Best Top Videos of the 1980s - Part 4

Cult Films and Midnight Movies "From High Art to Low Trash" Vol 1 By Tom Baker

I'm willing to bet that some of my readers have heard heavy metal at some point in their lives. It's dark, brooding, noisy, heavily-distorted guitar music with fast (alternately slow and thunderous) drumbeats, screeched or even growled vocalizations, and lots of leather, long hair, and tight jeans. Its focus is grim, medieval, Satanic, horror, and apocalyptically-infused imagery, and album covers are often shocking in the same way as ancient Christian artwork depicting the torments of Hell could often be.

Some of the most prominent heavy metal musicians have included Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper (who is also sometimes classified as simply "hard rock"), Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, the late Ronnie James Dio, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer. Subgenres include death metal, thrash, hair metal, power metal, industrial metal, and even funk and hardcore punk/metal "crossover" (both genres feature heavily distorted guitar tones, breakneck drumbeats, and screamed or shouted vocals, often about nihilistic or darkly violent subject matter).

Below are heavy metal videos that were popular in the Eighties. There were a lot more than what I can post here, so expect a SIDE B.

1. Judas Priest - "Breaking the Law"

A very young and handsome Rob Halford leads a bank job with the rest of his bandmates, busting into the joint armed with Fender Stratocasters instead of submachine guns. Informing us that "Daryl was completely wasted," was "out of work and down," he justifies robbery and theft and, on a happy note, we get a parody of a British cop who dances around with his hat on sideways while jamming a wooden replica of a Fender Stratocaster. (Or whatever the hell type of guitar Judas Priest preferred.) Beavis and Butthead ate it up back around 1993.

2. Ozzy Osbourne - "Bark at the Moon"

Ozzy Osbourne, when not biting the heads off of pigeons or bats or whatever, is rumored to be a nice, if somewhat unintelligible bloke. During the 1980s, he was the undisputed El Numero Uno Eh Number ONE CHAMPEEN of evil heavy metal hair music, rivaled only by Motley Crue when they put out that "Shout at the Devil" thing. Every hood at my high school had a faded Ozzy t-shirt or back patch worn proudly on an old denim vest with the sleeves ripped out (as well as long hair, tight jeans, and scuffed-up high-top sneakers; although the real freaks and future serial killers all sported combat boots and Slayer shirts).

Heavy metal and horror go hand in claw, and here we have a mad scientist/wolfman theme that looks as if it could have been ripped from an old episode of "Dark Shadows." You spin this one backward baby, the hidden mind control message says, "Satan wants you to listen to Ozzy...for just ten-ninety-nine at Sam Goody."

3. Iron Maiden - "Two Minutes to Midnight"

There were a number of videos by SATANIC WAR MASTERS and arena rock gods Iron Maiden that we could have put here... "Number of the Beast," "Wasted Years," "Can I Play With Madness", etc, but in the end, we decided on this one because it had the best overall imagery and story, and we are, as of right now (according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists) exactly NINETY SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT; i.e. total thermonuclear destruction.

The video here features some weird Special Forces commando unit, prostitutes that may be double agents, a villainous Baron Rothschild guy in a limo, someone waking up blearily and examining a pentagram-festooned scroll of magical spells or something, and a raid or operation and the whole thing is just great. Especially the commando dudes and the whores. I guess this is what happens right before the New World Order declares total nuclear exchange, right after we all get microchipped and learn to worship the Beast, 666. Which was EXACTLY Iron Maiden's MASTER PLAN. (They worked it all out with Nickelodeon first.)

4. Alice Cooper - "Poison"

Alice Cooper is a heavy metal hard rock "shock rocker" that started shock rocking back around the same time Coolidge was declaring Birth of a Nation the most racially-inclusive biopic in American history (actually he didn't, but the line made us laugh with its irony, so there it is). Actually, Alice started in the middle-Sixties, when he babysat the infant Pink Floyds, but 'round about 1980 realized his old shtick was in need of an update. This hilariously dated video features lots of leather, spikes, a modern art sculpture, Alice in weird necromantic "wizard robes," a woman in a leather swimsuit who is absolutely NOT being objectified in any way, and dudes with lots of hair spray. The ending, featuring a "turnabout is fair play" scenario, has the THOUROUGHLY EMPOWERED young woman coming through the doorway carrying a tray with a poisoned drink. That for some reason, she drinks...only to find out it was POISON. Duh. Alice sneakily holds up the bottle, and the audience knows, just f*kin KNOWS OKAY?... that he's the "master."

From the era of spandex, high tops, and dudes being dudes wearing mascara, this song really, really rocks your lame ASS, as the kids said when I was young and this was only middle-aged.

5. King Diamond - "The Family Ghost"

We could have put Metallica, Motley Crue, or Guns and Roses here, but decided those options didn't seem nearly as much campy good fun as the King Himself, Kim Bendix Petersen, AKA "King Diamond", a hideously made-up heavy metal Satanic operatic maestro of mayhem, who has rocked forth from beyond the Gates of Aitchee Double Hockey Sticks for decades and decades, on albums such as "Abigail," "Conspiracy," "The Eye," "Fatal Portrait," and "Them." This video features King doing what he does best, reigning in Hell on a serpent throne, while Clive Barkeresque Hellions come forth to dance, twirl fire, and entertain him. "The Family ghoooost!" croons King in his high falsetto, vocalizations piercing the firmament like a spear to the heart of Melekesh!

Note: if you listen real close to the end of the song, you hear a demonic death metal growl the band claims was not them doing it, and no one could hear until the original recordings were played back. Classifying it as an "EVP"; i.e. "electronic voice phenomena," which some claim to be the voices of the actual DEAD. But, surely you don't believe that, do you?

Well, that ends Side A. The tape has stopped. Eject and turn over the cassette. Or rewind, and replay multiple times (if the tape breaks, you can always try to splice it back together. if it gets caught in the player, you're going to be pulling out handfuls of the stuff in frustration).

Next up comes Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Danzig, Guns and Roses, Poison, WASP, Motorhead, and enough leather codpieces to outfit an army of Thundar impersonators. Sending you out is a video that isn't, as they say, an (drumroll please): "OFFICIAL VIDEO," but is still a classic from 1982 or thereabouts. Sammy Hagar blasting at you from the soundtrack to the animated adult sci-fi favorite Heavy Metal (1982), here's...

Sammy Hagar - "Heavy Metal" (From OST to "Heavy Metal")