Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Inspired A ’80s Music Video That’s Still Legendary – SlashFilm

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Young MC’s hit single “Bust a Move” was unleashed on the public in May of 1989, and it has been living in Gen-Xers’ brains ever since. Young’s simple rhyming couplets and easy-to-understand flow were perfect for the pop mainstream at the time, and kids all over the nation instantly memorized its lyrics. The single, released by Delicious Vinyl, went platinum (meaning it sold over a million copies), as did the record it was on, “Stone Cold Rhymin’.” The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Young MC was, for the summer of 1989, a big dang deal. 

The narrator of “Bust a Move” describes various situations, one per verse, of how he has trouble meeting women, but ends up winning them over when he busts a move, that is, makes a forthright gesture of romantic or sexual intent. Or dances, perhaps; it’s not wholly clear what it means to bust a move in the context of the song. 

Young MC, however, doesn’t bust any moves, dancing or otherwise, in the “Bust a Move” music video, retaining his status as a detached narrator. He stands in front of the video’s action, facing the audience, reciting what is happening behind him. He was like Rod Serling in “The Twilight Zone,” a comparison that seems intentional. Serling, incidentally, hated narrating “The Twilight Zone.”

The “narrator”-style music video was the idea of Delicious Vinyl co-founder Mike Ross, who felt that Young MC wasn’t very charismatic as a performer. He was no Tone Lōc. Both Ross and Young recalled the decision to turn Young MC into Rod Serling — quite directly — in the pop history book “I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution” by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks. 

“Bust a Move” was structured around a sample from the 1970 funk song “Found a Child” by Ballin’ Jack, and the drum beat was taken from Royalclash’s “Radio Activity.” The song’s percussion breakdown was a sample of “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band. Weirdly, the male “ah ooh” during the breakdown was a pitched-down sample of Bette Midler from her song “Daytime Hustler.” The website WhoSampled is handy for this kind of information. Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers helped out with some additional bass riffs. Even if the rhyme structure is simple and Dr. Seuss-like, the song is still funky and catchy. 

It was important for Delicious Vinyl and Young MC to turn “Bust a Move” into a hit music video, as they were already rolling high thanks to a hit from the previous year and wanted the success to continue. In the “I Want My MTV” book, Young was quoted as saying: 

“The idea was to have me in the foreground, narrating the song like Rod Serling from ‘The Twilight Zone,’ and in the background to show the characters as I was speaking about them. It was one of the most literal videos ever shot. ‘Bust a Move’ was a juggernaut. It was on the charts for 40 weeks, which was pretty much unprecedented.”

Mike Ross was the one who admitted that “Bust a Move” wasn’t as good as “Wild Thing” and that Young MC was “a little awkward in front of the camera,” which led to a video full of physical movement … from people other than Young MC. 

Mike Ross also recalled all the drama surrounding the shooting of the “Bust a Move” music video. The video’s star vocalist, Lisa Ann, was dating Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys at the time, and it seems they were going through a lot of drama; she was crying on set, and she was always on the phone with Adam. Ross doesn’t recall if Yauch was upset with her because she was in the “Bust a Move” video, or what. 

As many rock historians may know — and this was mentioned in the recent Michael Jackson biopic “Michael” — MTV was notorious for not playing any Black artists on its channel. MTV was becoming a fulcrum for the pop music scene and the rise of New Wave, but they never played Black artists. Michael Jackson’s popularity forced them to start doing so. By 1989, Black artists were frequently featured on the channel, and hip hop began to be part of the rotation. That was certainly true in the wake of “Bust a Move” and “Wild Thing,” about which Ross said: 

“After ‘Wild thing,’ MTV want to start spiking hip-hop videos. And we gave them Black artists they could play. Our videos weren’t super-safe like ‘Parents Just Don’t Understand,’ but it’s not anything they were going to take s*** for playing, like N.W.A.”

“Parents Just Don’t Understand” was, of course, the ultra-kid-friendly 1988 track from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, a.k.a. Will Smith, an artist so sanitized that he inspired a mainstream sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” “Bust a Move” wasn’t exactly edgy, but it was a sight more adult than “Parents.”