When Marisa asked me to write about music videos for TRL’s last week, I contemplated my fraught relationship with the art form. I was a delayed arrival to pop culture, to say the least (I was still listening to the oldies station until eighth grade), and tended toward pretty safe mainstream choices. I’m not actually sure if any of these, other than “I Want It That Way,” were on TRL, but they’re each vivid musical memories. Unlike the bongo-accompanied rendition of the Foo Fighters’ “Learn to Fly” that’s currently emanating from beneath my living-room floorboards.
Backstreet Boys
This is really the only one of these videos that I distinctly remember watching on TRL, and it was at an embarrassingly late age, too, because this video was on TRL during the only period in my high school career when I would have been at home at 3 o’clock in the afternoon to watch: Just before and after graduation. Yes, I was watching the Backstreet Boys (semi-obsessively, too), at the age of nearly 18. I am ashamed of that. But not too ashamed not to write about it on a website read by tens of people.
NSYNC
My friend Lisa actually taught herself this dance (without the help of Darrin’s Dance Grooves! I don’t think she slept when we were sophomores) and performed it, repeatedly, in our newspaper office very late at night. She’s a lawyer now. And I recall watching a making-of show on MTV that went into great detail about how the boys’ oh-so-realistic doll façades were accomplished. I think shellac was involved. Damn, they sold a lot of CDs. Back when people (other than Jesse) bought CDs. Eight years ago.
Daft Punk
I did not realize Michel Gondry directed this! In high school, my friend Andrew used “Around the World” as the curtain-call music for the short play he directed (the cast was affectionately referred to as the Denver Nuggets because they had so little chance of winning the county-wide short play competition they entered that year) and at the end of the show, the whole cast just grooved for a couple of minutes. At one point the Fresh Prince dance was involved. No, not that one. .
Madonna
So when I was at church music camp in 1995, we were informed in one seminar that the Catholic Church had banned “Like a Prayer.” We were Presbyterians, so we went ahead and watched it and talked about the imagery. I, of course, mainly recognized Leon from Cool Runnings and wondered what was up with the burning crosses. (I was a sheltered 14-year-old.)
The Cardigans
I was fifteen when Romeo + Juliet came out. And like every other teenage girl in those years, I absolutely loved this song, totally thought it was about my imaginary relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio, and wondered what sort of horrifying chemical contact lenses would be required to turn my eyes that color. And then there was the rest of the soundtrack, which introduced me to Garbage, Radiohead, Prince, and drag. If Australia has half the impact on me this movie did, it’ll be the greatest film of the last five years.
And one more…Oasis.
This is my very favorite song. And I like the video because it looks like the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit, and because visually, it feels lonely. The song has always felt like the opposite of loneliness to me, and I dig the contradiction. Also, I think Liam totally walks like that.
