The Bangles — Walk Like an Egyptian

JUL 01 1986 · 12:00

The Bangles — Walk Like an Egyptian (1986) Director: Gary Weis Era: MTV Golden Era (1986) - Peak mid-80s pop video production coinciding with the height of all-female rock bands on mainstream radio and the dominance of concept-driven MTV clip culture. Exceptionally high. This is a confirmed #1 cultural artifact — the defining visual document of The Bangles' commercial peak, an MTV VMA nominee, and a milestone in gender representation on the Billboard Hot 100. The video's blend of theatrical performance, documentary street footage, and primitive optical effects makes it a rich technical and cultural specimen. Directed by Gary Weis at the height of his MTV-era work, it sits at the intersection of SNL-era observational filmmaking and the fully codified MTV clip format. Context: Released September 1986 as the third single from The Bangles' second album Different Light (Columbia Records), 'Walk Like an Egyptian' reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 20, 1986, holding the position for four weeks and carrying into January 1987. It was the first song by an all-female, self-playing group to top the Hot 100, and Billboard ranked it the #1 song of 1987 in the US. The video's participatory street-choreography concept — ordinary New Yorkers performing the Egyptian pose alongside the band — anticipated later flash-mob aesthetics and exemplified MTV's role in cementing a song's cultural footprint through heavy rotation. The video was nominated for Best Group Video at the 1987 MTV VMAs. Director notes: Directed by Gary Weis; produced by Robert K. Glassenberg (IMVDb). Per an interview with Vicki Peterson reported at 80sxchange.com, production was compressed into a touring schedule: choreography was rehearsed in Florida, while the concert performance segment was shot in New York City. Weis captured street participants in New York in a documentary manner consistent with his SNL short-film methodology. Special effects were used to composite photographs of public figures and the Statue of Liberty into the Egyptian-pose visual motif. Weis confirmed in interview at ink19.com that the iconic Susanna Hoffs side-glance shot was an unplanned capture of her natural focus technique to manage stage fright. The video was nominated for Best Group Video at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards.