Was it the ripe plummy Vincent Price vocal track?
Really. What were the criteria?
The boundary between music and filmmaking? What are they talking about? There was a bloke banging on the piano as soon as flickers began. There's never been any boundary. You'd at least expect people who write up these things to remember "The Wizard of Oz." It had songs and filming, all happening at the same time, and dancing too.
Even if you have total, historical amnesia, "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" came before "Thriller," and each did their part to break down the boundaries, what with the choreography, high production values, and repeated insistence that the chad was not his son.
Oh. My Space. Well. Britney Spears is number 3; "Take On Me," with an animation style never again duplicated except for "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits, made the list; "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel, done in stop-motion animation by a company that also did "Road to Nowhere" by the Talking Heads - and Aardman Studios, the fine bright lads behind Wallace and Grommet, were involved.
Great videos, yes, I think they mean "memorable" or "wicked cool" or "hey, I remember that one coming on that one time and it was cool" instead of influential; the ones that are truly influential are the ones bland enough to be repeated with minor tweaks over and over again. If you have any nominations for the most influential - whatever your definition - have at it in the comments.
