Grammy Award for Best Performance Music Video

Background

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences began to honor quality music videos with the Video of the Year category in 1982. The first two award recipients were former member of The Monkees, Michael Nesmith for the hour-long video Elephant Parts (also known as Michael Nesmith in Elephant Parts) as well as Olivia Newton-John for Olivia Physical. The Video of the Year category was discontinued with the establishment of the MTV Video Music Awards in 1984, the top award of which is also presented for Video of the Year. The Academy replaced the category with the awards for Best Video, Short Form and Best Video Album beginning with the 26th Grammy Awards. For the awards held in 1988 and 1989, the criteria changed and honors were presented for the categories Best Concept Music Video and Best Performance Music Video. The Academy returned to the previous format in 1990, though the categories were renamed Best Music Video, Short Form and Best Music Video, Long Form. In 1998, the categories were retitled Best Short Form Music Video and Best Long Form Music Video, respectively.

Recipients

For the 30th Grammy Awards (1988), Best Performance Music Video nominees included Anthony Eaton for producing The Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert (a recording of a benefit concert for The Prince's Trust), Russian American pianist Vladimir Horowitz for Horowitz in Moscow, Cyndi Lauper for Cyndi Lauper in Paris, Bobby McFerrin for Spontaneous Inventions, and Barbra Streisand for One Voice. Directed by Brian Large, Horowitz in Moscow was a recording of Horowitz's first concert appearance in Russia since 1925 and features compositions by Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Schubert and other composers. Cyndi Lauper in Paris was filmed at Zénith de Paris on March 12, 1987, the final date of her world tour. Produced by John Diaz and directed by Andy Morahan, the recording features Sterling Campbell on drums, Rick Derringer on guitar, Sue Hadjopoulas on percussion, Kevin Jenkins on bass, and David Rosenthal on keyboards. Ferrin's Spontaneous Inventions, directed by Bud Schaetzle, is an hour-long recording of a 1986 performance in Hollywood. Streisand's video One Voice, directed by Dwight Hemion, is a companion piece to her 1987 live album of the same name. Originally broadcast as an HBO special, the September 6, 1986 concert recording marked her first "official" live performance since 1972, held in part as a protest against the nuclear arms race during Ronald Reagan's presidency. The concert was filmed in Streisand's backyard and features special appearances by Burt Bacharach, Barry Gibb, Richard Marx, Carole Bayer Sager and comedian Robin Williams. The award was presented to Eaton as the producer of the concert recording, which included appearances by Elton John, Sting, Tina Turner and others.

Nominees for the 31st Grammy Awards were English musician David Bowie for Glass Spider, Canadian musician and producer David Foster for The Symphony Sessions, American singer-songwriter John Cougar Mellencamp for "Check It Out", Stevie Nicks for Stevie Nicks: Live at Red Rocks, and the Irish rock band U2 for "Where the Streets Have No Name". Glass Spider was a recording of a live two-hour concert filmed in Sydney, Australia in November 1987. The Symphony Sessions included ten compositions by Foster presented as a "collage of video images" in performance with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Recorded over a period of five nights in Vancouver, Foster wrote, arranged, produced and played piano for the project (which included a recording of the theme for the 1988 Winter Olympics) with the assistance of Jeremy Lubbock, David Paich, and Lee Ritenour. The music video for "Check It Out", a song that appears on Mellencamp's 1987 album The Lonesome Jubilee, was filmed live at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 11, 1987. Directed by Marty Callner, Stevie Nicks: Live at Red Rocks is an hour-long recording of a live concert filmed at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado with special guests Mick Fleetwood and Peter Frampton. The music video for U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" was filmed on the roof of a Los Angeles liquor store. During the filming process, police ordered the band to stop the shoot "due to fears the crowd was getting out of hand". Awards were presented to members of U2 (Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr.) as the performing group, along with Meiert Avis as the video director and Ben Dossett and Michael Hamlyn as the video producers.