in 1988. 2 comments

“Time to visit the Duke,” former Sex Pistol Steve Jones often says on his (excellent) Los Angeles radio show when heading into a commercial break. I had been listening for months before any guest asked him what “the Duke” meant; I had assumed it was a euphemism for the bathroom, but it turns out Jones […]

posted 15 July 2008 in 1988. 6 comments

Very little happens in this video. But then again, very little needs to. Somebody clearly made the calculation that having George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison in one room would provide enough entertainment value by itself, and they were right. Twenty years later, the appeal of the Traveling Wilburys and […]

posted 10 July 2008 in 1988. 7 comments

Top of the hour: MTV does a 30-second station ID. The network had retired the classic astronaut footage by 1988, but kept the theme song. This spot is a nifty piece of animation featuring the MTV logo in a gyroscope, with close-ups on doors and windows opening up all over the logo, revealing naked bicycle […]

posted 8 July 2008 in 1988. 4 comments

If you’re just joining us, here’s the deal: I unearthed some old videotapes that contain the entirety of MTV’s year-end countdown from 1988. I haven’t watched them since 12/31/88, but I’m slowly rolling through them now, writing about the videos (yes, MTV used to play videos) and the ads and VJ segments. Since we’ve made […]

posted 3 July 2008 in 1988, Self-reflexive. no comments yet

As previously noted, deciphering the plot of a movie from an associated music video is a subtle art. My best guess on It Couldn’t Happen Here: the Pet Shop Boys drive around England, picking up hitchhikers and ultimately becoming professional tour guides, leading paying customers around the United Kingdom by train and by plane. I’ve […]

posted 1 July 2008 in 1988. 6 comments

I’m on the road today, so you’ll have to wait until next Tuesday to find out what the #91 video is. But I’ll take the opportunity to tell you about one song that isn’t on this countdown at all: Debbie Gibson’s “Foolish Beat.” The ballad hit #1 on the Billboard singles chart in June 1988, […]

posted 26 June 2008 in 1988. 4 comments

The break starts with another excellent animated MTV promo. (Whoever was in charge of these must have been having a blast.) This one stars marionettes in a drawing room that appears to be inspired by Marie Antoinette. The sexiest marionette, with a drink in hand and red pants so tight they look like they were […]

posted 24 June 2008 in 1988. 4 comments

There are two essential out-of-print music books that I own only in treasured Xerox copies. One is Jon Savage’s The Kinks: The Official Biography. The other is Chris Heath’s Pet Shop Boys, Annually. I had never thought until today about the similarities between Ray Davies and Neil Tennant–British songwriters with a particular gift for lonely […]

posted 19 June 2008 in 1988. 5 comments