Pretenders

Chrissie Hynde has to be one of the best front women of all time never mind just in 80′s music.  It is said that when Hynde and pals were looking for a name, they looked to the music of The Platters and their song The Great Pretender.

Take a listen to the original song and see if you can blame them for loving the beauty of the song. Perhaps not a load in common with the music produced by the Pretenders other than both groups have done some great songs.

Mr. Mister

The band behind such 80′s belters such as Broken Wings and Kyrie are said to have looked to the works of the legendary Marc Bolan and his band T-Rex for their eventual name.  The song is called Mister Mister and is from T-Rex’s Tanx album.

Here is Marc Bolan playing an acoustic version of the Mister Mister song.

Simple Minds

You aren’t a fully paid up 80′s child if the Simple Minds song Don’t You Forget About Me doesn’t leave you reaching for your DVD of The Breakfast Club. Heck, a few misty eyed tears while thinking of the passing of John Hughes would be more than acceptable.

Jim Kerr and Simple Minds were far more than that (great) song though. They have produced some of the best music to come out of Scotland and not just in the 80′s.

When Simple Minds was searching for a band name they gave their nod to their appreciation of David Bowie’s music. The term ‘simple minds’ comes from a line in his Jean Genie song. A true masterpiece of a song so nobody can blame them for that choice!

Have a listen to David Bowie’s Jean Genie and see if you can spot the simple mind line.

Sisters Of Mercy

If you dyed your hair black in the 80′s and called yourself a goth than chances are Sisters of Mercy were on your personal play list. Did you know, however, that the band that brought us Temple Of Love , were inspired to name themselves after a Leonard Cohen song.

That’s right, the gravelled voice Cohen had a song called Sisters of Mercy and the band adopted the name from there.  It is a very gentle song that doesn’t have a whole lot in common with the image of the band but you can see why it might appeal to a goth minded band.

Wet Wet Wet

For many of us, Wet Wet Wet may cause involuntary shivers as we recall *that* song from Four Weddings and a Funeral.  There is no denying they had their fans in the 80′s and 90′s though. Clearly they were fans themselves of other  bands too.  Wet Wet Wet took their name from a lyric in a song from the band Scritti Politti.

The lyric is in the Scritti Politti song Gettin, havin’ and holdin. A  song with is apparently impossible to find on Youtube. So, instead we shall have to have a video of  Scritti Politti’s highest charting UK song.

Madness

The classic 80′s Britsh ska band tried on a few different names including Moris and the Minors before finally settling on Madness. The musical roots of Suggs and the rest of the band are clear to anybody that has listened to their music.  The influence of Jamaican music made itself known in their name too.

Madness took their band name from a song of the same name by Prince Buster.   Here is the original version of the song by Prince Buster himself.

For good measure, here is Madness doing a cover of Prince Buster’s Madness .

When MTV launched in the United States in 1981,cable television wasn’t even close to being in everybody’s home and those that did have cable might be using a provider that didn’t carry MTV in their package.

So, MTV went launched the viral ‘I want my MTV!’ campaign that had youth across the land using the phrase to demand their cable providers add MTV.  The phrase became such a part of the language of the time that Dire Straits even included it (sung by Sting) in their Money For Nothing song.

As part of this campaign, MTV called in some hip and happening music stars of the time.  Even well into the 80′s when most people had managed to get their MTV, the station kept the tradition of getting the music stars of the time do these commercials for the station. Check out these clips from the I Want My MTV campaign and see just which 80′s music start were getting in on the act.

This is the first ever image shown on MTV and ever since then the image of the man planting an MTV  flag on the moon has become linked with the station’s identity. The MTV music award is modelled after the image.

Then we had Cindy Lauper, Sting, Billy Idol, David Bowie and Boy George get involved for this hyper neon attack on the senses. If Billy Idol said too much was never enough and David Bowie wanted his MTV then who on earth was going to argue?

Sting was back again for this “I want my MTV!” commercial that mainly featured The Police cut in (for some reason) with a bit of Pat Benetar.

Of  course you couldn’t have MTV in the 1980′s without Madonna getting into the act. This was one of her very own MTV commercials in the height of her Material Girl period.

This version of the “I want my MTV” commercial was a real mix of 80′s music talent. In this one 30 second slot they managed to squeeze in Pete Townsend, Pat Benetar and Billy Joel.

This one is nearly the same as before but with the music doing most of the talking apart from Pat Benetar at the end putting on the ‘call your cable company’ pressure.

This format of the commercial must have worked for them because they repeated it often but with a different mix of 80′s music stars. This one heavily features Michael Jackson (you will notice the first non-white face to show in these commercials) and David Bowie.

Watching all of these commercials brings back how exciting it was to watch MTV back then. It makes me want to ring up MTV and yell “I want my OLD MTV back!”