🎥 EURYTHMICS
It's Alright (Baby's Coming Back) | 1985
PICTURES.
As in moving pictures. An ongoing mini-series.
Skip past the intro blurb in bold, if you’ve read it already.
Love promo music videos. Always have. Especially ones from the 80s and 90s when they really took off in a big way, following the dawn of MTV and the opening explosions of the hyper-corporatised marketing and PR of the global music industry.
A nice counter-product of that was the emergence of lots of colourful and creative visual accompaniments to artists’ work. Even reasonably small-scale and niche ones, by today’s standards.
These promo videos often providing another insight into another dimension of their creativity and/or the creativity of the artists, animators, directors and visual visionaries they worked with on them.
The weirder and more unusual the better on the music video front for me, unsurprisingly.
Going to be posting some favourites on here with a short blurb.
PICTURES #6 - EURYTHMICS - IT’S ALRIGHT (BABY’S COMING BACK)
Eurythmics and Annie Lennox are VERY HARD to beat.
One of the greatest to ever do it. A Top Ten ever artists, in my book.
Wrote a piece on my love of this very subject a year or so back. You can read that here: DOUBLEPLUSGOOD
All their videos were exceptional, progressivist and out-there.
This one is set in an inter-cosmic, futuristic and brightly coloured, surreal world where the band perform the energetic, synth-driven, eccentric pop masterpiece.
Of course it is!
Annie Lennox, with her signature striking appearance, performs with her usual deep, soulful, fierce intensity and playful energy, while Dave Stewart contributes his characteristic cool, odd-ball demeanour. Name a more iconic duo etc.
The vibrant visual style with flashes of abstract imagery, mirrors the song's themes of joy and anticipation. It captures the feeling of someone eagerly awaiting the return of a loved one...
I'll even be your danger sign.
The song and the energetic pace of the video paired with the song's infectious rhythm and groove creates an overall sense of optimism and joyous celebration.
They were pretty good at that.
The video's use of experimental techniques and shots, striking colours and engaging choreography reflects - and betters much of - the quintessential 1980s music video aesthetics, making it both a nice reflection of the era and a timeless expression of excitement and love. Very them.
They won the 1986 Ivor Novello for ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’ for the song.
And I’d find it quite hard to argue with that.
Over to you, you two…
This is also worth a watch from a couple years later.
Interview snippets and some stripped back acoustic live performance vibes at Novello House, London in 1988 around the time of the Savage LP.
Personal best of here: