Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut

What this video is

Released in April 1981 in the UK, 'Stray Cat Strut' arrived at the precise moment when music video was consolidating its role as a primary promotional medium, with MTV launching in the US later that same year. The Stray Cats — a Long Island trio who relocated to London to break through — represented a pointed cultural irony: Americans adopting British Teddy Boy and rockabilly revival aesthetics and repackaging them…

Why it matters

A defining artifact of the early-1980s rockabilly revival, 'Stray Cat Strut' demonstrated that a genre rooted in the 1950s could achieve mainstream chart success in the video age when packaged with strong visual identity. The clip helped establish the template of genre-authentic costuming and…