The Go-Go's - Our Lips Are Sealed

What this video is

Released June 1981 and filmed in mid-1981 Los Angeles, 'Our Lips Are Sealed' arrived just weeks before MTV launched on August 1, 1981, making it one of the first canonical clips of the MTV era. The Go-Go's were groundbreaking as an all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments, and this video's carefree Southern California energy crystallized both the band's identity and a template for…

Why it matters

A foundational artifact of American new wave and the all-female rock canon, this video established a low-budget, personality-forward visual grammar that influenced decades of indie and alternative music video production. Its spontaneous documentary aesthetic prefigured the 'band on the street'…

The director

Derek Burbidge is a British music video and commercial director who worked extensively in the early MTV era. He is credited on Wikipedia as directing this video, while IMVDb attributes the work to co-directors Mick Haggerty and C.D. Taylor. Burbidge was…