Rod Stewart — Young Turks

JUL 01 1981 · 12:00

Rod Stewart — Young Turks (1981) Director: Russell Mulcahy Era: MTV Launch Era (1981) - The nascent MTV age when music video became a primary promotional vehicle; one of the channel's earliest flagship clips, released within months of MTV's August 1981 launch and representing the vanguard of the cinematic, narrative-driven music video form. Exceptional. This video sits at a precise and well-documented historical intersection: the birth of MTV, the mainstream debut of street-dance popping on American television, a major artist's genre pivot, and the early career peak of the decade's most influential music video director. Multiple independent sources corroborate its historical firsts, its specific production geography, and its creative personnel. It is a primary archival document for research into early 1980s popular culture, music video form, and the social history of dance. Tier 1 preservation priority. Context: Released within months of MTV's August 1981 launch, 'Young Turks' was among the earliest videos to receive heavy rotation on the nascent channel — at a time when Rod Stewart reportedly accounted for roughly 40 of the approximately 200 videos in MTV's initial rotation. The video is historically significant as the first MTV broadcast to feature street-dance popping, introducing a West Coast street-dance subcultural form to a mass national television audience a full year before breakdancing achieved mainstream visibility through films like Flashdance (1983). Set and shot in downtown Los Angeles — a district then marked by post-industrial grittiness — the video's urban-realist aesthetic contrasts with the concurrent glam-pop artifice dominating early MTV, grounding the song's narrative of youthful freedom and working-class elopement in an authentic geographic and social milieu. The track itself marked a deliberate sonic pivot for Stewart toward synth-pop and new wave, influenced in part by Devo, signalling the broader absorption of post-punk electronic textures into mainstream rock. Director notes: Directed 'Young Turks' in summer 1981; produced by Simon Fields and Paul Flattery; choreographed by Kenny Ortega. Filmed entirely on location in central downtown Los Angeles. Key shooting locations include the area near Licha's Santa Fe Grill (northwest corner of 7th and Santa Fe Streets) and the Hotel Hayward (west corner of 6th and Spring Streets). The video follows a split narrative: a young runaway couple ('Billy' and 'Patti') is juxtaposed against a group of street dancers who intermix with them, culminating in a railway yard performance sequence. Widely documented as the first music video aired on MTV to feature street-dance popping. The video's choreography and dancer integration were a direct expression of early West Coast street dance culture entering mainstream media. Mulcahy's signature fast-cut, location-anchored, narrative-driven style is fully present in this early example of his MTV-era output.