The music issue

The music issue




This issue is all about music, where Medianett takes a trip down memory lane with the greatest music videos of all time and industry professionals tell us about their favourite musical moments….

This issue is all about music, where Medianett takes a trip down memory lane with the greatest music videos of all time and industry professionals tell us about their favourite musical moments…

Medianett decided to look back over the years at the most famous music videos up until the present day to see how times have changed, where we also found some interesting choices picked by members of our own industry.

Starting all the way back in 1965, Bob Dylan showed avid music fans that sometimes the simpler things in life can be the most effective, with Subterranean Homesick Blues – the black and white music video featuring himself with cue cards of his lyrics.

In 1966, the biggest thing from Merseyside, The Beatles, released ‘Yellow Submaine’, written by Paul McCartney , and shot straight to number one for four weeks. The animated video brought a change to the way music could be presented. Stuart Epstein of Spring Finance admitted that if he could be any music artist in the world, it would be Paul McCartney as he has had “decades of success and [is] still smiling.”

Eugene Esterkin of Affirmative Finance , who admitted if he could be any music artist it would be David Bowie, told us that Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin in 1971 was his all-time favourite song, because it reminds him of a “marvellous holiday with great old friends camping on the beach in the early 80’s in Dahab.”

Four years later we had Queen release karaoke favourite Bohemian Rhapsody, where witness 70s hair, the guitar solo and random words. For the best covers of this, see Wayne’s World or Lee Evans.

Stuart declared that the wackiest music video had to be 1981’s ‘Down Under’ by Men at Work, as it “always makes you smile.”

Moving to 1984, king of pop, Michael Jackson, braced the world with the legendary Thriller’ video – where dance moves have been emulated around the world countless times. This choice was brought to us from both Stuart and Eugene, where Stuart commented that the video was “innovative and years ahead of its time,” while Eugene admitted it was “unique” and reminds him of “how special a person he truly was”.  Stuart added that even though it was his favourite music video, his favourite lyrics are actually from ‘Black or White’. Although he never had much success in the film industry, we could all agree that MJ sure knew how to rock a music video.

You can’t have a king without a queen – so next is Madonna at her height in 1989, with Express Yourself, arguably the second most expensive music video ever made at $9.4 million, after ‘Scream’ by Michael Jackson featuring Janet Jackson. Reflecting on her career and its influences, Stuart commented that Madonna was “always ahead of her time at each stage”

Also in the same year, Richard Deacon of Masthaven Bridging Finance admitted his favourite lyrics were from ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice. Specifically - “cooking MC’s like a pound of bacon” – where his reasons were “because they’re so rubbish, and everyone can sing along!”


A year later, MC Hammer braced us with “U Can’t Touch This”, forever leaving us with a club-track essential and trousers than are even sported on catwalks today. #hammertime


Five years later, rap group The Pharcyde released ‘Drop’, directed by legendary music video maker Spike Jonze (who also directed Daft Punk Da Funk). This memorable music video saw the group acting out everything backwards, where they even memorised the lyrics in reverse too!


Richard Deacon, who admitted he would like to be a DJ like Avicii or Tiesto, told Medianett that his favourite music video was from 1997, ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy. “Why?” he replied, because of “sex, drugs and violence!”


In 2006, OK Go released addictive music video ‘Here It Goes Again’ – featuring  just eight treadmills as props for their dance routine. Apparently it took 17 attempts to get the dance right in one take. Just don’t go trying it out yourself at the gym.


In 2008, Beyonce wowed the world with her knockout ‘single ladies’ video, famously imitated by Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg. The video, which was up for nomination at the VMA awards in 2009, also caused viral videos after Kanye West got up on stage to let music-video winner Taylor Swift know that Beyonce had the best music video of all time. Cringe.


Coming up to 2010, Lady Gaga’s Telephone Video, featuring Beyonce, became a phenomenon for its almost movie-like quality, and to date, has over 208 million views online. Plus, anyone who publically rocks coke cans for hair rollers and a pair of sunnies made of cigarettes, would make any music-video list.


This year, Pharrell Williams fans (which includes Eugene) could literally listen to him all day and night after he released the world’s first 24 hour music video, ‘happy’. The song also features on hilarious animation Despicable me 2 - another perfectly good reason why this video makes the cut.





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