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The Man Who Defined The Music Video: Our Interview With Steve Barron

When you think about the most iconic music videos of all time, what comes to mind? There have been some great videos in the last couple of decades, but invariably the ones that are most often referenced are from the first decade of MTV. There was a freshness to music videos of that period, often wildly experimental and with a lighter touch than the average over-produced Lady Gaga video. And they were everywhere, swirling 24/7 on MTV and finding their way into network programs, shopping malls, and Saturday morning cartoons. There's a reason those videos stick with us after so many years, despite how crude many seem in comparison to what you see today, and it's largely because of the brilliance of some wickedly talented directors who were defining the genre on the fly.

What not everyone knows, though, is how much of that iconic list was the inspiration of one man. His name is Steve Barron, and he was the creative force behind some of the most memorable videos of all time. A director could have made his name off any one of these videos—"Don't You Want Me?" "Billie Jean," "Summer of '69," "Money for Nothing," "Rough Boy," "Take On Me"—but Steve Barron did all of them, and many more. His artistic vision practically defined the visual template of my youth, as it did for so many other people of our generation. And on the 30th anniversary of MTV, he was gracious enough to sit down with us at Culture Brats and tell us about his experience, his art, and his role in the birth of a genre.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to speak with me and all of us at Culture Brats.
No problem

You directed some of the most famous music videos of the early years of MTV. How did you get into that, especially at a time when directing music videos wasn't an obvious career path?
Yeah, it wasn't a clearly defined route, and it wasn't really a premeditated thing either. It just sort of happened by my start as a camera assistant and technician in films in London. I was actually very young getting into the business. By the time I was 20 or 21, I was doing some pretty big movies as the camera assistant, and when I was working on movies in the UK like Superman. I was living the 21-year old social life in London. I was meeting bands and people who were in the music business—as you do, out and about—and the more I met, the more I chatted with them. I was always a big fan of music; I just kind of got pulled into that world.

It was at a phase [when] they weren't called videos. This was like 1976, really, and they were promotional films. They seemed to be being done sporadically by the record companies who were frustrated by not having any outlet for them. But they were still making them just the same. I jumped onto that really by ignorance as much as anything, because the music world didn't understand what the film world did, and the film world didn't really understand what the music world did. The fact that I was a clapper loader and I was on this massive movie...at the time they weren't really distinguishing between the clapper loader and the director. The fact that I was working on the film gave me a certain amount of credibility. I was able to put together, through my knowledge of cameras primarily, little shoots for bands. The first one I really did was for The Jam. That's how it all sort of began: by chance, wanting to work with music but without a clear path.

MTV At 30: A Look Back At Madonna

This was originally published on Culture Brats on July 20, 2010. But nothing says early MTV like Madonna videos, so we're playing it again! Here are our eighteen favorite Madonna videos:

18. "Lucky Star"
17. "Justify My Love"
16. "Burning Up"
15. "Cherish"
14. "Ray Of Light"
13. "Express Yourself"
12. "Crazy For You"
11. "Bad Girl"
10. "True Blue"
9. "Open Your Heart"
8. "Get Into The Groove"
7. "Music"

My Favorite MTV Moment: Vanilla Rampage

My now husband and I were home watching some TV one evening back in 1999 and ran across an MTV special that looked kind of entertaining: Top 25 Lame Videos. It was hosted by a group of comedians: baby Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofolo, Denis Leary, and Chris Kattan. The premise was that MTV had fans vote on the cheesiest videos ever aired, the comics would mock them, and then the videos were banned for life (Ha! It's funny that MTV thought they'd continue to play music videos!).

So everything's fine and dandy till they get to video #9, "Ice, Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice (Rob Van Winkle). For this video they went a different route. They invited the man himself to come on and host his segment. So they kind of awkwardly watched the video together; the comedians were polite enough to not rip the video in Rob's presence, then handed him a bat to ceremonially destroy the tape of his video. Well, this is how it went down:



My husband and I looked at each other and said "what just happened?" We kept watching because we were pretty sure that nobody had expected him to go flat out insane on the set like that. Jon had a cut on his hand from the flying debris. Janeane looked genuinely terrified for pretty much the rest of the show; she started chain smoking like crazy. It was such a hilariously weird moment. I've wondered since then if Garofalo starts shaking when she hears that song (or even the opening from "Under Pressure") because she seemed so completely freaked out.

Did anyone else happen to witness this moment?

You Down Wit' MTV?

God, I loved this.

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Top 20 MTV Shows That Had Nothing To Do With Music

Everyone likes to complain about MTV kicking music videos to the curb (we're extremely guilty of it ourselves). But truth be told, MTV has created some pretty awesome shows over the years. So in honor of MTV's 30th anniversary, we decided to take a look at our favorite non-music MTV shows.

Here are our twenty favorite MTV shows that had nothing to do with music:

20. The Jon Stewart Show
19. Singled Out
18. True Life
17. Pimp My Ride
16. The Tom Green Show
15. The Osbournes
14. Made
13. The Ben Stiller Show
12. Real World/Road Rules Challenge
11. Aeon Flux
10. The Sifl & Olly Show
9. Road Rules
8. Liquid Television
7. Celebrity Deathmatch
6. Remote Control

When Did MTV Die?

For this week's Your Say Hump Day, we've got an easy one for you. We want to know when you think MTV died, when it stopped being classic MTV.

Have your say in the comments!

We're Music, We're MTV

They should update the lyrics. They're no longer Music.

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