September 11. 1987
Universal Amphitheater Los Angeles
MTV Music Video Awards

The 1987 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on September 11, 1987, honoring the best music videos from May 2, 1986, to May 1, 1987. The show was hosted by MTV VJs Downtown Julie Brown, Carolyne Heldman, Kevin Seal, Michael Tomioka, and Dweezil Zappa, and it took place at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles.

This year featured the debut of the award for Best Video from a Film, which recognized the most outstanding video of a song taken from a movie soundtrack. Concurrently, 1987 also saw the elimination of the Special Recognition award that had been given out every year since 1984. Unlike Video Vanguard, which could go a few years without being handed out and then return, the Special Recognition award was never again given out at the VMAs.

In terms of awards, meanwhile, Peter Gabriel was undoubtedly the night's biggest winner, as he took home a record-setting ten moonmen that night, including Video of the Year and the Video Vanguard award. Gabriel's video for "Sledgehammer" earned nine moonmen out of the ten it was in the running for, making it the night's most nominated video of the night, as well as the most rewarded video in VMA history. Lastly, Gabriel also set a record for the most VMA nominations in a single year, as along with the ten nominations for "Sledgehammer," Gabriel's video for "Big Time" also received two nominations, bringing his total up to twelve nominations in 1987.

1.Sign'O'The Times

“Hurricane annie ripped the ceiling of a church
And killed everyone inside
U turn on the telly and every other story
Is tellin u somebody died
Sister killed her baby cuz she could afford 2 feed it
And were sending people 2 the moon
In september my cousin tried reefer 4 the very first time
Now he’s doing horse, it’s june”

2.Play In The Sunshine

Reseda Country Club, Los Angeles
Aftershow

1. Forever In My Life
2. Love And Happiness
3. I Want To Take You Higher
4. Mother Popcorn
5. I'll Take You There

This was a very classy performance...I'm sure everyone was impressed when the drummers walked onto the stage.

I'm sure this gave him major artistic kudos with the masses..

this is the performance that made me a 'die-hard'.

never seen this before. interesting

Lovely

I remember that night. I had no idea he was going to be on it. And I was in the kitchen and I heard that guitar and I was all !

Then a week later or so I was a at a party and it was loud and the show was about to come on and I was wondering if anyone would notice... well they did! Nearly everyone was glued to the screen... and one gal said "Oh this is what I was telling you about..." one guy said "He plays guitar?" and in almost perfect harmony 3 or 4 people including myself said nearly word for word "Huh...hello.... lets go crazy..."

oh and sometime later that jacket was said to have been worn on the Cosby Show... i have seen a screen cap and it looks like it but i have no way to confirm it.

I remember how excited and blown out I was to see this when it aired. I had read Kurt Loder's peice in Rolling Stone about the Sign O the Times tour in Europe that spring, but all I had to go by were the live clips in the U Got The Look video.

To finally see these two songs played live just as they were on tour was thrilling, and I loved that everyone seemed to agree that Prince stole the show.

You can imagine my excitement when the Sign O the Times movie came out.

So at what point does copyright begin and end from video files vs gifs? As far as Purple Police getting pissed.

ufoclub said:

So at what point does copyright begin and end from video files vs gifs? As far as Purple Police getting pissed.

It's not a video, is it?

robertlove said:

ufoclub said:

So at what point does copyright begin and end from video files vs gifs? As far as Purple Police getting pissed.

It's not a video, is it?

Technically is a video file, just at low fidelity. You could make an entire video into a long gif file. But there's no sound.

Fantastic performance, just had to watch it again. I forgot about the drummers coming on stage.

He was really at the top of the game that period...and to think after this came the stunning Lovesexy tour.

Everything worked...Cat, the clothes, great lyrics, the light show, sheila....it just rocks the stage.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

oh and sometime later that jacket was said to have been worn on the Cosby Show... i have seen a screen cap and it looks like it but i have no way to confirm it.

Go to the 4:00 mark...

[Edited 8/19/12 15:52pm]

StonedImmaculate said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

oh and sometime later that jacket was said to have been worn on the Cosby Show... i have seen a screen cap and it looks like it but i have no way to confirm it.

Go to the 4:00 mark...

[Edited 8/19/12 15:52pm]

That's the jacket. Wonder how she got it.

Great performance, sounds remarkably similar to the versions on the "Sign o' the Times" concert movie, maybe the overdubs on that were quite minimal afterall.

ufoclub said:

robertlove said:

It's not a video, is it?

Technically is a video file, just at low fidelity. You could make an entire video into a long gif file. But there's no sound.

he doesn't own it. MTV does.

That's the jacket. Wonder how she got it.

know Tempest was a big Prince fan. remember the interview of the behind the scenes episode of her explaining it. But forgot how she was so lucky to get it.

Anywho I will never forget the night of the 87 Mtv Music Awards. Because it was the day I stood in line for the aftershow that very day. Was on my way to work that day & heard it announced on the radio that tickets we're going on sale. Guess who didn't make it to work that day...

[Edited 8/20/12 8:44am]

errant said:

ufoclub said:

Technically is a video file, just at low fidelity. You could make an entire video into a long gif file. But there's no sound.

he doesn't own it. MTV does.

He doesn't own a ton of the videos that are still taken down on youtube, right? You can't post a video of anything of his on this site, Prince.org, from what I gather.

ufoclub said:

I always loved this performance and it was the one and only time I've ever seen prince in Jeans

naffi said:

Is that Prince in jeans??? How awesome does the after show look!!! Speaking of Sledgehammer, my 6yo daughter saw the video tonight and was talking about the tadpoles at the start of the clip with really long tails...

I don't know. Tell us??

I remembered that performance because my dad taped it. I was just having fun looking at Prince and his band GETTIN' IT. Classic performance.

I'm loving all of that denim on him. For me, 87-88 was the pinnacle. Anything from this era is gold, imo.

errant said:

ufoclub said:

He doesn't own a ton of the videos that are still taken down on youtube, right? You can't post a video of anything of his on this site, Prince.org, from what I gather.

Is there music in those videos? That's where his claim would be legit. No music with these gifs.

I guess that's the legal grip... the sound.

that reseda show was supposedly monumental...if only he would release a remaster of a sign o the times box set and include a dvd of this show..

The Reseda show was monumental. I was in awe of his energy. He was non stop from start to finish. It was a hot sweaty funky night....

I was on the edge of my seat during this performance. I thought he KILLED it!

I remember leading up to the awards show MTV was saying that Prince would be

performing the song SOTT and "one other song" which I was assuming would be

U Got The Look seeing as it was his hit at the moment. Then instead he goes in to

the rockin' Play In The Sunshine and they tear the shit out of that place! I was psyched.