Music Videos on DVD

First music videos aired on MTV

My family didn't get cable until 1992, so watching (and taping) Classic Mtv hosted by John Norris which ran on Mtv throughout the early-mid nineties (which, at least at one point, aired twice a day at Noon and 6pm) was my way of playing catch-up on the last 11 years of Music Television.
Prior to being emblazoned with the "Classic Mtv" moniker, I believe it was named Flashback Mtv. One episode which I have on tape under the Flashback Mtv banner is hosted by Karyn Bryant, though I'm not sure if she was the regular host or just a fill-in for John Norris.
It's not like I'd never seen music videos before, but previously that had been relegated to visiting friends places. As a matter of fact I can still remember as a kid going over to visit a friends house a block away to watch Michael Jackson's Thriller video for the first time.



I cataloged my VHS tapes containing the program 'Classic Mtv' (aired in 1992-93) and it came out to 22 hours and 378 music videos.
Unfortunately all recorded in SLP so the quality is crap.
I was actually surprised at how few times most of the videos were repeated. At the top was a tie - 4 times each for Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady" and Peter Gabriel's "Shock The Monkey".
Most videos by one artist? Madonna at 12 separate videos.
Most curious exclusion? Not one video by Michael Jackson. Also, no Weird Al.


So, are there any DVD compilations of eighties music videos out there?
Surprisingly, Mtv is an absentee landlord when it comes to publishing their history on media available to the commercial marketplace. It's also become increasingly difficult to find any of the main Mtv networks airing older music videos. Perhaps they've now relegated all of that content to the VH1 Classic network.

I did a little digging so I'll answer my own question;
Apparently there are a couple DVD compilations out there containing music videos from the 1980's, like the DVD Pure 80's containing 14 videos

the Essential Music Videos DVD series which contain 6 videos each

and the 20th Century Master DVD series which contain 5 videos each.


Most economical would be the 4-DVD MTV 20 Collection (1981-2001) which contains a total of 52 videos for $24.99 on Amazon

or the 3-DVD Pure 80's Ultimate which contains a total of 45 music videos for $35.49 on Amazon.


Still, your best bet would be to track down a particular artist's merchandise for DVDs of their video catalog.

These are two which I own that contain all the music videos from each respective musical group.

Music videos from the late seventies/eighties from lesser known musical outfits? YouTube.