Let’s return to the fateful day on August 1, 1981, when MTV launched the 80’s era of music. Everyone knows that MTV aired The Buggle’s “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its flagship video. But what was MTV’s second music video, airing without an introduction from VJ Mark Goodman?
Pat Benatar was one of the early American artists who embraced the new format, even though many European acts had been making videos for years. British New Wave bands like Duran Duran and The Police made elaborate, hi concept clips with large budgets. But Americans were slow to warm up to the MTV video gamble.
“You Better Run” was the debut video for Benatar even though the song had been out for more than a year. The cover of the 1966 Young Rascals hit was the lead single off her 1980 album “Crimes of Passion.” The song also appears on the soundtrack for the obscure 1980 film “Roadie,” starring Meat Loaf. She was directed by Nick Saxton, who was just a handful of American directors at the time with video experience; the clip is spare and straightforward. It’s just Benatar and her band rocking out in a warehouse, and as the song builds, she grows angrier and sassier.
That anger was real. Benatar may have embraced the format for promotional purposes, but she didn’t particularly enjoy filming videos per her various interviews. She reportedly didn’t respond to Saxton’s direction, got irritated, and did her own thing. But Benatar would go on to make big splashy videos, particularly the 1983 mega-hit “Love is a Battlefield,” in which she dances!
But for now, witness the beginning of Pat Benatar’s music video legacy: