1984

1984 has more videos in WTV than any other year, and that is not a quirk of curation. It is a fair reflection of what was happening.

The industry had fully absorbed the lesson. Every significant single now got a video, videos got real budgets, and the people making them were increasingly people who could actually direct. MTV had grown from a struggling curiosity into something a record label could not afford to be absent from.

The Video Music Awards

MTV held its first Video Music Awards in September 1984, which was a statement of intent: the video was now a thing that could be judged as work, with categories and winners, rather than an advert. The ceremony is chiefly remembered for Madonna performing "Like A Virgin" in a wedding dress, rolling around a stage in a way that caused precisely the reaction she intended, and establishing a template for VMA performances that has never really been abandoned.

Everything at once

The year is remarkable for how much of it is still familiar. Prince released Purple Rain, an album with a film attached, blurring the line between video and cinema in a way nobody had quite managed before. Van Halen's "Jump" was a straightforward performance video that worked purely on David Lee Roth's willingness to behave like that in front of a camera. Frankie Goes To Hollywood had a banned single and a career built substantially on being provocative on purpose. Band Aid ended the year and pointed at what 1985 was going to be about.

What it means for the puzzle

With 41 videos, 1984 is the year you are most likely to encounter in the daily game, so it repays knowing well.

The good news is that these are, on average, the most readable videos in the catalogue through static. Big saturated colours, strong central compositions, faces framed clearly, one memorable image per video. The production values are high enough to give you real visual information early, and the visual ideas are strong enough to be identifiable from a fragment.

The 1984 videos in WTV

These 41 videos from 1984 appear in the game.

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