Music Throughout the Ages

In the eighties, pop music dominated the airwaves and dancing was made even more popular by such movies as “Fame”, “Flashdance”, “Footloose”, “Breakin” and “Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo”. People not only had the choice of listening to their favorite artists, but could watch them on TV. This was made possible by music videos. The cable network that launched this world phenomenon is MTV.

“I Want My MTV”

MTV (Music Television) is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on August 1, 1981, the original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs or “Video Jockeys” a play on the phrase Disc Jockey. Appropriately, the first music video shown on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. The second video shown was Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run”.

A large number of rock bands and performers of the 1980s were made popular by MTV. Such acts ranged from new wave to hard rock or heavy metal bands as Adam Ant, Eurythmics, Culture Club, The Fixx, Split Enz, Prince, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, RATT, Def Leppard, The Police, and The Cars. The network also rotated the videos of “Weird Al” Yankovic, who made a career out of parodying other artists’ videos.

MTV also played some classic rock acts from the 1980s and earlier decades including David Bowie, Journey, John Mellencamp, Billy Joel, Genesis, Hall & Oates, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and ZZ Top and forgotten acts such as Michael Stanley Band, Shoes, Blotto and Taxxi. The hard rock band Kiss publicly appeared without their trademark makeup for the first time on MTV in 1983.

MTV Goes ‘Pop‘

Before 1983, Michael Jackson struggled to get MTV airtime because he was a black artist. To resolve this struggle, the president of CBS Records at the time, Walter Yetnikoff, denounced MTV in a strong, profane statement, threatening to take away MTV’s ability to play any of the record label’s music videos. His harsh stance worked, and MTV began showing “Billie Jean” in regular rotation, forming a lengthy partnership with Jackson and helping other black music artists.

When the 14-minute-long “Thriller” video aired in December 1983, MTV ran it up to twice an hour to meet demand. MTV, then a struggling cable channel, became very popular. Jackson’s videos were credited for this success and MTV’s focus switched from rock to pop and R&B. This move helped other black artists such as Prince and Whitney Houston break into heavy rotation.

Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 7, 1958. A few years after his birth, his parents divorced and he lived briefly with his father. His father who was pianist and songwriter bought Prince his first guitar. He later moved in with a neighborhood family, the Andersons, befriending their son, Andre Anderson (later called André Cymone). Prince and Anderson joined Prince’s cousin Charles Smith in a band called Grand Central that they formed in junior high school. As time went by and Prince’s musical interests broadened, he found himself producing the arrangements for the band. Before long he became the band’s front man.

Prince released his first album, For You, on April 7, 1978. For You was the first major-label album released by Prince, his first of many for Warner Bros. This album, like most of his career, was not recorded with a band; Prince purportedly played all 27 instruments on the album though they were different types of string, percussion, and keyboard instruments.

In October 1979, Prince released his self-titled second album Prince, which reached #4 on the Billboard R&B charts, and contained two R&B hits: “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover.” These two R&B hits were performed on January 26, 1980, on the TV show American Bandstand with this first backing band featuring Andre Cymone (Anderson) on bass, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z on drums, and Dez Dickerson on guitar.

He released the album Controversy in 1981, with the single of the same name charting internationally for the first time. In 1982, Prince released the 1999 double-album which “broke” Prince into the mainstream in the US and internationally, selling over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became his first top ten hit internationally. With his video for “Little Red Corvette” he joined Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie as part of the first wave of African American artists on MTV. The song “Delirious” also went top ten on the Billboard Hot 100.

Prince began crediting his band as The Revolution, Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, and Brown Mark on bass and Wendy Melvoin, a childhood friend of Lisa’s. His 1984 album, Purple Rain (concurrent with the film of the same name) sold more than thirteen million copies in the US and spent twenty-four consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. The Academy Award-winning film grossed more than $80 million in the US alone, and has proved to be Prince’s biggest cinematic success to date.

Two songs from Purple Rain, “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy,” topped the US pop singles charts and were hits around the world, while the title track reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Prince simultaneously held the spots #1 film, #1 single, and #1 album in the US. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for “Purple Rain,” and the album ranks at 72 in the top 100 of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list; the album is also listed in The All-TIME 100 Albums of TIME Magazine.

In 1986, Prince released the album Parade. The album went to #3 on the Billboard 200 album chart and #2 on the R&B album charts. The first single, “Kiss,” would top the Billboard Hot 100. At the same time, “Manic Monday” by The Bangles, which Prince had written under the pseudonym “Christopher Tracey,” reached #2 on the Hot 100. Christopher Tracy was the name of Prince’s character in the movie “Under The Cherry Moon,” for which Parade served as a soundtrack. Sign o’ the Times, released in 1987 as a double album, reached the Top Ten of the Billboard 200 and achieved the greatest critical acclaim of his career, topping the annual and highly reputable Pazz & Jop critics poll, reaching the top 100 of Rolling Stone’s list and The All-TIME 100 Albums of TIME Magazine, which declared it was the best album of the 1980s.

In 1989, Prince provided and released the soundtrack for Batman, which returned him to #1 on the US album charts. The worldwide hit-single “Batdance” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Prince is a prolific artist, having released several hundred songs both under his own name and with other artists. He has won six Grammy Awards and an Academy Award, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. In 2004, he was named as the top male pop artist of the past 25 years by ARC Rock on the Net, and Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Prince #28 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Eighties Music Video Queens

Madonna, (born August 16, 1958) is an American pop singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She released her self-titled debut album in 1983, and then produced three consecutive number-one studio albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s. In 1982, Madonna signed a singles deal with Sire Records, a label belonging to Warner Bros. Records. Her first release was “Everybody” on April 24, 1982. Her debut album, Madonna was primarily produced by Reggie Lucas.

Madonna’s look and manner of dress, performances and music videos, became influential among young girls and women. Her follow up album, Like a Virgin, became her first number one album on the U.S. albums chart; its commercial performance was buoyed by the success of its title track, “Like a Virgin”, which reached number one in the U.S. with a six week stay at the top. The album sold 12 million copies worldwide, eight of which in the U.S.

In 1985, Madonna entered mainstream films, beginning with a brief appearance as a club singer in the film Vision Quest. Its soundtrack contained her second U.S. number-one single “Crazy for You”. Later that year, she appeared in Desperately Seeking Susan. The film introduced the song “Into the Groove”, which became her first number-one single in the UK. Madonna embarked on her first concert tour in the U.S. in 1985 titled The Virgin Tour, with the Beastie Boys.

Madonna released her third album, True Blue, in 1986, prompting Rolling Stone to say that “it sounds as if it comes from the heart”. The album included the ballad “Live to Tell”, which she wrote for the film At Close Range, starring her then-husband Sean Penn. True Blue produced four Top 5 singles on the Billboard charts: “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Open Your Heart” and “True Blue”. In the same year, Madonna starred in the film Shanghai Surprise and made her theatrical debut in a production of David Rabe’s Goose and Tom-Tom, both co-starring Sean Penn.

In 1987, Madonna starred in Who’s That Girl, and contributed four songs to its soundtrack; including the title track and the U.S. number-two single, “Causing a Commotion”. In the same year, she embarked on the Who’s That Girl Tour. It marked her first conflict with the Vatican, as Pope John Paul II urged Italian fans not to attend her concerts. Later that year, Madonna released a remix album of past hits, You Can Dance. In 1988, city officials in the town of Pacentro began to construct a 13-foot (4 m) statue of Madonna in a bustier. The statue commemorates the fact that her ancestors had lived in Pacentro. In 1988, Madonna starred as Karen in a play by David Mamet called Speed-the-Plow.

In early 1989, Madonna signed an endorsement deal with soft drink manufacturer Pepsi. She debuted her new song, “Like a Prayer”, in a Pepsi commercial and also made a music video for it. Madonna’s fourth album, Like a Prayer, released in 1989, was co-written and co-produced by Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray. Rolling Stone hailed it as “…as close to art as pop music gets”. Like a Prayer peaked at number one on the U.S. album chart and sold seven million copies worldwide, with four million copies sold in the U.S. alone. The album produced three Top 5-charting singles: the title track (her seventh number-one single in the U.S.), “Express Yourself” and “Cherish”

In 2008, she surpassed Elvis Presley as the artist with most top ten hits in the history of Billboard Hot 100. In 2007, Madonna was listed by VH1 as eighth in the Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cynthia Ann Stephanie “Cyndi” Lauper (born June 22, 1953) is an American Emmy- and Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, and actress in film, television, and theater. When Lauper was five, her parents divorced, and her mother moved with the three children to Ozone Park. It was during this time that Lauper began listening to artists like Judy Garland, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Beatles.

In 1978 she met saxophone player John Turi through her manager Ted Rosenblatt. Turi and Lauper became writing partners and formed a band called Blue Angel. They decided to put everything they had into making an album of original material. Many people wanted to sign Lauper only if she would sign on as a solo artist. Lauper held out, wanting the band to be included in any deal she made. Polydor Records eventually signed them as a band. In 1980, they released a self-titled album on Polydor Records. The album charted #37 in Austria with the single “I’m Gonna Be Strong”. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine included it as one of the 100 best new wave album covers.

Music critics that saw Lauper perform with Blue Angel thought that she had star potential since she had a wide singing range (4 octaves), perfect pitch, and a vocal style all her own. She was in her late twenties and had yet to achieve stardom. When asked about her age, Lauper would usually get defensive, saying, “What am I, a car?”

Then in 1981, while singing in a local New York bar, Lauper met David Wolff, who gave her a ride home that night. The two fell in love and eventually moved in together. They painted their living room pink and purchased a chihuahua. Wolff took over as her manager and got her signed with Portrait Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. Wolff had been working with a band called Arc Angel.

On October 14, 1983, She’s So Unusual was released, and became a worldwide hit, It’s popularity spread like wildfire. At the time, Lauper became popular with teenagers and critics, in part due to her hybrid punk image. Lauper knew she could write songs, but the record company had a lot of material they wanted her to record. She altered a lot of the songs that were thrown her way, often changing the lyrics to suit her. (This would end up helping her in the long run financially as she could claim credit as a co-writer and collect royalties). An example is “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, Lauper says the original lyrics of the song dealt more with a girl pleasing a man, therefore she changed the lyrics, wanting the song to be more of an anthem as she felt the original song seemed misogynistic.

The album’s second single was the ballad “Time After Time”. Lauper co-wrote “Time After Time” with Rob Hyman when her producer, Rick Chertoff, suggested to the band that the album could use one more song. The record label didn’t have much faith in Lauper as a songwriter, but they gave her the chance to prove herself. Notably, “Time After Time” was one of the biggest hits of 1984. It has been covered by more than 100 artists and is considered an American pop standard.

Lauper came up with the title for “Time After Time” while reading TV Guide. “Time After Time” was the name of a 1979 science fiction movie starring Malcolm McDowell as a man who invents a time machine. She has also stated that the apartment that she shared with David in New York had a very loud alarm clock, and that’s where the lyrics “the clock ticks and I think of you” originated.

“All Through the Night” was written by Jules Shear. It was later re-recorded in Swedish and released as the B-side to a single from the debut album of Marie Fredriksson (who’d achieve international success later as Roxette’s female lead vocalist), in 1984. In 2005, a cover by Tori Amos appeared on her set of live albums, The Original Bootlegs. Shear and Lauper had also collaborated on his hit single “Steady” which became a Billboard Top 40 hit that year.

The album also includes a cover of The Brains’ New Wave track “Money Changes Everything” (another Top 40 hit for her), and “When You Were Mine”, a cover of Prince’s song that was later released as a promotional single in 1985. Lauper spent 1984 touring and promoting She’s So Unusual. By the end of the year, she was the first female to have four consecutive Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 hits from one album. The LP itself stayed in the Top 40 charts for more than 65 weeks and sold 16 million copies worldwide.

The video for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” made Lauper an MTV staple. The video ran constantly on MTV, and featured wrestler Captain Lou Albano as Lauper’s father. It won the first ever award for Best Female Video at the 1984 Video Music Awards. The video featured many of Lauper’s family members and her dog, Sparkle. Lauper appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in May of 1984. The photo on the cover had been reversed to make room for the title. She also appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and Newsweek with the headline, “Women In Rock”. Lauper was voted by Ms. Magazine as one of its women of the year. In 1985, Lauper won a Grammy Award in the Best New Artist category.

Steven Spielberg had asked Lauper to be the musical director of his latest film The Goonies, an adventurous family film about lost treasure. Lauper had the power to choose whom she wanted on the soundtrack, so she tried to make the album very diverse. Lauper scored another hit with the single “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”, which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for the film The Goonies. The video was split up into two acts, making Lauper the very first artist to have a two-part video.

Lauper released her second album True Colors on September 15, 1986. It reached number four on the Billboard 200. For this album, she increased her involvement both in production and songwriting. It contained three high-charting singles, including the title track (which become her second platinum number-one hit), “Change of Heart” (#3) and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (#12). The album also featured an older song called “Maybe He’ll Know” which was on Lauper’s Blue Angel album.

A Night to Remember, Lauper’s third album, was released on May 23, 1989. Though critically well-received, it was not as big a commercial success as her previous albums. The album spawned only one big hit, “I Drove All Night”.

Cyndi Lauper became a household name in the mid-1980s with the release of the album, She’s So Unusual and became the first artist in history to have four top-five singles released from one album. Lauper has released 11 albums and over 40 singles, selling more than 75 million albums and singles worldwide. She continues to tour the world in support of human rights.

Pat Benatar (born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski on 10 January 1953) is an influential, four-time Grammy Award-winning American rock singer. Her single “Heartbreaker” was released in late 1979 and was an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the U.S. Her debut LP, In the Heat of the Night, was even more successful, reaching #12 and establishing Benatar as a new force in rock. The LP featured three covers: John Cougar Mellencamp’s “I Need a Lover,” Nick Gilder’s “Rated X” and the Alan Parsons Project’s “Don’t Let It Show,” as well as the single “We Live for Love”, a fusion of rock and New Wave that saw it reach the U.S. Top 30 and become a hit as far away as Australia.

In August 1980, Benatar released her second LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” along with the controversial song “Hell Is for Children,” which was inspired by reading a series of articles in the New York Times about child abuse in America. “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sold more than four million copies in the United States alone. The album reached U.S. #2 in January 1981 (behind Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s Double Fantasy) and a month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for “Best Female Rock Vocal Performance” of 1980. Other singles released from Crimes of Passion were “Treat Me Right” (US #18) and “You Better Run”, which gained some later notoriety when it was the second music video played on MTV, after the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”. The album remained on the US album charts for 93 weeks.

Benatar’s first (and as yet only) U.S. chart-topper was the LP Precious Time, released in August 1981. It was also her first to chart in the UK, reaching #30. The album’s lead single, “Fire and Ice”, was another big hit (U.S. #17, AUS #30) and would win Benatar her second Grammy Award, this time for “Best Female Rock Vocal Performance” of 1981. A hit single, “Shadows of the Night”, (US #13, AUS #19) heralded a new LP, Get Nervous, released in late 1982. The album was another smash, reaching US #4, and the single would garner Benatar yet another Grammy, again for “Best Female Rock Vocal Performance” of 1982. The follow-up single, “Little Too Late”, was also successful, hitting US #20.

By 1983, Benatar had established a reputation for singing about “tough” subject matters, with a significant amount of songs featuring a “battle” metaphor. This was best exemplified by one of the biggest hits of her career, “Love Is a Battlefield” (penned by noted hit songwriter Holly Knight), released in December 1983. By then her sound had mellowed from hard rock to more atmospheric pop and the story-based video clip for “Love Is a Battlefield” was aimed squarely at MTV, even featuring Benatar in a Michael Jackson-inspired group dance number. This new pop direction was a huge commercial success, with the single peaking at #5 in the United States, her first hit single in the UK at #49, and #1 in Australia for seven weeks. The song would also net Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for “Best Female Rock Vocal Performance” of 1983. A live album, Live from Earth, from which “Love Is a Battlefield” was one of two studio-recorded tracks, hit U.S. #13.

In late 1984, the single “We Belong” became another Top 5 smash in America (also hitting UK #22 and AUS #7). Benatar would hit the U.S. Top 10 with the #10 single “Invincible” in 1985. A single lifted from the album, “All Fired Up” (written by Kerryn Tolhurst, ex-The Dingoes) went Top 20 in the USA and UK and was a #2 smash in Australia, becoming one of the biggest hits of 1988 in that country.

Pat Benatar won an unprecedented four consecutive Grammy Awards for “Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female” from 1980 to 1983 for Crimes of Passion, “Fire And Ice,” “Shadows Of The Night,” and “Love Is A Battlefield,” and was nominated four more times: “Invincible” in 1985, “Sex As A Weapon” in 1986, “All Fired Up” in 1988 and in 1989 for “Let’s Stay Together.” Benatar also earned Grammy Award nominations in 1985 for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female with “We Belong” and in 1986 for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Duo or Group as a member of Artists United Against Apartheid for their single “Sun City.” Benatar is also the winner of three American Music Awards: Favorite Female Pop/Rock Vocalist of 1981 and 1983, and Favorite Female Pop/Rock Video Artist of 1985. She was twice named Rolling Stone magazine’s Favorite Female Vocalist, and Billboard magazine ranks her as the most successful female rock vocalist of all time based on overall record sales and the number of hit songs and their charted positions. Benatar was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Two of a Kind

Eurythmics is a British musical duo, formed in 1980 by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. Eurythmics’ commercial breakthrough came in 1983 with Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), whose hit single of the same name featured a dark, powerfully sequenced synth bass line and a striking video that introduced the orange crew cut Lennox sported to fame. The band’s fortunes changed immensely from this moment on. The album became a huge British hit due to the title track, which quickly topped the American charts as well. Lennox was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Stewart recently revealed that the famous synth bass line in the song was discovered by accident when he inadvertently played a track backwards. “Love Is A Stranger” was re-released and became a hit in its own right.

Touch, the rapid follow-up to Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), was released in late 1983 and spawned three major hits. Here Comes the Rain Again (number four in the U.S.) was an orchestral/synth ballad (with orchestrations by Michael Kamen) that led the album. The video went into heavy rotation on MTV. “Who’s That Girl?” was also a massive hit. The upbeat, calypso-flavored “Right By Your Side” showed a different side of Eurythmics altogether, and Touch solidified the duo’s reputation as being major talents and cutting edge musicians.

Their fourth studio album proper, Be Yourself Tonight, was produced in a week in Paris. It showcased much more of a “band” and a centred sound (with an R&B influence), with real drums, brass, and much more guitar from Stewart. Almost a dozen other musicians were enlisted, including members of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, guest harmonica from Stevie Wonder, bass guitar from Dean Garcia, string arrangements by Michael Kamen, and Lennox singing duets with Aretha Franklin and Elvis Costello. It continued the duo’s transatlantic chart domination in 1985, and contained four hit singles: “Would I Lie to You?” was a U.S. Billboard top five hit, while “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)” (featuring Wonder’s harmonica contribution) became their first and only UK number one single. “It’s Alright (Baby’s Coming Back)” and the Franklin duet (originally intended for Tina Turner) “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” also rode high in the charts.

Eurythmics released their Revenge album in 1986, which continued their move towards a band sound, verging on an AOR-pop/rock sound. “Missionary Man” reached number 14 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart and would be regarded as something of a Eurythmics classic. Revenge would eventually certify Gold in the U.S. Eurythmics went on a massive worldwide tour in support of this album, and a live concert video from the tour was released. The folk-tinged “Thorn in My Side” powered the UK success of Revenge, which remains Eurythmics’ best selling album to date.

Lennox and Stewart reunited in 1987 for the album, Savage. This saw a fairly radical change within the group’s sound, being based mainly around drum loops, with synth and guitar parts fairly low in the mix. “I Need a Man” remains a Eurythmics staple, as does the delicate “You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart”. “Shame” reads as an indictment of the side of pop culture that had made the duo famous.

n 1989, Eurythmics released the solid We Too Are One. Overall the album performed better in the U.S. than Savage had, indicating that America wasn’t ready to dismiss Eurythmics. Other singles from the set include “Revival”, “The King and Queen of America”, “Angel” (where Lennox eulogized the loss of a much-wanted child and the death of her own father) and “(My My) Baby’s Gonna Cry”, the latter of which featured Stewart in his first prominent vocal role with Lennox.

The pair have achieved significant global, commercial and critical success, selling 80 million records worldwide, winning numerous awards, and have undertaken several successful world tours. They are noted for their intelligent pop songs, which showcase Lennox’s powerful and expressive alto voice, and Stewart’s innovative production techniques. They are also acclaimed for their promotional videos and visual presentation.