My Top 100 Favourite Music Videos: #26

#26: "Walk This Way" - Run D.M.C. and Aerosmith
Release Date: 1986
Director: Jon Small
Fun Fact: Hip hop was still a relatively underground genre at the time - this song was the first hip hop track to get into the Top 5 in America! It also got to no. 8 in the UK!

What a song. What a duet. What a music video. This is probably one of the most important songs in music history. My opinion of course but I do believe that. Why? As I said above, hip hop was a relatively underground genre at the time, you wouldn't believe it now because it's everywhere, but at the time pop and new wave was what was in the charts. This song not only brought hip hop into the mainstream, it also was one of the first, if not THE first major rap rock song. It helped Run DMC become mainstream successful hip hop artists, and it also gave Aerosmith another strong surge into a massive rock band. Without this collaboration, I'd say neither Run DMC or Aerosmith would be the legendary artists they are now considered to be today.

And the music video is just brilliant. It's so simple yet so clever, and you have to give great credit to everyone involved in it for doing their part. Steven Tyler does a great job of pissing off the Run DMC dudes, and they of course turn off their vocals, add their own and remix the original song. And of course, when you see them all on stage together for the first time, it looks initally quite uncomfortable, but in the end they mesh so well. I love the bit where the DMC boys dance around Steven Tyler, it looks so odd yet so awesome at the same time. This is just one of those songs, and music videos for that matter, that live long in the memory.

Here is the video for your enjoyment!

Click here to see #25 on the list or here for #27!