Finding that bizarre-o Budweiser commercial earlier got me thinking about some other ’80s-vintage beer ads that made quite an impact on me: Michelob’s “The Night Belongs To…” campaign comprised several atmospheric, one-minute-long masterpieces that featured music by actual rock stars instead of the usual generic advertising tracks. The best known of these was probably the one that featured Eric Clapton playing an updated version of his 1970 hit “After Midnight.”

(I think somebody cut the Michelob sell off that one to avoid copyright issues.)

The campaign also included “Tonight Tonight Tonight” by Genesis:

And, of course, you couldn’t do atmosphere in the ’80s without using “In the Air Tonight” by Genesis’ part-time front-man Phil Collins:

There was also a Michelob ad set to Steve Winwood’s “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do,” but I couldn’t find a video clip of that one. One of these days, I intend to go through all my old VHS cassettes, some of which date back to this same time period, and digitize the good stuff; maybe the Winwood spot will turn up on one of them.

Watching these again after so many years, I’m struck by several things. First is their length… has anyone made a one-minute TV ad in the last 20 years? I can’t recall any. Also, I know that I tend to go on a lot about the ’80s — hey, most of my formative years fell during that decade, and I’m one of those rare freaks who actually enjoyed my formative years; besides, it’s not like the description at the top of this blog doesn’t warn you to expect this sort of thing — but I honestly think that our popular culture has lost something over the past two decades. I’ll grant that a lot of ’80s hair and fashion is very mockable today, but there was a glamour and a mood to that time that was unspoiled by today’s insistence that sentimental equals cheesy, and that an ironic distance must be maintained at all times. To be blunt, the ’80s were just a whole lot cooler than this decade… whatever the hell the history books are going to end up calling it.