25 Year-Old Music Video Marked a Defining Moment in Music Promos

On October 19, 1985, Norwegian band A-ha hit No. 1 with "Take on Me," a bloopy synth-pop song with a dangerously memorable keyboard line. Twenty-five years later, as the band prepares for its final concerts (A-ha is calling it quits after a trio of Oslo shows in early December) the song has caught on with a new generation, thanks largely to the enduring appeal of its quirky, half-animated music video in which a young woman reading a comic book joins the handsome protagonist in its newsprint pages for a brief adventure.

The famous video, however, like the version of the song we're familiar with today, was actually a second take. The band originally cut a less-electro rendition that was inspired by the Doors. "Ray Manzarek was hugely influential; he brought classical music into pop," keyboardist Magne Furuholmen told . "Manzarek's almost mathematical but very melodic, structured way of playing the keyboard was a huge influence in how I approached my instrument." However, the first cut of the song and its video (see below) were a flop.
A-ha band members convinced their label to let them return to the studio with producer Alan Tarney (Squeeze, Cliff Richard) to give it a second try. When they emerged with a brighter, poppier take of "Take on Me," Warner Bros. wanted to find a way to promote the band - "These young good-looking guys from Norway with a good pop song," the video's director, Steve Barron, recalls for the BBC - and handed Barron a generous budget and creative control. Barron had previously worked on Madonna's "Burning Up" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" videos, and his credits include a handful more of the '80s most indelible hits - the Human League's "Don't You Want Me," Toto's "Africa," and Culture Club's "It's a Miracle" - along with another iconic animated clip, for Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing." According to the BBC, the label connected Barron with animator Mike Patterson on the strength of a five-minute short that Patterson had made in school.

"Commuter" depicted a businessman navigating taxis and trains in a flickering, black-and-white, comic-book style that Patterson achieved via rotoscoping: drawing over live action frame by frame. He performed the same feat for "Take on Me," sketching 3,000 pictures over the course of 16 weeks on film shot of the band and actors and featured the fleeting, black-and-white living comic book style that was to become Take On Me's calling card. “Rotoscoping uses live action motion but my drawing style anyway was very loose and sketchy - no-one had really drawn anything like that style before," says Patterson, 53, now an animation lecturer at the University of Southern California.The final video - a love story crammed into 3 minutes and 45 seconds - became a mainstay on then 4-year-old MTV, and picked up six trophies at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. "I have no doubt that the video made the song a hit," Furuholmen told Rolling Stone. "The song has a super catchy riff, but it is a song that you have to hear a few times. And I don't think it would've been given the time of day without the enormous impact of the video."
The cartoonish clip inspired Dustin McLean to make a "literal version" of the video in 2008, in which he sang lyrics describing the video's action in a surprisingly convincing approximation of frontman Morten Harket's vocals ("Close up eyes/hand comes out/sketchy arm/grab the hand!"). Furuholmen admitted to Rolling Stone that he thought the reimagined short was "fantastic": "The lyrics make so much more sense than the one we have!"

Essence Hires White Fashion Director Perplexing Some

Should Essence, one of very few magazines exclusively for black women, have hired a white fashion editor? After debate on this question recently simmered online, Editor In Chief Angela Burt-Murray defended her decision as a color-blind merit pick.   She also noted that when the magazine covers issues possibly more substantive than an editor's race, the public reaction is generally "crickets" (or, as translated by my people, "bupkes").
"Black Girls For Sale," in the October issue, is an example of the meatier journalism Burt-Murray references: a case history of how police and prosecutors worked to bring a pimp in Oakland, Calif. (known for a thriving sex trade that targets young black women) to justice. It's a powerful investigative piece, matched in its seriousness by last February issue's report on black men's sexual tourism in the Dominican Republic, and a March package  on education, which includes case histories of top teachers and a cover interview with President Obama.
Surrounding these thoughtful articles are many features standard to garden-variety women's magazines. So, yes, you'll find "55 Makeup Tips To Beat The Heat" and other perfectly competent beauty, fashion and celeb pieces. It can make for a jarring juxtaposition, with "10 Of the Sexiest Men You've Ever Seen" followed by a profile of "The Toughest Woman In Detroit," prosecutor Kym Worthy.  Is Essence perhaps trying to do too many things at once -- to be Cosmo as well as The Atlantic?
The magazine's real strength lies in serving its target market with subjects covered almost nowhere else, like a "Single Mom's Money Guide" and a piece on preventing serious health conditions that affect African-American women more than others. July's six-page pictorial, "Why I [heart] being a black woman," celebrates happy facts that include "we have so many different hues and have so many different hair textures" and "we're in the White House." Nicely empowering.
In July's "My Blind Date Diary," author Demetria Lucas expresses a hard-headed and yet still vulnerable voice: excellent qualities for anyone looking for romance. She sets clear boundaries, like “a one kid max rule for anyone I date,” yet are willing to give a guy a second chance even if there's little initial chemistry.
OK, so maybe Essence, like most women's magazines, has too many cosmetics advertisers and can't go too deep into particular issue. But a hit-you-in-the-guts blend of the personal and investigative could be a good direction for the pub to consider -- a way to bridge the gap between fluff and serious journalism. That might even bring more visibility for Essence -- and defeat the "crickets" reaction bemoaned by its editor.