NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY by John Parr (1984)

You know you’re in for a treat when a music video hurls the word “fondle” at you before the song even starts. Such is the case with John Parr’s 1984 hit “Naughty Naughty,” a mid-eighties power pop anthem with an accompanying video that rivals the most romantic works of Cocteau and Truffaut. Though the director of this sensual drama is unnamed, we can presume he or she was profoundly moved by the song’s lyrics (“Naughty, naughty/Loud and bawdy/T-t-t-t-tease me”) and compelled to create an erotic epic for the ages.

Lyrically, the song “Naughty, Naughty” is almost too subtle for the layperson to fully absorb at first listen. Poetic but cryptic phrases like “Kiss me hard, squeeze me tight, gonna love ya alright” often require more clarification, and that’s where the visuals come in. Echoing the themes of the song (primarily naughtiness coupled with bawdiness, heightened by a strong undercurrent of t-t-t-t-teasing), and using powerful imagery to push those themes one step further, the NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY clip is a true cinematic masterpiece of the 1980s.

The plot of this sublime mini-drama is as follows: Rocker John Parr (best known today as the man who assured us that he could feel St. Elmo’s Fire burning within him) stars as an impassioned yet indolent (and mullet-coiffed) car mechanic who longs to be driving the pristine Rolls Royce he is supposed to be repairing. Enter the antagonist, the Kojak-esque owner of the garage who reminds Parr that he is paying him “not to fondle the car, but to fix it” – a brusque but reasonable statement that sends our frustrated protagonist right over the edge.


John tosses Kojak the keys (relinquishing his power yet boldly defying his authority figure), quickly exits the garage, hops into his old Mustang and either collects his date or picks up a friend’s daughter from school, I’m not sure which, but in any case he is now accompanied by a gorgeous and very young woman played by Lisa Rinna, who would later turn up on Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place in the '90s, and various reality television programs in the 2000s.


Our hero then “puts his hand on her stocking” and “lets his fingers do the walking,” romancing his underage lady friend with all the charm of one of those parking lot lotharios who frequent the outer regions of Stop-N-Go late at night, ogling passing females while finishing off an oversized can of Schlitz swathed in a small paper sack. (This type of wooing, when considered alongside the girl’s tender age, tells us that John is both clinging to his fading youth and brazenly dismissing the boundaries of age and propriety.)


Lisa interprets John’s sophomoric pawing as boorish and slaps him across the face (once on each side, just for good measure) to the beat of the song. She then rips the heart-shaped pendant from around her neck and flings it back in his face (in slow motion, yet), a poignant symbol of her rejection of his love.


The scorned protagonist now begins to fantasize in a series of hedonistic tableaux. First, John drives the coveted Rolls Royce to the exotic Downtown Motel where he is thrust onto the bed, partially stripped and more or less molested by a gang of remarkably flat-chested and badly dressed female dancers. (Clearly, his psyche is punishing him for his guilt over the break-up.)



Next we see John nibbled and caressed by the same gang of dancers, only in the car instead of the motel, while mustachioed auto mechanics in coveralls lip-synch the background vocals. Intercut with these scenes are shots of a bare-chested Parr brandishing his American flag-decorated guitar and reminding us every few seconds, in song, that he’s a “naughty, naughty guy.” (A prideful declaration necessary to reclaim his bruised machismo.)

In a twist ending to make Hitchcock proud, it is finally revealed that John’s fantasy sequences with the frumpy dance squad all took place inside his head! Lo and behold, he’s still sitting in the car after the necklace-throwing incident, rubbing his eyes as if emerging from a dream.


Lisa takes one look at her naughty, bawdy man and instantly regrets the hasty brush-off. She offers a slight smile (a gesture of submission), decides she does “wanna be a girl like that,” and re-enters the automobile. The director pays homage to Grease (1978) in the video’s grand finale as John and Lisa’s car takes flight and soars into the distant horizon. The Mustang ascends into the heavens and we know, in our hearts, John and Lisa will find bliss in each other’s arms for the rest of their natural lives and beyond, into the spirit realm.


Though the narrative presents a perfect mingling of urban fantasy and repressed middle-class desires, NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY’s subtext hints at—oh, who am I kidding??? This video doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle!”

This is a video that rips the buttons from its shirt, bares its sweaty chest and makes lewd gestures at girls from its car. This is a video that sprays your face with saliva as it shouts, “Yeah, I’m drunk, so what!” This is a video that unashamedly plasters a Hooters sticker across its bumper and boldly dares its girlfriend to object. This is a working man’s video; a proudly American clip festooned with American flags, filled with working class American joes and starring John Parr, a good old boy from … Nottinghamshire, England. God, I love the ’80s.

PREDICTABLE by the Kinks (1981)

To my knowledge, PREDICTABLE by the Kinks is the first music video to feature a clip from another popular music video within it. Sort of like Shakespeare’s play within a play, but much cooler because it was on MTV.

The comic strip-inspired clip was made by Julien Temple in the fall of 1981 (the glorious first autumn of MTV) and marks the first pairing of the Kinks and Temple, who is currently working on a feature film about the band.


Kinks lead Ray Davies appears to be having a ball in PREDICTABLE, starring as a pompadoured ‘50s loser with a bedside photo of Jane Russell’s rack and a passion for Kukla, Fran and Ollie.



Life for Eisenhower-Era Ray is predictable (though fabulously mid-century modern), and doesn’t get any better in the swinging sixties, when his proto-Friends hairdon’t obscures his vision and the copious bellbottoms of his purple satin flares get sucked into the vacuum cleaner.


At least ‘60s Ray has himself to watch, as Temple inserts a black and white Kinks performance clip on the TV with a wink. In fact, the entire video could be referred to as “Kinks with a wink” – a self-deprecating in-joke that those who survived the ‘60s to thrive in the ‘80s must have shared. Here, Ray plays the pop video embodiment of the Baby Boom generation, a fashion victim Forrest Gump.


Enter the 1970s, and things really go downhill for the poor schlub. He’s evolved into the standard peace-sign-flashing Hippie, watching TV (the Kinks performing again, natch) and smoking himself into a semi-comatose state.


Next we get to the ‘80s! You’d think Ray’s life would be way better at this point because, well, it’s the ‘80s.


His London flat décor has become black, red and geometric (so far, so good), he’s sporting some Nikes and ultra-modern mirrored shades (even better), he’s got himself the latest model top-loading VCR (now we’re cooking with gas) and best of all, he’s got the Stray Cats to watch on MTV!


Yup, the Kinks’ fellow Arista artists Stray Cats’ 1981 clip for STRAY CAT STRUT (directed by none other than Julien Temple) makes a brief cameo as Ray’s music video of choice. Temple himself even does a Hitchcock in PREDICTABLE as a weatherman predicting predictable weather.


But alas, life under Thatcher is only more sterile and complicated for ‘80s Ray. Instead of inhaling drugs, he’s inhaling a McDonald’s milkshake. He’s inundated with too many cable channels, he has to look at Prince Charles’ face (which would drive anyone to suicidal thoughts), and who can figure out all these little buttons on the remote control?


Of course, today the song is more relevant than ever – if he had issues with programming the VCR in 1981 I’m sure Ray has a field day downloading movies from the internet and watching them on his HD TV while setting up his Twitterfeed in 2010.

Once we had so many options
Once we had dignity and grace
Now we have got nothing but our own time to waste

Sing it, Ray. You not only predicted our current economic condition, you understood even in 1981 that technological advancements may create the illusion of endless options but ironically leave us with even less to decide for ourselves, and that more me-time doesn’t necessarily mean better quality of life.

But hey, nowadays we can jettison a photo of a bunny with a pancake on its head halfway around the globe in the time it used to take to slap a stamp on a letter. Bet you didn’t predict that one, Ray!

GOLD by Spandau Ballet (1983)

Given the fact that prolific video director Russell Mulcahy (yes, I know I mention his name all the time – get used to it! Mulcahy, Mulcahy, Mulcahy!) shot the majority of Spandau Ballet’s early videos, I often wonder why he wasn’t tapped to direct GOLD. Was he busy filming Simon Le Bon’s incredibly photogenic arse in some exotic location and unable to get away?


Though Duran Duran is the group usually associated with the whole James Bond/Secret Agent pop sub-genre (having written and performed the theme song to 1985’s A View To A Kill), it’s a shame Spandau Ballet never got to take a stab at a 007 film, because they nailed the spy genre years before the Duran guys. The song “Gold” evolved out of guitarist Gary Kemp’s attempt to spoof the James Bond theme songs, particularly “Goldfinger.”



The finished product sounds nothing like a Shirley Bassey record, but it’s a perfectly constructed pop hit, alternately heartfelt, triumphant, and flamboyantly infectious. Naturally, the video snatches a few motifs from Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger (1964), but still manages to establish its own uniquely elegant groove.


Shot by director Brian Duffy in the town of Carmona in southern Spain, the clip immediately sets a mysterious mood with its opening shot of a golden jigsaw puzzle in the desert.


At this point, the viewer must quickly install a heavy-duty suspension of disbelief in his or her brain or else all of the “gold” objects in the video will look just like cardboard and plastic which have been covered in metallic paint or tinfoil. They aren’t. They’re gold!



Lead singer Tony Hadley plays the debonair man of intrigue during the video’s concept scenes and himself in the performance bits, so he appears in virtually every frame of the video. I must admit he is pretty watchable as an actor/lead singer and only unintentionally funny for a few seconds here and there, especially when timing his well-rehearsed pout so it matches the drumbeats.


Tony has an enigma to solve: he must hunt down the gold jigsaw pieces by stalking an elusive platinum-painted wood nymph in a mini-dress (played by a young Sadie Frost), and all the friendly townsfolk seem quite willing to help him, especially the poor man’s Walter Huston and his pony.


Admittedly, there are a few holes in the storyline, but this is a music video after all. The Spandau boys’ raison d’etre was to generate sweet melodies, not to fuss over a coherent video plot. And here they succeed handsomely in conveying their musical prowess as well as their affinity for fine clothing.


They also display a remarkable knack for keeping straight faces and constantly looking pensive, sexy and slightly out of sorts. Still, if you look very closely at the Kemp brothers as they lip-synch the background vocals you may catch the subtlest hint of a tongue-in-cheek wink beneath the surface.

After all, what could be so wrong? It’s 1983, they’re in a hit band, they have the budget to shoot on 35mm film and the world is their oyster! While it’s easy today to poke fun at some of GOLD’s cheesy images and the deadpan posturing of the carefully-coiffed Spandauers, it’s the kind of video you start out making fun of but end up singing along with, choreographing a dance routine to, and shedding a tear when it’s over.


The chorus can still send a chill up my spine with its emotional power and the video has moments of simple beauty rarely found in more modern clips, such as the smoky rays of sunlight streaming through elaborate grillwork behind the group as they perform.


Though their success as a band would not outlast the 1980s, through the magic of music video, Spandau Ballet are captured forever at their zenith in this atmospheric, warm-toned piece of pop propaganda. Always believe in your soul, guys. You’re indestructible. And bigger than ever!

NORMAN BATES by Landscape (1981)

Unbeknownst to many classic film fans, there was a mini-Psycho made between the original in 1960 and the lame sequel Psycho II in 1983. It was a music video called NORMAN BATES and it horrified many a sleepless pre-teen who stumbled upon it in the wee hours of MTV.

Landscape was one of dozens of early ‘80s British synth-pop bands who would never have garnered any attention stateside without the miraculous invention of MTV. These guys weren’t exactly on par with Ultravox, but their songs were catchy and they didn’t take themselves too seriously.


Inspired by Hitch’s masterpiece, the Brian Grant-crafted clip is an impressively original mélange of Psycho, gothic British castle drama and pop video fun.


A heroine who looks astoundingly like Janet Leigh, even down to the severely stenciled brows, has apparently picked up a hitch-hiking Norman and is toting him around town in her Ford sedan. There’s a twist Milton Arbogast wouldn’t have seen coming.


She glimpses a couple of Landscapers in her rearview and is disturbed: their deadpan nerdiness is so extreme it's actually unsettling, yet it’s only a harbinger of what’s to come. Once Marion and Normie make their way into the gothic castle of horrors (Norm & Mom must have finally gotten the money to build that new motel!), it’s one fright after another.


Amid dank chambers and creepy taxidermy experiments (a man should have a hobby, after all), the band members beat their drums savagely and play their instruments with a psychotic vengeance as poor Marion stumbles around the house screaming.


Eventually she comes across Norman draped in a fetching Victorian shawl and runs for her life. She knows bescarfed men are generally up to no good, "normal" guys or not.

No shower scene in this clip (those British castles are just too drafty to go au naturale), but plenty of atmosphere and eerie chanting.

There are only 10 words in the entire song (My name is Norman Bates / I’m just a normal guy) sung over and over again in a synthesized monotone. Naively simple, even silly perhaps – but man does that chorus wedge itself into the brain! Try listening to it once without waking up at 3 am with that phrase running through your mind like a crazed hamster on a wheel. Just try it.

THE THIN WALL by Ultravox (1981)

The sound is on, the visions move…

For a music video released in August 1981 to coincide perfectly with the debut of MTV, I can’t imagine a more appropriate opening lyric. And there couldn’t have been a more appropriate director to bring the song to life than Russell Mulcahy, the Aussie auteur whose visions defined early MTV.

Here, Mulcahy provides the ultimate playground for Ultravox front man Midge Ure to express his inner film noir anti-hero. Fresh from loitering around foggy alleys, trenchcoat-clad, in the Third Man-inspired VIENNA (1981), the band’s follow-up THE THIN WALL finds Ure singled out and doomed by the literal flip of a coin.

The clip opens with a slew of unsettling disembodied hands that grab and grope Midge as he innocently tries to make his way down a corridor. And who could blame the hands for wanting to cop a feel of those fine fabrics? The man had style! He could rock the ‘30s/’40s-meets-‘80s look like no one else. The high-belted tweed slacks! The newsboy cap! The tapered pants-legs and geometric sideburns that add a dash of modernism to the vintage ensemble! May I take a moment to swoon?

Okay, back to the video. After swapping his newsboy togs for evening wear (I LOVE the suspenders), Midge makes his way to a Casablanca-esque club where a chic brunette delivers the aforementioned coin that becomes a glittery tennis ball; a sparkly MacGuffin of doom, if you will.


From this moment on, Midge is a marked man. The night club patrons stare, the ceiling fan looms menacingly, the floor caves in as he walks, even his fellow Ultravoxers plot against him.

Warren, Chris and Billy, their eyes often shaded by their hat brims (so clearly they’re up to no good!), seem to be in league with the split-faced man who pulls the strings, and they turn Midge’s reality into a nightmare. Of course, they all look so damned spiffy it’s hard to feel threatened – even with stage sweat pouring off their faces – but at least it’s an upscale nightmare.

Almost drowning in a car filled with water, our anti-hero then heads to the beach (in natty seaside attire, natch) alongside a cadre of synchronized swimmers moving in unison, half-buried in the sand.

The bizarre nightmare intensifies as wine bottles pour sideways, a lamppost-lit briefcase exchange goes awry, the hallway of hands tries for one last grope, and in the end the MacGuffin is passed on.

The ball of doom ultimately shatters; has Midge survived, or does the shattered gold dingus represent his demise? And is it a snazzed-up tennis ball or a Christmas tree ornament? We are only left to guess.


As a song, “The Thin Wall” strikes me as a poem for the socially marginal – those average enough to play the game but perceptive enough to question the game they play. The lost souls who can’t quite bring themselves to shuffle through life with the same “bovine grace” of the syncopated masses, yet still feel isolated and pressured to gallop with the herd.


Typical noir themes of random persecution and encroaching doom blend well with the song’s lyrics (which contain a reference to the 1938 British film noir They Drive By Night), and the bizarre images and ambiguous ending make for perfect ‘80s pop noir.

After all, music videos aren’t supposed to make sense or follow a linear narrative, they’re supposed to present striking images to accompany the song. THE THIN WALL manages to do that with a heap of style, and in the process foreshadows a future Mulcahy masterpiece, Billy Joel’s PRESSURE (1982), a video that would make the most of those good old dependable motifs like spilled liquids in slo-mo, eerily long hallways and floors caving in.

In some ways THE THIN WALL is just a PRESSURE prototype, the latter presumably having a bigger budget and more special effects but with similar paranoiac themes and images.

But Billy Joel (God bless him) is no Midge Ure, and no matter how cool the PRESSURE video was it couldn’t quite compare with the swanky, retro savoir-faire of Ultravox, circa 1981.

Their music sounded like the future, their style borrowed from the past, they wrote songs with film noir lyrics and made sophisticated videos to match. Remind me again why they never had a number one hit?

Click here to find out how to get Ultravox to #1!