The Three Best Comeback Videos of the 80s as Featured on YouTube

Let's Dance - David Bowie
With this Nile Rodgers-produced song, his first hugely commercial hit, David Bowie completely departed from his earlier body of work (and his coke addiction) by venturing into synth pop. Tanned and looking androgynous as usual but somehow hotter than hell, Bowie's simple lyrics contrast with the images in the video. This should not surprise students of early 80s music video. Why does an atomic bomb go off when the young aboriginal girl puts on the red shoes? The shoes dance her to a crappy job scrubbing city streets on her hands and knees until she and her machinist beau can at last afford an American Express card. Ah, but it was all a fevered dream as the floating head of David Bowie shows us in the end. Don't miss the extra special effects during the guitar solo. What is it with rich rock stars and their anti-capitalism videos?

What's Love Got to Do With It - Tina Turner
It's got nothing to do with dumping Ike and launching a hugely successful solo career. Ms Turner's supreme legs carry her strutting through city streets. She pauses only to break it down one time, several times, each time dismissing her admirers and moving on. The city scenes are intercut with her singing into the camera while wearing a wig one cubic foot in volume. She almost becomes involved with her surroundings while breaking up a couple who is dance fighting, but then languidly walks away. I remember a big deal made at the time about how good she looked for being so ancient (she was only 45!) I also remember that for some reason my mother banned MTV for the first time because of this song, but we kept watching it anyway with the babysitter.

Walk this Way - Aerosmith featuring Run DMC

In the quintessential comeback video, Steven Tyler made young kids everywhere wonder question the identity of the ugly guy with the big mouth. Symbolically breaking down the wall between old rock and new rap, Tyler thrust his mug through the wall into the sound stage next door and ushered in the era of rap-rock or rapcore as the kids call it. At first quarreling due to different styles, the two groups cut a rug on stage at the end of the clip to the adoration of both sets of fans. Without this watershed musical pairing there would arguably be no Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Slipknot, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Papa Roach or 311. Aerosmith had actually been defunct for several years when the music video era brought them to phenomenal comeback success in the 80s and 90s.