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.
In some respects, this is no surprise, because virtually anything committed to film or video can and usually does wind up on YouTube, from the Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy s assassination (yep, it s there) to Britney Spears latest up-skirt misadventure (No.1 in traffic on Friday, with more than 400,000 views).
But 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 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.
Today, music is so dominated by hip-hop and indie crap and country that good old pop and silly hair-metal seems like a relief.
You can argue with Sullivan s verdict on today s music, but he does have a firm grasp on the appeal of the oldies. For the past few weeks, his blog has been running an immensely popular recurring feature on the best and worst 80s videos.
It emerged from the YouTube phenomenon, he wrote in an e-mail. The response has been overwhelming. Hundreds of them far more than I could easily handle.
And the emotions provoked by them are quite intense.
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 playing a role as de facto syndicators of old off-network programming like music videos, not to mention original stuff generated by users.
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