80s music videos & the Road Warrior syndrome

created by Quizro

(thing) by Quizro (2 wk) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Tue Mar 14 2000 at 12:11:58

1980s America's morbid fascination with its own seemingly inevitable destruction in a nuclear war spilled over into almost every pop culture arena, especially the music video. MTV viewers were treated to a slew of devastated cityscapes strewn with evil mutants and battered guitars that somehow escaped the blasts that destroyed civilization as we know it.

Billy Idol - "Dancing With Myself"
Scandal - "The Warrior"
KISS - "Lick It Up"
Tom Petty - "You Got Lucky"
The Police - "Synchronicity II"

Am I leaving anyone out?

(thing) by pingouin (4.1 y) (print) ? I like it! Wed Mar 15 2000 at 5:53:31

Tina Turner - "We Don't Need Another Hero", from Max Mad Beyond Thunderdome (or whatever the hell it was called), with real Maxian footage and all. I'm glad I was TV-free for most of that decade.

(idea) by The Custodian (37.5 min) (print) ? I like it! Wed Sep 20 2000 at 2:39:04

ZZ Top - TV Dinners. Set in a bomb shelter inhabited by a leather-jacketed cycle survivor.
Nena - 99 Luft Ballons. Post-nuke stroll through the ruins of Berlin?
Asia - Go. From 1985's Astra, cyberbondage-clad hottie with courier gig. Definitely dystopic, maybe postapocalyptic.

Of course, that was at least back when videos would have a theme or (gasp!) even a plot.

mrichich: Love is a battlefield was pretty clearly World War II. I don't remember the Europe video; I must've blocked it. :-)

admiralh has quite properly corrected me: the video in question is Shadows of the Night, not Love is a Battlefield (which was a 1980's girl-runaway shtick). Thanks!

(idea) by mrichich (7.4 min) (print) ? I like it! Wed Sep 20 2000 at 2:49:40

Oooh--Rush's Distant Early Warning with the Dr. Strangelove overtones, perhaps. . . Europe's The Final Countdown? This is fun!

It seems I could think up a lot more if I had a chance. Perhaps Pat Benatar's Love Is A Battlefield (Note: I've had two people tell me that they think Love is a Battlefield's video is about Nazis. That is Shadows of the Night. Love is clearly Pat in Flashdance clothes and lots of 80's choreography. Don't believe me? Check out www.benatar.com and look at the videos yourself.)

(thing) by Ashley Pomeroy (4.3 d) (print) ? I like it! Fri Sep 14 2001 at 10:24:44

Amazingly, nobody has yet included the video for Duran Duran's 'Wild Boys', which has the singular distinction of being directed by George Miller, director of 'The Road Warrior', himself.

In a much less specifically 'Road Warrior' sense, Chris Cunningham's hilarious, brilliant video for Aphex Twin's 'Come to Daddy' is a modern revisiting of this hoary old theme. Nowadays, post-modernism makes it hard for people to associate muscle-bound, leather-clad, metal-studded oiled young men with heterosexual machismo.

printable version
chaos

Who run Bartertown?	Pop-up Video	Hello Kitty vibrator	1980s
Mad Max	The Final Countdown	Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms	Come to Daddy
How to rip off Columbia Record and Tape Club	When I read about crazy women, I find it hard to discern	Apples, oranges, and oral sex	Master Blaster
deep-vein thrombosis	postmodernism	Pat Benatar	Eponymous syndromes
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel	Cafe Flesh	Thundarr the Barbarian	Bullitt
Lain	Doomsday Warrior	Anime Music Video	Enlightenment through Postmodernism

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