John Richards

The music video for "Synchronicity II" was directed by Godley & Creme, a duo that would go on to make some of the other best music videos of the decade and especially the early par of the '80s. Prior to this they had directed Duran Duran "Girls on Film", Asia "Heat of the Moment", Elton John "Kiss the Bride", Herbie Hancock "Rockit" and Yes "Leave It"." -- The parts of the video with the band were filmed at a sound stage on the outskirts of London. Each band member was dressed in futuristic dystopian outfits and had his own tower about 25 feet tall built out of scaffolding and elements of each of their own instruments - guitars, drums, keyboards, microphones, speakers and miscellaneous equipment intermixed - while debris and garbage are blowing about. Read more and see the video here: www.80sxchange.com

This won the first-ever Video of the Year award at MTV's Video Music Awards. It beat out "Thriller" by Michael Jackson and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit," among others. The video was very advanced for the time and was one of the first to use computerized effects. Singer/guitarist Ric Ocasek's image appeared in various animated scenes - he would show up as a fly, climbing the Empire State Building, just about anywhere to get the attention of the girl. The object of his affection was played by model Susan Gallagher.: www.youtube.com

"One Thing Leads to Another" was in heavy rotation on MTV when the network was picking up steam, giving The Fixx a great deal of exposure stateside along with acts like Duran Duran and Eurythmics. The song is well-remembered by early MTV viewers, and the song is included on many 1980s compilation albums and continues to get substantial radio airplay today.: www.youtube.com --- The Fixx lead singer/lyricist Cy Curnin reminisced about MTV's impact in the book "MTV Ruled the World - The Early Years of Music Video": "First time i watched MTV, it was early morning. It was refreshing to see a video instead of a cheesy infomercial or a Bible-bashing preacher. Kids for once had their own channel to start the day. It was the first 'national' music station, too, so a hit was a hit nationwide at the same time."

Most of the effects and the bass line were made with a Moog synthesizer. At the time, this was no easy task. Said Dolby: "When I started out writing songs, synthesizers were still quite a rarified luxury. They were quite hard to get hands on and quite hard to operate. And when you did, there was still quite a lot of resistance in the mainstream to music made electronically. And so that was a natural place for me to be, because I wanted to be challenged and stimulated like that. But over the years, the whole realm of our choices become more democratized, shall we say, to the extent that on your iPhone today for a few bucks you can probably have more powerful synthesizers and samplers than I had in my entire studio back in the early '80s." -- Did you know that Thomas Dolby is now on the faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University? Here he is, in the original video for "...Science": www.youtube.com

Here's a link to the 252 videos that comprised MTV's Broadcast Feed on Live Aid in 1985 (It includes promos and ad breaks.): www.youtube.com

The synth which Van Halen used in “Jump” is an Oberheim OB-Xa. This machine uses polyphonic, substractive synthesis to generate its sounds. (Whew!) Go here to learn about the sound design of the signature riff in this tune: medium.com -- Then, take a break from your study by watching the official video for "Jump": www.youtube.com

This is a rap version of an Aerosmith song from 1975. Run-D.M.C. stumbled across this song during a search for breakbeats to use during DJ sets in the early '80s. They didn't know who Aerosmith were and thought the band was called Toys In The Attic because that was the album title. Rick Rubin, who was producing Raising Hell, was a huge fan of Aerosmith and suggested to Jam Master Jay that he call Joe Perry to ask if he and Steven Tyler would play on their cover version.: www.biography.com -- The song was a huge commercial success and became the first rap song played on mainstream rock radio. It also revived Aerosmith's career.: www.theguardian.com