Hall And Oates’ “Adult Education” at the top of NPR Music’s “Completely Embarrassing Music Videos” list

Over at the NPR Music blog The Record, Ann Powers has posted a list of eight shiver-inducingly terrible music videos—a list inspired by the recently released book, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. From The Record:

It’s also maybe the first book best read at the computer, with your browser open to YouTube. Any given page triggers memories of a classically great or awful video. Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks, the book’s co-authors, have been busy creating playlists to promote their new release. They’re both buddies of mine, so I asked them to do a special one for The Record. What they came up with is deliciously hideous: the top videos artists regret making, accompanied by excerpts from the book.

And there it is, sitting right at the top of the (unranked) list, the video for Hall And Oates’ “Adult Education”—of which Daryl Hall says: “Videos began to attract wannabe Cecil B. Demilles, directors who had almost unlimited budgets and did whatever they felt like. ‘Adult Education’ is a perfect example. We brought in a director I didn’t know [Tim Pope], who was newly hot. He didn’t have a clue what to do with the song. The plot? I couldn’t tell you.” Below, the video, in all of its head-scratching glory.