I’ve decided to start a new type of post that we’ll run semi-regularly, especially on days like today where there is nothing all that interesting to talk about in the sports world.  For while sports may sometimes leave us straining to find interesting topics to discuss during the dog days of summer, there is one subject, one era for which we could never run out of topics to lampoon and laugh at remember with great nostalgia.

I am speaking, of course, about the 1980s.  

I entered this world during the second calendar year of the 1908s, and amazingly we are now nearly two complete decades removed from the final year of this gloriously awful 10-year period.  So let’s take a trip down memory lane this morning and remember two of the most cheesy and god awful successful and memorable music videos of the 1980s: “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey.

First, let’s watch the videos…as if you couldn’t just close your eyes and replay them in your head on command.

Unfortunately, and I just realized this, both videos have embedding disabled on YouTube…which totally sucks. So instead of embedding them, I’ve taken two awesome screen shots and linked them to the YouTube pages where you can watch the videos. I suggest you do so now. (Be careful doing so if you are at work though…you may have trouble concentrating for the rest of the day.)

Click the picture of Rick Astley to watch the video for “Never Gonna Give You Up”

Click the picture of Steve Perry to watch the video for “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”

Now that we’ve re-watched the two videos, let’s break down which one is better.

Reasons Why “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley is better:

Oh my, there are so many.

First and foremost, (1) we have to give Astley props for the concept of “RickRolling.” Truth be told, I just found out about this last night while researching this post. Not sure how I missed it, but it’s an awesome concept. Basically, people post a link that is supposed to go somewhere you’d be interested in, but link you to the “Never Gonna Give You Up” video instead.

That might be the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of.

And it’s been great for keeping this sublime little piece of 80s lore relevant. Did you notice the number of views on the “Never Gonna Give You Up” video? Over 18 million. (2) According to Wikipedia, the combined total views on the many different versions of the video on YouTube is over 39 million.  Crazy.  Not even the great Steve Perry can top that for a single video.

Additionally, (3) “Never Gonna Give You Up” came out in 1987.  That is the same year that Indiana won their last national championship in basketball, on Keith Smart’s memorable baseline jumpshot (in the air…GOOD!) in the closing seconds.  I thought about comparing these two videos for “Greatest Moment in 80s History”, but then I remembered that “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” was still out there.  So Keith and the Hoosiers will have to settle for a 3rd place finish.

“Never Gonna Give You Up” was also recently immortalized in a great scene from Family Guy in which Peter and Brian go back in time in a spoof of the first Back to the Future movie.  During the dance scene, (4) Brian plays “Never Gonna Give You Up” where Marty McFly played “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry in B2TF.  It led to one of my favorite TV show lines to randomly quote out of context:

“Hey Rick, it’s your cousin Marvin.  Marvin Astley.  You know that mediocre, generic sound you’ve been looking for?  Well listen, to this!”

Below is the video from the Family Guy episode, only its sped up double-time…which makes it even funnier. Come to think of it, Someone needs to the post “Never Gonna Give You Up” in double-time one of these days.

Moving on, an underrated reason why “Never Gonna Give You Up” trumps “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” is that (5) Rick Astley himself conjures up so many hilarious celebrity comparisons. If you’re ever at a party and you hear a Rick Astley song, all of the following are good for a hearty guffaw from the people you’re with:

• “Man, what’s up with that guy? He looks like the love child of Zack Morris and Archie Andrews (from the Archie comics).
• “So that’s what Cam Cameron did before getting into coaching.”
• “Every time I get to the end of this video I halfway expect Astley to do a David Caruso and pull of his sunglasses CSI:Miami-style then say something like ‘That was a music video…80s style.”

Other feathers in the cap of “Never Gonna Give You Up: Rick Astley’s dance moves (6) are the definition of “white guy rhythm”…tell me you’ve ever seen arm gyrations that more are more perfectly expressive of a song…and his matching denim get-up in the picture above (7) is only a few undone buttons away from being straight out of a Kelly Kapowski daydream.

And finally, Astley has incredible supporting characters in “Never Gonna Give You Up”.  There’s (8) the bartender who is so excited to be included in the video that he ends up following Astley outside, taking off his pants, and jumping into a fence.  And there is also (9) the cross between Rod Belding and Vanilla Ice with the killer dance moves who spontaneously breaks out into exuberant whiteboy breakdancing.

All in all, a truly amazing video.  But is it better than “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey?

Reasons Why “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey is better:

To help settle this debate, I decided to get an outside perspective.  I asked Trey Parker and Matt Stone if they like Steve Perry or Rick Astley better.  You can probably imagine their response:

And, of course, Journey gets bonus points because (2) Rick Astley never was introduced by Hawk Harrelson to help the White Sox celebrate a World Series victory:

But now let’s get to the specifics of the video. While Rick Astley’s side-to-side shuffle with his expressive arm movements is inspiring, it pales in comparison to (3) the choreographed intensity of Journey.  (By the way, this video doesn’t autoplay like the Astley one, but just hit play and it will start from the correct timestamp.)  Plus, we have to (4) give Steve Perry credit for being so intense about this song that he simply cannot sing it without dramatically closing his eyes.  I never felt that same sense of passion and commitment from Rick Astley.

And what is Rick Astley doing now? (No, he’s not this guy, although they might have the same choreographer.) Journey, on the other hand, (5) is still alive and kicking, and amazingly they found a new lead singer that literally sounds exactly like Steve Perry:

The song title also (6) gives Journey an edge. As we all remember from the 80s, songs that include a portion of their title in parentheses are just better and more important than songs that don’t. Remember Cutting Crew and “(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight?”  Seriously, if you made a song in the 80s and it didn’t have parentheses in the title, it just wasn’t that cool.

I keep getting sidetracked.  Back to the video itself.  In certain shots, like in the screenshot to the right, (7) you can’t tell whether or Steve Perry is a man or a woman.  It’s a combination of the hair, the mom jeans, the goofy sleeveless shirt, and the way he’s standing.  Let’s see pretty boy Astley pull off that kind of misdirection.

And “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” features a (8) quintessential 80s haircut and dramatic editing techniques that keep you on the edge of your seat.  Plus, according to legend, it was so cold while they were filming the video that Steve Perry was seen “retreating to his camper on-site to keep warm.”  This (9) makes his insistence on wearing the sleeveless shirt all the more admirable and impressive.

So far it looks like we are tied. Nine reasons for each video why it is better than other.  What shall we use as the tie-breaker?  

How about letting the songs themselves decide it.  

And if that’s the case, Journey smashes Rick Astley hands down.  Say what you will about the video for “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”, and it is quite possibly the cheesiest 4-and-a-half minutes in music history, but it’s still a pretty good song.  If you’re driving and it comes on, you know you’re turning it up and singing right along with Steve Perry.  If “Never Gonna Give You Up” comes on without the video to laugh at, you’re changing the station immediately (if you don’t just drive yourself off the road first).

So in our first 80s Faceoff, the video for “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” by Journey narrowly edges out the video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.  What do you think?

80s Facebook: Which is the better quintessential 80s music video?

• "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley
• "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" by Journey

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