1983

Two things happened in 1983, and between them they settled what the music video was going to be for the rest of the decade.

Billie Jean

MTV's programming had been overwhelmingly white, and the channel's explanations for this had worn thin. In early 1983 "Billie Jean" went into rotation, and it mattered out of all proportion to a single video. Michael Jackson was too big to ignore, the video was too good to argue with, and once the door was open it did not close again. Within a couple of years MTV looked like a substantially different channel.

The video itself is simple compared with what came later. Jackson walks along a street, paving stones light up under his feet, and that is essentially the idea. It works because he is extraordinary to watch, which was rather the point everybody had been missing.

Thriller

Then, in December, the other one. Fourteen minutes long, directed by John Landis, shot with a feature film crew, choreographed with dozens of dancers, budgeted at a figure that horrified the record company and repaid itself many times over. "Thriller" had an opening title sequence, a disclaimer, a plot and a proper ending.

Its release was an event. People arranged to be in front of a television for it. MTV built schedules around it. And it permanently changed the ceiling of what a music video could be: after "Thriller", the argument that a promo film was not worth serious money or serious talent was simply over.

The rest of the year

It would be misleading to make 1983 entirely about one artist. This is a strong year across the board, with 33 videos in the WTV catalogue. Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" is Russell Mulcahy at his most gloriously overwrought, full of wind machines, choirboys and glowing eyes, and is exactly as unhinged as it sounds. David Bowie, who had been thinking about the visual side of pop for a decade longer than anybody else, was in a commercial peak. The New Romantic acts were at their most stylised.

What it means for the puzzle

1983 is where WTV starts getting easier, because this is where videos start containing single images so distinctive that a fraction of them through heavy static is enough. If something resolves and you immediately think "oh, that one", you are very likely in 1983 or later. The decade's iconography really begins here.

The 1983 videos in WTV

These 33 videos from 1983 appear in the game.

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