Earth, Wind & Fire – Let's Groove
1981 · Directed by Ron Hays
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Best comments
1.“The dislikes are from Water.”
More comments
- 2.“They look like funky Power Rangers. Funk Rangers. Epic.”
- 3.“*Kid gets brutally killed when he falls into a chocolate mixing tank* The Oompa-Loompas:”
The story
1981. Before anybody had settled on what a music video was supposed to look like, Ron Hays handed Earth, Wind & Fire over to a computer. He built the Let's Groove video on Scanimate, an analog computer animation system at Image West, Ltd., and the effects pile up fast. A vase that might be two faces singing into a microphone. Sequined dancers sliding in and out of frame. A tiny sparkly woman doing body rolls inside a rainbow orb. At one point Maurice White has three heads. Nobody explains why. Nobody needs to.
Hays already knew the band. He did video effects for the 1978 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie, which featured the group, plus Grease and Can't Stop the Music. Boing Boing later called his Let's Groove work truly cutting edge, then reminded everyone (twice) that this was 1981. Fair. It looks like a screensaver threw a party. That's the charm.
The song was the first single from Raise!, written by Maurice White and Wayne Vaughn. It hit number three on the Billboard Hot 100, spent eight weeks at number one on the soul chart, went top three in the UK and sold over a million copies in the US. The video was the first one ever played on BET's Video Soul, and its look later rubbed off on Bruno Mars' Treasure. Still the most fun anyone has had with an analog computer.
