You're browsing the archives for the category 1988
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.) MTV runs a top-of-the-hour promo: this is the slot that was once occupied by the astronaut rocking out. Here it’s a gyroscopic M that rotated various bits of random footage into place. (It’ll come up many more times–I’ll describe it in more detail before we finish the countdown.) […]
posted 15 May 2009 in 1988. 4 comments
Last year, while sorting through some mildewed videotapes in my garage, I discovered three VHS tapes that contained the complete year-end countdown of MTV’s top 100 videos of 1988, unwatched by me since they were broadcast over the last ten hours of that year. Since then, I’ve been working my way through the tapes, and […]
posted 29 April 2009 in 1988. 4 comments
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.) We return from the commercial break with an interview clip of Terence Trent D’Arby, looking impossibly young. He appears to be sitting in the hallway of an awards show (the background includes both a folding chair and a guy in a tuxedo). “Nowadays you can make three albums,” […]
posted 23 April 2009 in 1988. 8 comments
If you’re new to the countdown: I’m plowing my way through actual videotapes of MTV’s year-end countdown broadcast on 12/31/1988. If you want to catch up from the beginning, you should probably start here. On a plate, there’s a piece of white bread in the shape of an M. It’s soon covered with a dollop […]
posted 11 February 2009 in 1988. no comments yet
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.) We open with a hand pressed against a television set: somebody’s jacking into the matrix, or maybe getting in touch with poltergeists. Unfortunately, the world we’re entering is a Kenny Loggins video shoot, and we’re immediately assaulted by an elite squadron of pulsing synthesizers. Kenny Loggins was one […]
posted 5 February 2009 in 1988. 5 comments
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.) I’m not a big fan of austerity in pop music: if I’m turning on a top-40 station, I want it to be shiny and glittery and loud. So I never cared much for Tracy Chapman back in 1988, when her debut album topped the charts (in the week […]
posted 29 January 2009 in 1988. 4 comments
Kevin Seal introduces Steve Winwood’s “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?”: the second single from the Roll With It album, or as Seal puts it, “the song that my downstairs neighbor plays continuously.” (I wonder what part of town Kevin Seal was able to afford the rent in. I suspect that the salary […]
Onward through the 1988 MTV countdown! (If you’re just joining us and want to get up to speed, click here.) The commercial break, as usual, starts with a spot for an MTV program: in this case, “The Year in Rock 88.” “Sixty minutes that took twelve months to make,” says Voiceover Guy. We see Kurt […]
posted 7 January 2009 in 1988. 3 comments
We begin with Jody Watley in backlit silhouette, running her hands through her hair, making sure it’s still there. She will go on to do more hair-fondling than anybody in this countdown (except maybe Cher). This video is a performance clip, featuring Watley shimmying around a black-and-white op-art set. To spend more of the record […]
posted 10 December 2008 in 1988. 4 comments
Okay, now that we’re one-quarter of the way through the countdown, let’s break down some of the numbers for those top 25 videos (not counting the bonus clips from Def Leppard and U2): United States: 14 England: 6 US/UK joint ventures: 2 Australia: 2 New Zealand: 1 White: 21 Black: 4 Male: 17 Female: 8 […]
