Part 4 in a series. It sometimes seemed like MTV in the 1990s was little more than a video résumé for one Adam Spiegel, aka Spike Jonze. He seemed to be the guy directing all the damned videos, and some of the era’s most inventive concepts were his. Here’s a sample. Up first, let’s watch some television. Like, that time when
Read morePart 3 in a series. Our first couple of installments in the series where characterized by rage, I suppose. So today let’s step away from the anger and look at videos of a more artistic bent. First up, the video I’ve always sort of regarded as the best ever: “Dirt,” by Death in Vegas. Avant gardiste to its core, and very
Read morePart 2 in a series. The Reagan/Thatcher years were marked by an utterly bizarre shiny/happy pastel sheen spread liberally across a decidedly apocalyptic doom. Listen to songs like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and “Forever Young” and “It’s a Mistake” (and watch the videos). The aesthetic seemed to be “we’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust, of
Read morePart 1 in a series. In the 1980s, video killed the radio star. In the 2000s, MTV, Millennials and a whole new wave of mobile technology killed video. In between, though, we had the ’90s, the golden age of the form. While the ’80s were about pioneering a new genre of short film built around pop and rock songs, the ’90s
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lullaby pit 