Tom Tom Club - Genius Of Love

What this video is

Released in September 1981, 'Genius of Love' arrived just one month after MTV's August 1, 1981 launch, making it one of the earliest purpose-built animated music videos to circulate on the nascent channel. The video's hand-drawn crayon-and-pencil aesthetic — executed by Cucumber Studios using artwork by pop artist James Rizzi — predated the glossy production values that would come to define the mid-1980s MTV era,…

Why it matters

A foundational artifact of the new wave/post-punk crossover moment, 'Genius of Love' is among the earliest animated music videos produced for the MTV era. It reached #1 on the US Billboard Disco Top 80 and #2 on the Hot Soul Singles chart, making it a rare crossover success for a predominantly…

The director

Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton co-founded Cucumber Studios in the UK in the late 1970s, pioneering music video and title-sequence direction. Their credits span Tom Tom Club, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Miles Davis, and George Harrison. They co-created…