Top Chart Pop Songs from the 1980's to present.

1980’s Top pop songs:

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-Cyndi Lauper

Directed by: Alan Metter

The song was originally written and recorded by Robert Hazard in 1979. Cyndi released her re recorded video in 1983.

Girls Just wanna have fun music video is all about portraying the lyrics in the song. Cyndi is seen with all of her friends having fun and talking on the phone and dancing just doing whatever they can to have fun together.

The camera movement following Cyndi and her friends was very interesting. As they walked around the camera often stayed in front of them and moved backwards to progressively move with them. The style of editing also featured a lot of post production editing of the shot being edited. Multiple times the image on screen was actually flipped as if it was a real picture and someone was twirling it around.  There also is a unique transition where the images are in little bubbles and it switches into a polka dot poster that Cyndi is holding.

The storytelling of the music video visually creates the exact story that the song itself is about. Cyndi walking around the streets having a good time with all of her girlfriends. For looks, there is a lot of pink used throughout the video. Pink is the color most commonly associated with girls, so it helps make the overall feel for the video very girly.

1990’s Top Pop Songs:

Wannabe-The Spice Girls

Directed and produced by Matt Rowe Richard Stannard in 1996 while they were signed to a major record label and y  their debut album “Spice”

The overall story is pretty similar to “Girls just wanna have fun”. The spice girls are moving around dancing just having fun with each other and not really caring what other people think. They break into an exclusive party and turn it into way more fun than it actually was when everyone was being all proper.

Like the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” video, the camera films the girls running around and follows this movement. This makes the video very fun and feels like the viewer is there with them. What also helps this video experience is that the girls break the fourth wall and sing directly to the camera which makes it almost interactive. What is really impressive about this music video is that the entire video is shot in one scene. The panning of the camera and following all of the girls around is what allows the video to have different scenes and characters as they move around the building that they’re in.

The style of the way that the video is shot is all in one take and kind of makes it seem like it is chaotic, which matches what is occuring with the Spice Girls perfectly. They’re crashing some exclusive party and basically just causing mayhem at the party. I really like how the girls are just in normal clothes and go in and basically tear this party apart but actually make it way more fun and enjoyable than it was to start with.

2000’s top pop songs

Disturbia-Rihanna

The music video was directed by Anthony Mandler. Disturbia was her third number-one hit on the album, Good Girls Gone Bad. It was written by Chris Brown.

Lyrically, the song is about the experiences of anguish, anxiety and confusion. It portrays Rihanna in various locations such as in a prison cell and gas chamber.

Disturbia is edited in a very interesting way. Most of the shots are distorted and look like they have a glitch. This helps with the feeling of Rihanna going insane and losing her mind since the images look crazy. There are also multiple points when one image will turn into a split screen and have another image faded on top of the split screen. This editing again adds to the chaos that is expressed in the lyrics and moments of the music video leading up until this point.  

In this music video, there is not a lot of camera movement that is shown. The shots are extremely short and constantly move from one image to another very rapidly. The colors for the music video are all very dark and scary-looking. When it is not nearly completely dark, there is often red light or very dark grey or bright foggy orange. The overall storytelling of this music video does an excellent job portraying the idea that Rihanna is losing her mind. She is seen in a cage as well as what looks like an insane asylum. It matches up with the lyrics phenomenally and overall is a very interesting music video to watch.