80’s at 8: January 19, 2023- Duran Duran & Gene Loves Jezebel
Tonight’s 80’s at 8 started with 2022 Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame Inductees Duran Duran. “Girls On Film” was the third single released from their self-titled debut album that was released in 1981.
“Girls On Film” was Duran Duran’s Top 10 breakthrough in the UK. The band personally selected the song for release following the failure of its predecessor, “Careless Memories”, which had been chosen by their record company, EMI.
Its popularity provided a major boost to sales of the album. Even though “Girls on Film” did not chart in the US, it became popular after receiving heavy airplay on MTV when the Duran Duran album was re-issued in 1983.
The “Girls On Film” music video was filmed just weeks before MTV was launched in the United States and before anyone knew what an impact the music channel would have on the industry. The band expected the “Girls on Film” video to be played exclusively at nightclubs that had video screens. The raunchy video created an uproar, and it was consequently banned by the BBC and heavily edited for its original run on MTV; the band unabashedly enjoyed and capitalized on the controversy.
A Video 45 for “Girls on Film” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” was released in the United States in March 1983. The VHS-format tape contains the MTV-friendly edited “day version” of “Girls on Film”, while the Betamax and CED Videodisc format contained the original uncensored “night version”. Video 45 won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1984, the first year the Academy gave that award.
You can watch the MTV version of the music video for Girls on Film by Duran Duran here:
The second track came from the 80’s UK Alt Rock Band Gene Loves Jezebel. They are one of my faves! Their song Desire which is from their 1986 album Discover became an MTV favorite along with the other single from the album titled Heartache.
Desire and Heartache became hot on college and counter-culture radio stations. Desire reached #6 on the L.A. new wave radio station KROQ-FM’s Chart. The album reached # 32 on the UK Album chart. Gene Loves Jezebel was founded by two brothers Michael and Jay Aston. They broke up in 1990 Michael went solo and Jay and the rest of the band continued as Gene Loves Jezebel. They did reunite but have broken up and Michael sued Jay and the other band members in 2018 for copyright infringement.
You can check out the music video for Desire by Gene Loves Jezebel here:
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