Every now and then, I check the logs to see what search terms drive web surfers to visit FTABlog. My most recent check revealed that months after our last installment, some people still want to see more 80s music videos. Well alrighty then.

Today I present a special treat. Shock the Monkey is the enigmatic hit that helped Peter Gabriel break out in the US, and this is the Pop-Up Video version. For the youngsters out there, Pop-Up Video was a VH1 show in the 1990s. In every episode, PUV provided behind the scenes info and often sophomoric commentary about several music videos. If you want more examples, there are dozens more at producer Spin the Bottle’s Livestream site. Enjoy!

For the second straight installment of 80s videos, we turn to another band that made its reputation in the 70s. This time the band is Fleetwood Mac, whose Rumors album was mandatory for every suburban American household in 1977.

The band reunited in 1981 after a short break and recorded the album Mirage in a villa in France. One of the songs, Gypsy, had been written by lead singer Stevie Nicks a couple of years earlier. According to the lengthy Wikipedia entry on the song, it was a reminiscence of her salad days with an added tribute to her best friend, Robin Snyder Anderson.

None of that is apparent in the music video, which taps into the haunting harmonies to suggest a connection with a Depression-era waif, complete with soup kitchen footage. Russell Mulcahy directed what was then the highest-budget music video ever produced. When MTV aired it in 1982, it was the network’s first “World Premiere Video”.

The video includes the other members of the band, including dancing partner and ex-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. “If you watch the video, you’ll see I wasn’t happy,” Nicks said later. “And he wasn’t a very good dancer.”

The Doobie Brothers were one of the most famous rock bands of the 20th century, but almost all of their hits were in the 1970s. Yet here is one of their music videos, so that requires some explanation.

Tom Johnston formed the Doobies with Patrick Simmons and others in 1970. A year later, they added a second drummer and hit the charts with “Listen to the Music”. After a few years of broad success, Johnston developed health problems that led to emergency hospitalization for a bleeding ulcer in early 1975. Michael McDonald stepped in to complete a tour, then finish the next album, and then influence the direction of the band.

Under McDonald’s leadership, the Doobies produced the Grammy-winning, number one album Minute by Minute in 1978. But McDonald’s more soulful influence left other members complaining that they were just just his backup band, and by the end of 1981, there were no original Doobies left. The group disbanded.

In 1987, a benefit concert brought together many of the early-70s members of the band, including Johnston and Simmons. Demand for tickets was so strong that they turned the concert into a 12-city tour and turned the band into a new, permanent version that returned to that early-70s sound.

From the 1989 album Cycles, here is the Doobies’ last song to hit the Billboard Hot 100, and it only reached 45. But the video’s whip-around, fast-cutting clips of multiple concerts give us a great time capsule of a bunch of guys who once had it all and were happy getting it back together again.

Before you look at the video at the end of this post, answer me this: What do the following have in common?

• A wooden block of kitchen knives
• A troll doll on a tricycle
• A box cutter
• Four crayons
• Salt and pepper shakers
• A can opener
• A stapler
• A squeaky green frog toy
• A soda straw holder/dispenser, with straws
• A hand drill

Those are many of the items on the table of surgical utensils shown on the video of Like a Surgeon by Weird Al Yankovic. It’s a testament to its comic density that they all flash by in one second (at 1:15 below), much too fast for any viewer to find in one sitting.

When Mad Magazine was still a comic book, Will Elder pioneered the practice of adding little gags in every background of every panel. Like a Surgeon is the closest I’ve seen to bringing that “Chicken Fat” effect to live action. Weird Al’s other 80s videos were funny (mostly), but never like the first three minutes of this.

After running through a few of the best 80s videos, it’s time to remind ourselves that there’s a wide base of mediocrity supporting the top. Here’s a very remarkable, if not especially good, video that uses a song with some history.

In 1972, Elliot Lurie wrote and sang Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl), which became a huge #1 hit for his band Looking Glass. Trouble was, the ballad wasn’t a typical song for the group, which used a different lead singer for most of its work. Looking Glass is often called a one-hit wonder, but that isn’t quite accurate. A year later, Lurie wrote and sang Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne, another ballad with a similar tone, and it peaked at #33.

A decade later, the singer Josie Cotton picked up Jimmy Loves Maryann (with improved spelling) to follow her few minor hits. This cover was even more minor, peaking at #82 and completely escaping my notice in 1984. I only noticed it a few months ago after a note that the song had been covered. But what a video! It contained so many 80s video cliches:

• Motorcycle, with helmet-off reveal
• Jugglers
• Tumblers
• Snake-handlers
• Mimes
• Guy with a whip
• Gratuitous flame-breathers
• And a circle of candles

Most of which were whizzing by in the background, as if to distract us from the singer. And oh yes, absolutely none of which had anything to do with the song. That’s a pet peeve: If you have a good story already in your song, why not make a video of that story?

Anyway, for a concentration of pure 80s-excess fever dreaming, check this out: