I remember flipping through channels one lazy afternoon in 1981, landing on something completely new. Music Television. MTV.

At first, I didn’t quite get it. Why would anyone want to watch music when you could just listen to it? But within minutes, I was hooked.

Those early videos weren’t just promotional clips, they were miniature films that added whole new dimensions to songs I thought I already knew.

Now, more than four decades later, certain songs from that era still stop me in my tracks.

Not just because of nostalgia (though there’s plenty of that), but because they captured something genuine about that moment in time. They give me chills in the way only truly great art can.

Let me share ten of them with you.

1) “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles

This was MTV’s very first video, and looking back, the irony is almost too perfect.

Here was a song about technology making old media obsolete, launching a channel that would transform the entire music industry. I didn’t appreciate that meta quality at the time. I just thought it was catchy.

But every time I hear those opening synthesizer notes now, I get a shiver. It’s like standing at a historical crossroads without realizing it. The song itself is melancholic when you really listen to the lyrics about nostalgia and change, themes that resonate even more deeply as you get older.

The Buggles captured something true: every generation watches their world transform, and there’s beauty and loss in that transformation.

2) “Thriller” by Michael Jackson

I’ll be honest, the first time I saw the full “Thriller” video, it scared the daylights out of me. And I was a grown man at the time!

That fourteen-minute short film directed by John Landis changed what a music video could be. It wasn’t just a performance, it was cinema. The production value, the choreography, the makeup effects, it all came together into something that transcended the medium.

What gives me chills now isn’t the horror elements, though they’re still effective. It’s watching Michael Jackson at the absolute peak of his powers, moving with a precision and grace that seemed almost supernatural.

You can see in that video why he became the biggest star in the world. Pure talent, captured on film.

3) “Take On Me” by a-ha

The rotoscoped animation in this video blew my mind. Still does, actually.
Watching a real woman get pulled into a pencil-sketch world felt magical in 1985, and it feels magical now.

The technology has advanced beyond recognition since then, but there’s something about hand-drawn animation that computer effects can’t quite replicate.

And that song! That impossible high note that Morten Harket hits makes the hair on my arms stand up every single time. It shouldn’t be humanly possible, but there it is.

Certain songs become time machines. This one transports me instantly to being young, when everything felt possible and the future seemed drawn in bold, optimistic lines.

4) “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses

That opening guitar riff is probably Slash’s most recognizable work, and for good reason.

I remember watching this video with my oldest daughter Sarah, who was just a teenager at the time. She rolled her eyes at the big hair and the leather, but even she couldn’t deny that the song itself was something special.

What gets me now is Axl Rose’s raw vocal performance. There’s a vulnerability underneath all that rock star swagger. When he sings about that sweet child of his, you can hear real emotion, not just attitude.

The video itself is pretty straightforward, just the band performing. But sometimes that’s all you need when the music is strong enough to carry everything on its own.

5) “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits

The computer animation in this video looks primitive now, almost laughably so. But in 1985, it was cutting-edge, and it perfectly matched the song’s commentary on the music industry.

Mark Knopfler’s guitar work gives me chills every time that main riff kicks in. It’s deceptively simple but incredibly powerful. And the lyrics, sung from the perspective of a working-class guy watching MTV and resenting these rock stars, added layers of irony to the whole enterprise.

I was that working-class guy watching MTV, so the song hit close to home. Though I’ll admit, I didn’t always appreciate being called out like that.

6) “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel took claymation and stop-motion animation to places nobody had seen before with this video.

I must have watched it a hundred times, trying to figure out how they achieved certain effects. Gabriel’s face morphing, the dancing fruit, the steam train bursting from his head. It was surreal and captivating and unlike anything else on MTV.

But beneath all that visual wizardry is a genuinely great soul song with a horn section that makes you want to move. Gabriel’s voice has this quality that sounds both powerful and vulnerable at the same time.

The combination of innovative visuals and solid musicianship represents everything that was exciting about MTV in its prime.

7) “Like a Prayer” by Madonna

This video caused a genuine controversy, and I remember the debates raging about whether it was blasphemous or artistic.

Looking back now, it’s clearly artistic. Madonna has always been willing to push boundaries and make people uncomfortable, and this video’s religious imagery combined with themes of racism and injustice was bold for 1989.

What gives me chills is the gospel choir. That moment when the song builds and those voices come in, it’s transcendent. Whatever you think about

Madonna as a person or performer, she understood how to create moments that felt spiritually powerful.

And that’s not easy to do in a three-minute pop song.

8) “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.

Michael Stipe’s voice has always had this aching quality to it, but “Losing My Religion” captured something particularly vulnerable.

The video, with its religious iconography and intimate close-ups, matched the song’s exploration of unrequited feelings and desperation. It felt confessional in a way that a lot of music videos didn’t.

That mandolin riff is instantly recognizable, and hearing it now takes me back to a specific time in my early fifties when I was going through my own period of self-reflection. The song spoke to that feeling of reaching out and not being heard, of feeling exposed and uncertain.

Some songs age well because they capture universal emotions rather than specific trends. This is one of them.

9) “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses

At nearly nine minutes long, this video was an epic production with a wedding, a funeral, and Slash playing guitar in the desert for some reason.

It’s over the top. It’s melodramatic. It’s everything that grunge music would rebel against just a year later. And I absolutely love it.

That piano intro still gives me goosebumps. Axl Rose was aiming for something grand and emotional, and he achieved it. The song builds and builds until that guitar solo kicks in, and suddenly you’re transported.

I played this at my daughter Emma’s wedding, much to her embarrassment. But when that piano started, I saw a few other folks my age get a little misty-eyed. We remembered when this felt like the most important song in the world.

10) “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana

This video announced that everything had changed.

Gone were the big production values and the aspirational glamour of 80s MTV. Here was a high school gym, flickering lights, and a band that looked like they’d rather be anywhere else. It was anti-spectacle, which made it spectacular.

Kurt Cobain’s howl of teenage angst and confusion spoke to something real.

Even though I was well past my teenage years when this came out, I could feel the raw emotion. The frustration. The sense that something was wrong with the world but you couldn’t quite articulate what.

That opening guitar riff is one of the most recognizable in rock history now, and hearing it still makes my heart beat a little faster. It reminds me that music has the power to shift culture, to give voice to feelings we didn’t know we had.

Conclusion

MTV doesn’t really exist as it once did, and maybe that’s okay. Everything changes, just like The Buggles told us it would.

But these ten songs, and so many others from that era, they’re still here. Still giving me chills.

Still transporting me back to specific moments and feelings and versions of myself I’d almost forgotten.

What songs from MTV’s early days still affect you that way?