Music video? Look to Web

HOLLYWOOD -- When it first came out in 1981, Duran Duran's video for "Girls on Film," with nude models strutting down catwalks and rolling around in mud, was a little too racy even for MTV. But you can see the once-banned six-minute clip in all its unexpurgated glory on YouTube.

You also, if you're of a certain age and cast of mind, can relive your youth by punching up videos by Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and every other pop singer who made the '80s so (pick your adjective) memorable, laughable or loathsome.

Increasingly, the video-sharing site, bought this year by Internet leviathan Google Inc., is becoming a nostalgia machine for graying grown-ups who wistfully recall the giddy rise of MTV and who had grown worried that they'd never again see the video of Richie's 1984 smash "Hello," in which he soulfully, if inexplicably, lip-syncs the chorus to a blind young woman.

Andrew Sullivan, a conservative commentator whose popular politics-and-culture blog (time.blogs.com/daily_dish/) is affiliated with Time magazine's Web site, said the videos from the Reagan-era vault "appeal to my generation -- mid-30s to mid-40s -- who came of age then and miss pop."

For the last few weeks, his blog has been running an immensely popular recurring feature on the best and worst '80s videos. "The response has been overwhelming," he wrote in e-mail.

VH1 figured this out a long time ago, doing well with clip shows such as "I Love the '80s" and "100 Greatest Songs of the '80s." "The '80s stuff always seems to resonate," said VH1 Executive Vice President Rick Krim. "It's a time that didn't take itself too seriously."

The trend is about more, however, than 40-year-olds getting misty-eyed over the video for Phil Collins' "Sussudio." YouTube-ification offers a snapshot of how the Internet continues to upend the media world and influence cultural memory.

MTV and VH1, which owe their existence to the video boom, have long since branched out well beyond videos and serve up original programming with only a tangential relationship to music, such as "My Super Sweet 16" and "Flavor of Love."

YouTube and similar sites, meanwhile, are beginning to play a role as de facto syndicators of old "off-network" programming like music videos, not to mention original stuff generated by users. Indeed, music videos are particularly ripe for exploitation on YouTube. When Google purchased the company in October, deals were cut with major record labels that cleared the way for many videos to run without fear of litigation from copyright holders.

"Kids' predominant venue for music videos is not MTV anymore," said Marc Webb, a prolific director who has overseen videos for top rock bands such as including, My Chemical Romance and Weezer. "It's YouTube or Yahoo or Launch."

The rock group OK Go choreographed an elaborate dance on treadmills for a video of its song "Here It Goes Again"; the clip was viewed by more than 1 million users in less than a week on YouTube last summer. According to Webb, when MTV balked at the sex-education theme for the video "Gettin' Enough," teenage rocker Lil Chris packed the clip off to the Internet. "After two days, it had 70,000 hits," Webb said. "That song had a whole life outside MTV."