Forget last night’s MTV Video Music Award’s. Instead, if you’re old enough, fondly remember Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora playing stripped down acoustic versions of their hits “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. Those were the days.
To Generation Xers, Tabitha Soren is known mostly for her stint as a reporter for MTV News and its early 1990s “Choose or Lose” get out to vote effort. (She also appeared very, very briefly in the mid-1980s video for the Beastie Boys “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)”). To those who came after Generation X (which includes most of the users of Tumblr), she is mostly unknown. She is now married to Michael Lewis, author of the book, The Blind Side: Evolution of A Game, which was adapted into the recent film featuring Sandra Bullock.
Above, she poses for an ad for The Gap, which originally appeared here in the March 1993 issue of Spin magazine.
Twenty two years ago today, on September 7, 1988, MTV aired the 1988 Video Music Awards. Special guests included Cher, Jody Watley, Guns N’ Roses, INXS, Depeche Mode, and Rod Stewart. The ad above originally appeared here in the October 1988 issue of Spin magazine.
Several video clips aired that night are online, including the following:
- Arsenio Hall and Sam Kinison Introduce Guns N’ Roses
- Guns N’ Roses - “Welcome To The Jungle” (Live)
- Aerosmith - “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” (Live)
- INXS - “New Sensation” (Live)
- Michael Jackson Presented with the Video Vanguard Award
