I was a child of the 1980s and the era when MTV actually played music videos.  I know that seems alien to my kids now, and they groan every time I switch the television to MTV Classic, but there were a lot of good songs that came out of that era as well as good music videos.

When dealing with compilation collections, it’s often hit-and-miss.  There might be one or two good videos and the rest filler.  Sometimes the promotional material lists the artists, then once the DVD is in I find out that the videos are some of their more obscure ones rather than the mainstream hit I was expecting.

The Pure 80’s series has been pretty decent in terms of content.  This DVD, Pure 80’s: Headbangers Rule! is a good selection of hair bands and heavy-metal artists from the golden age of music videos.  These aren’t the huge names of the era such as Ozzy Osbourne or Motley Crue.  Those artists have the clout to issue their own video collections.  These are some of the lesser-known artists many of who didn’t get the airplay those who made headlines did.

The main fault I had with the DVD is that it hasn’t been remastered and therefore the picture isn’t all that great.  Most of the videos I can find on Youtube with comparable quality.  That said, the selection here was pretty good and I enjoyed watching the DVD.


By far, most of the videos are performance pieces by the hair bands of the 1980s.  There are a few exceptions.  Rainbow’s Street of Dreams is a surprisingly well-done video with a cohesive storyline.  Rock You Like a Hurricane was one in heavy rotation on MTV with the Scorpions doing their usual bit against the oppressiveness of Communism in East Germany. Here they are rocking out the crowd much to the chagrin of oppressors. Throw in some scantily-clad made-up women and a steel cage and you’ve got the perfect heavy-metal video.

Many of them, though, are just a blend of incoherent images, such as Summertime Girls which seems like an excuse for the band to ogle scantily-clad models with big hair.  The more obscure artists like Y&T and Yngwie Malmsteem seem to see the video as a way of showing the audience who they are rather than crafting something around the song.  That’s fine for what it is, but as someone who really appreciated what MTV had to offer, watching performance video after performance video became monotonous by the end of this disc.

I didn’t think Pure 80’s: Headbangers Rule! was bad, but I don’t know that I would advise someone to buy it.  If there’s a video on the list that you think you have to have, check out Youtube first and I’d only recommend buying it if there’s something here you really want and can’t find elsewhere.  Had they actually remastered the collection and improved the quality, especially of the video portion, I could see a case being made to purchase it.


List:

Street of Dreams – Rainbow
Holy Diver – Dio
Rock You Like a Hurricane – Scorpions
Summertime Girls – Y&T
Shake Me – Cinderella
10,000 Lovers (In One) – TNT
I Don’t Believe in Love – Queensryche
Get It On – Kingdom Come
Heaven Tonight – Yngwie Malmsteem
Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go to School Today) – Extreme
Walkin’ Shoes – Tora Tora
Once Bitten, Twice Shy – Great White
Someone Like You – Bang Tango
Never Enough – L.A. Guns
Epic – Faith No More