Original subtitles

The music videos during the 1990s

really came into its own.

It was a golden age.

MTV was at its height and the video was the main promotional tool

to get your song out there.

And it helped sell millions of records.

# All the people

# So many people

It all started with MTV

but then you have all the different channels as well.

You've got dance video channels, rock video channels,

pop video channels.

And in a way, the video in the '90s became as big as the single.

# You'll never live like common people

# You'll never do whatever common people do

The record companies understood

that there was now competition to get their videos shown.

There had to be something better, something special

about these videos and that upped everybody's game.

They often had big stories. The budgets got big.

There was a lot of money involved.

The idea of getting a director with a vision

was the significant feature of the outstanding raft of '90s pop videos.

These were small films.

# Strike the pose

Madonna's Vogue

was inspired by the dancing she'd seen

in the gay night clubs of New York.

This kind of Vogue style which was about striking a pose,

imitating models on the cover of magazines.

# Vogue

She brought in David Fincher

who was an established video maker.

Very, very inventive,

very creative.

And between them they came up with

the concept of Hollywood's golden age.

# Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Dietrich and DiMaggio

# Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean

# On the cover of a magazine

It's beautifully shot.

Black and white. Very crisp. Very minimalist in each shot as well.

And really focussing on the dancers and the moves

in these wonderfully choreographed routines.

And then these gorgeous close-ups of Madonna's face

which again are inspired by artwork.

# Vogue

# Let your body move to the music

# Hey, hey, hey

# Come on, Vogue

# Let your body go

# Vogue #

George Michael released Freedom! '90 three years after his huge album

and single Faith. And in that three years

he had had enough

of being this pop star.

# I won't let you down

Freedom! '90 is that moment where he turns around to the industry

and to his fans and says, "I'm not that person any more."

George Michael didn't actually appear in the video.

Instead he got these five supermodels

who'd appeared on a very famous Vogue cover

shot by Peter Lindbergh, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford,

Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christie Turlington.

They are kind of enacting scenes George Michael might have enacted.

# Heaven knows I was just a young boy

# Didn't know what I wanted to be

# I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy

# And I guess it was enough for me

Freedom! '90 wasn't just some pretty faces lyp-syncing.

It also made points about George Michael himself.

So in the video you see

the Wurlitzer jukebox which had been such a part of Faith,

the leather jacket which was his Faith image,

and the guitar that he'd used in the Faith concerts.

These were all blown up.

It was George putting his old character to bed

and out was coming a new one.

# Freedom

# Freedom

# Freedom

# You've got to give for what you take... #

Michael Jackson's Black Or White

is one of the most extravagant videos ever made for a single.

Four million dollars it cost.

It begins with this kind of slightly comic routine

with a young boy playing music too loud in his bedroom.

And his father telling him off.

Turn that noise off!

The young boy is played by Macauley Culkin

who is a pop culture figure of the time.

Eat this.

(ROCK RIFFS)

And then you're off around the world essentially.

Michael Jackson is in Africa in the Serengeti

and he just goes everywhere

and it's a message about racial equality.

# I took my baby on a Saturday bang

John Landis who had made Blues Brothers and Trading Places

big Hollywood movies

he had directed Michael Jackson's Thriller video

which had changed the game. 15 minutes long

and it told this huge story and it was a big hit.

Michael Jackson wanted him again.

# It don't matter if you're black or white

But he was reluctant maybe cos he hadn't been paid fully. Who knows?

Michael Jackson, who could actually be really charming, he insisted.

He literally knocked on John Landis' door

and I think virtually begged him

to take on Black or White.

Michael Jackson was quite hard to resist,

even John Landis couldn't resist him.

After Michael Jackson has made his trip around the world,

we then see for, probably, the first time

in something like a music video,

this incredible morphing technique.

# It's white

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

The morphing was done by a company called Pacific Data Images,

and instead of changing just the face

they layered the shots so they changed bits of the face.

Slowly. Speeded it up.

And it looked like there was proper morphing going on.

Technically it was a huge leap forward.

Everybody Hurts came out in 1993.

This is a remarkable song for a start

because the words are very earnest.

They are a message to somebody who is potentially suicidal saying,

everyone feels like this

and if you get through it you'll be fine.

You just need to hold on.

NEIL: It's set on a freeway in America.

And the band are caught in a traffic jam.

# You're sure you've had enough

Everybody Hurts was directed by Jake Scott,

the son of Ridley Scott.

It was only the fifth video that he'd ever made.

But he would go on to work with U2 and The Rolling Stones

and become a very important and influential

video director of the era.

# Sometimes everybody cries

# Everybody hurts

# Sometimes

And then there's this strange kind of euphoric moment at the end

where the song builds

and everybody just gets out of their cars

and just starts walking.

# Hold on

# Hold on

It was used for various charities

to prevent the rash of teenage suicides happening at the time.

REM were commended for their work and understanding

of what drives people to take their own lives.

And so it had a much wider resonance

than just being a pop video.

It's something that actually helped people.

Take That, Pray,

came out in 1993 from the album Everything Changes

which went to number one and spawned six hit singles

of which Pray was one.

The video was directed by the Canadian Gregg Masuak.

And he was employed basically to give Take That a little bit of glamour.

Pray sees them for the first time

getting to go to quite a luxurious foreign location.

They go to Mexico to film

having previously had to make videos in Britain.

Four members of take that are paired up

with goddesses representing the elements

air, fire, earth and water.

Then you have Gary Barlow by himself.

He is on a beach bare-chested and singing his heart out.

# All I do each night is pray

# Hoping that I'll be a part of you again some day

# I'm on my knees

# All I do each night is think

# Yeah

# Of all the times I closed the doors to keep my love within

Sabotage is a single from Beastie Boys' 1994 album

Ill Communication.

It was directed by Spike Jonze.

It is a really fun, silly over-the-top video.

# I can't stand it, I know you planned it

# I'mma set it straight, this Watergate

# I can't stand rockin' when I'm in here

# Cos your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear

He dressed the three guys in really cheap suits.

And he gave them really terrible wigs

and had them driving around jumping on cars.

It was if they were performing their own cop show called Sabotage.

It was filmed on what very much looked like '70s video film

so the atmosphere and feel were perfect.

WILL: It seemed quite a breakthrough.

Videos had previously been quite serious affairs.

And now you had this band just having fun

and dressing up and wearing '70s comedy wigs and jumping over cars.

# Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage

Sabotage was actually a really breakthrough video for Spike Jonze.

He started then being recognised as being this great music director.

He went on to work with the likes of Daft Punk and Fatboy Slim.

I think it's the beginning of music directors

actually being recognised for creating art.

# I'm Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle

# What could it be? It's a mirage

# You're scheming on a thing, that's sabotage

Parklife is the title track from Blur's 1994 album

and it's the track that features Phil Daniels of Quadrophenia fame

speaking a lot of the lyrics of the song

and he features in the video

as a kind of travelling glass salesman.

With Damon Albarn as his sidekick.

Parklife was directed by the Brit Pedro Romhanyi

And he was part of the Oil Factory collective.

# What is known as...

# Parklife

# And morning soup can be avoided

# If you take the route straight through what is known as

# Parklife

# All the people

# So many people

# And they all go hand in hand

The video becomes a bit of a British travelogue.

There's umbrellas in it,

references to previous Blur songs and singles

and it is a video

which is really colourful too.

# And they all go hand in hand

# Hand in hand through their own lives

OK, kids,

Arnold's is proud to present

Wisconsin's own Weezer.

Weezer's video for their Buddy Holly single

was directed by Spike Jonze

and he brought his typical quirky and amusing take

to the whole enterprise.

# What's with these homies, dissing my girl?

# Why do they gotta front?

They shot it as if they were playing to the cast of Happy Days.

And he did this by using clips from Happy Days

and interspersing it.

It's a very clever piece of manipulation.

# ..and I know you're mine

# Oo-ee-oo I look just like Buddy Holly

# Oh-oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore

The high point as it had to be is when the Fonz turns up

and starts doing this dance and everyone is amazed.

Apparently he spent hours

trawling over all these episodes

to try and make it work.

And it does. It really comes across like Weezer are in the show.

Waterfalls by TLC

was from their 1994 album CrazySexyCool

and the video for it was directed by F Gary Gray.

It was a very brave song and brave video

because it references AIDS which at that time was not being talked about

in popular culture and the drug trade.

The third verse brings everything together

and blames poverty for it

so it's a really unusual song.

And the video reflected that admirably.

They were morphing using effects which had not been used before.

But around this on the verses

there is a strong narrative structure.

So you have a scene where a young boy goes out to sell drugs.

His mother is trying to stop him but he ignores her.

And he ends up killed.

The second story concerns a man and a woman.

They've had a one-night stand.

The woman suggests the man doesn't wear a condom

then you see man looking at his face and seeing lesions.

# Don't go chasing waterfalls

# Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you are used to

# I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all

# But I think you're moving too fast

By 1995,

Pulp had been going for 17 years.

And they hadn't really made a breakthrough.

But their fifth album

was the one where things started to turn around for them

Jarvis Cocker was studying at St Martin's College.

There was a Greek girl who was very wealthy

and she said, "I want to hang out with common people." Slumming it.

# She studied sculpture at St Martin's College

# That's where I

# Caught her eye

It starts in a night club in Stepney, in east London.

The dancers are on a loop

so that they just repeat the moves behind Jarvis Cocker

who is singing.

# And then in 30 seconds' time

It then moves into this strange, sort of slightly

dreamlike supermarket

where a tiny Jarvis Cocker

is being wheeled around by Sadie Frost

while people are buying Pulp things.

It's tremendously funny,

it's full of British eccentricity

and it completely deserves to be called

one of the great British pop videos of the time.

Jarvis had studied film at St Martin's College

so he produced the video himself

which was directed by Pedro Romhanyi

who'd also directed Blur's Parklife.

# ..along with the common people

# Laugh along even though they are laughing at you

# And the stupid things that you do

# Because you think that poor is cool... #

In 1995, Michael Jackson

released his duet, with his younger sister Janet, Scream.

# Argh!

This song is kind of a reflection of him trying to escape

his accusations in the press.

# Tired of injustice

# Tired of the schemes

The video features Michael and his sister Janet

aboard this spaceship

getting away from the world

and living in their own very comforting cocoon.

# Argh!

# With such confusions don't it make you wanna scream?

# You bash, abuse and victimise in the scheme

Everything was stitched together as CGI.

It's kind of hard to work out

where the reality is

and where the post-production is

as it is so seamlessly done.

It's an incredible thing to watch, a real piece of art.

# Stop pressuring me

# Makes me want to scream

Cost seven million dollars.

Mainly because it had something like 11 different studio sets.

And time was tight as it always is with Michael Jackson.

Just by Radiohead came out in 1995.

They'd already had a very big hit from their first album with Creep.

# You do it to yourself, just you

# That's what really hurts

# You do it to yourself, just you

# You and no-one else

The video has got a guy lying down in the street

outside Liverpool St Station

and all these people coming up to him and asking what's wrong

and getting increasingly frustrated when he won't tell them.

# Give him sympathy

Passers-by are very worried about him.

There's subtitles in the video.

They are asking, "What's wrong?" "Are you all right?"

And the man laying down is really quite aggressive.

He's quite rude.

"Go, leave me alone."

And doesn't want to talk about anything or to anyone.

And then just as he's about to tell them,

the subtitles disappear.

So we don't know what he says.

It's Oh So Quiet by Bjork

was a cover of a Betty Hutton song.

And Spike Jonze, the video's director,

wanted to pay homage to the big musicals of the 1950s.

It starts with Bjork in this garage

and it all starts very grey and slow, everything is slowed down.

And it's quite dull.

And then as she reaches the chorus everything lightens up

and it becomes brighter and it speeds up into real time again.

# And so peaceful until

# You fall in love

# Zing boom

# The sky up above

# Zing boom

# Is caving in

# Wham bam!

Strange objects start dancing

and people who have just been walking around in the background

break out into dance routines.

It is like a musical where at any moment

a song and dance number can happen

and everyone will be choreographed together

# Zing boom

# So what's the use? Wow! Bam!

It's a really lovely piece of work actually.

Spike Jonze at his most charming

and least subversive, but still most creative.

# You blow, blow, blow, blow your fuse

# Argh!

# When you fall in love

# Shh #

Don't Look Back In Anger

was released by Oasis

and in 1996 Oasis are one of the biggest bands in the UK.

# Slip inside the eye of your mind

# Don't you know you might find

# A better place to play

To direct the video they recruited the Englishman Nigel Dick,

who had worked with a lot of the great metal bands

such as Def Leppard and Guns N' Roses.

# You slowly fade away

Don't Look Back In Anger

is symbolic of Oasis's sudden absolutely massive success.

Whereas old videos might have them in a park near a council estate,

now they are being picked up by Patrick Macnee.

He starred as Steed in The Avengers and he's the chauffeur

who drives them to this enormous house.

They kind of just wander about this lovely big country house

which seems to be filled with beautiful women

all dressed in white.

# You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

Noel Gallagher is actually singing the song

so Liam Gallagher has nothing to do in the video

except play his tambourine.

# So Sally can wait

# She knows it's too late as we're walking on by

# Her soul slides away

# But don't look back in anger

# Don't look back in anger

The video for Smashing Pumpkins Tonight, Tonight

is probably my favourite MTV video of all time.

It's basically a pastiche of a George Melies film

A Trip To The Moon.

And it gets everything right.

Along the way then you have the group

who are playing mythical, old-style instruments.

And you have this really glorious song

which has an orchestral feel

with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in it.

And the whole thing is very grandstanding.

# Believe in me

# Believe

It was made by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

They had some problems when making it

because James Cameron was making Titanic at the same time

and he had taken all of the turn-of-the-century costumes

and there weren't any left.

They just about managed to scrape together what was left over

and then adapted them for their film.

# So bright

# Tonight

# Tonight

# Believe in me

# As I believe in you #

# I'll tell you what I want what I really really want

# Don't tell me what you want what you really really want

Wannabe by the Spice Girls had this video which absolutely captured

the spirit of the Spice Girls

as this very kind of spirited and fun and quite naughty girl gang.

# Forget my past

# If you want to get with me

# Better make it fast

From the off, they really established who each of them were

through the video and the lyrics as well.

Which was directed by Johan Camitz.

And it shows the girls causing havoc in quite a posh London hotel.

They dance their way through it singing,

messing about with the people who are in there.

# If you wannabe my lover

# You got to get with my friends

# Making love is for ever

# Friendship never ends

Your feeling about it is that it was shot in one take

which is actually quite remarkable.

# But that's the way it ends

# If you want to be my lover

# You gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta...

This is what kick-started the Spice Girls in Britain and in America

where the video went on very heavy rotation on MTV.

# Throw your body down and zig-a-zig-Ah!

Virtual insanity was directed by Jonathan Glazer

and it was a showcase for JK's dancing.

# It's a wonder man can eat at all

# When things are big that should be small

# Who can tell what magic spells we'll be doing for us

It's something, you can't take your eyes off him

but then you do because the space he's dancing in is moving.

It appears that the floor is moving,

that the sofas that are in the room are moving.

The perspective is shifting constantly.

It's a really amazing effect

which in fact was achieved by not moving the floor

but moving the set around it.

# There's something in these futures that we have to be told

# Futures

# Made of virtual insanity now

# Always seem to be governed by this love we have

# For useless, twisting, our new technology

# Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground

Daft Punk released Around The World in 1997

and previous to this song they weren't that well known

outside of the French dance scene

and this broke them through to a mainstream audience.

The video for it is beautiful.

The video has robots,

athletes, disco girls,

mummies and skeletons.

And each of these facets represent an area of the song.

Of course from the outside this sounds quite messy.

But stand back

and watch the feast in front.

It's marvellous.

# Around the world, around the world

It's like one of the Busby Berkeley movies

of the 1930s.

It looks very modern at the same time

as referencing the golden age of Hollywood.

It was the launch pad for Michel Gondry as much as Daft Punk.

Michel then went on to have a very big Hollywood career.

# Around the world, around the world

The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony video

was directed by Walter A Stern

and it featured mostly the singer Richard Ashcroft

on Hoxton High Street in east London.

And he at the beginning of the video

takes a deep breath

and then just walks.

# Cos it's a bittersweet symphony

# That's life

# Try to make ends meet

# You're a slave to...

It's an unbelievably selfish walk.

He just keeps bumping into people

including a lady that he actually knocks over.

And he doesn't give a damn.

# ..road I've ever been down

So it's a suggestion of arrogance,

but a suggestion he's completely in his own world

and on a higher calling and it fits perfectly

with the gloriousness of the music.

If a car parks in front of him he just walks over it.

He is of course consequently shouted at,

chased, berated but he ignores everyone.

He carries on. He is focused.

He has a mission to walk to the end of this street.

Run DMC's It's Like That

originally came out in 1983 from their debut album.

In 1997, Jason Nevins remixed it

and released it as Run DMC vs Jason Nevins.

# Unemployment at a record high

# People coming, people going, people born to die

# Don't ask me, because I don't know why

# But it's like that, and that's the way it is

The great thing about it is the way it's filmed actually

because it's shot from very low down

so you can see the feet of the dancers.

# ..that you're underpaid

# It's like that, and that's the way it is

I think it actually introduced a whole new generation

not only to Run DMC

but also to the idea of street dancing.

The prodigy who came up with the wonderful title

Smack My Bitch Up

produced then a video

that seemed to match

the offensiveness of the actual single's title.

The video was directed by Jonas Akerlund

and he came out of the Swedish death metal scene.

# Smack my bitch up

It's from the point of view of this person who's causing mayhem.

They punch people in the face, take loads of drugs

knock tables over in night clubs.

And they just cause as much damage as possible.

It's very violent.

It's so sleazy and so degrading

that it's almost impossible to describe really.

This night out is the most debauched night out

you could ever imagine.

It involved sex, drugs, rock and roll.

All the horrible things.

# Smack my bitch up

And then there is the twist at the end

when you finally discover that the person causing all this mayhem

who you assumed was a man

turns out to be a young woman.

Teardrop was released by Massive Attack in 1998

and it's directed by Walter Stern.

The video is quite beautiful

if not a little bit disturbing.

It kind of depicts a baby in the womb

who then sings the lyrics to the song.

# Love, love is a verb

# Love is a doing word

# Fearless on my breath

# Gentle impulsion

# Shakes me, makes me lighter

The actual baby

was an animatronic figure which took six weeks to make.

# Black flowers blossom

# Fearless on my breath

It's very watchable.

It's like a video lava lamp really. It's beautiful.

..Baby One More Time is the title track

from Britney Spears' debut album which came out in 1998.

And apparently she had the idea for the video.

(BELL)

..Baby One More Time by Britney Spears

was reasonably controversial.

It's got her wearing a schoolgirl's outfit

and she's dancing through the halls of her school.

It's almost like a schoolgirl fantasy.

And her love interest is played by her cousin Chap

and a rather frumpy teacher

who perhaps predictably joins in at the end with the dancing

was played by Britney Spears' PA.

# My loneliness is killing me

# Baby I must confess

# I still believe

# When I'm not with you I lose my mind

# Give me a sign

# Hit me baby one more time

(BELL)

# Hi, my name is... # What?

# My name is...

# Slim Shady

Eminem released My Name Is in January 1999.

The video is directed by Philip Atwell.

It's his first music video.

It starts in what looks like a trailer

with a couple watching TV

and the TV shows suddenly all seem to include Eminem.

# I'm trying to get my head straight

# But I can't decide which Spice Girl I want to impregnate

# Slim Shady, you are basic

# Uh-uh # Why is your face red?

It's incredibly inventive, it's very fast.

He does a lot of parodies of characters like Bill Clinton

and Marilyn Manson.

# My name is... # Slim Shady

# Stop the tape, this kid needs to be locked away

He invented the Slim Shady character

who was very much the dark side of Eminem.

He invented himself as being this very literate, quite funny,

very controversial rapper.

The wit and the sharpness of it

suggested he is a real major new talent.

# We've come a long long way together

# Through the hard times and the good

# I have to celebrate you, baby

# I have to praise you like I should

The video to Praise You by Fatboy Slim

was directed by Roman Coppola and Spike Jonze.

And it depicts a flash mob developing

outside a cinema in Westwood, LA.

This group of quite funny looking, haphazard dancers

with these not-great routines

just start dancing around this beatbox

playing the Fatboy Slim single.

It's just the reactions of everyone around them which is so brilliant.

And the dancing which features Spike Jonze himself

is totally over the top.

It's not really that well co-ordinated in parts.

He goes up to people. He's in their face.

And he's dancing away.

This was guerrilla-style film-making.

They turned up outside a Westwood cinema

and did this flash mob dance

in front of very bemused onlookers

and in fact a rather annoyed employee at the cinema.

Who actually turns off the music at one point.

And they filmed it.

Allegedly, the entire video cost $800.

# I have to praise you... #

Let Forever Be by The Chemical Brothers

had a video which was a feat of editing and special effects.

It's depicting a woman's nightmare when she changes.

And so one moment her face changes,

one moment her clothes change.

And she's going through time and space.

The video for Let Forever Be is directed by Michel Gondry.

And again he brings his very surreal style to it.

The idea of the video is a day in the life of this very ordinary girl

who seems to be going about her day

but then has these flips into dreamlike states

where she is suddenly replicated.

# Feel like

# To let forever be

What Gondry wanted to achieve

was a more real context for this.

And he did it by actually having several actresses

in the same role

rather than just reproduce one actress.

Through the '90s, technology advances

meant that music videos would really go to new places and try new things.

There was money in the music industry

so a lot of these videos cost three, four, five, up to seven million

which would be very difficult today.

Morphing, motion-capturing technology,

CGI, all expanded during the '90s.

But more importantly they became cheaper to use.

This expanded the palette of the video directors.

They had many more things to choose from.

It gave rise to a whole new generation of creatives

who could actually do anything they liked.

There was no censorship board, there were no other restrictions

which meant total creative freedom.

I don't think this happened before and certainly hasn't happened since.

The '90s was a great decade for music videos.

There are so many iconic films that were made.

The '90s was the highest point of the video era.

The mid '90s was the golden age. There's a point at which

people knew what they were doing, were having fun.

They didn't feel the need to have pretentiousness.

Very often you look at a mid '90s video

especially by bands like Pulp and Blur

and they've got these little stories, they're fun

and they are amazing to look at.

# What are you doing Sunday, baby?

# Would you like to come and meet me maybe

# You can even bring your baby

# Ooh-ooh-ooh

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