Putting the ‘M’ Back in MTV
What do you think of MTV Music, the brand spankin’ new Hulu-style database of music videos from the channel’s glory years? I think I’m going to spend much too much time rooting around that site. One can search hundreds of videos by artist, title, or director (thanks to Ironic Sans for that tip!). Just tonight I burned up several minutes watching this, this, this, this, and this — all examples of that “film a bunch of models in grainy Super 8″ style that was briefly hot in the ’80s. I vaguely remember reading in Rolling Stone about a married couple (Paula Greif and Richard Levine) that was responsible for many videos of that ilk.
New Order’s “Round and Round” is one of my favorites from that era, the kinda thing that made you glad that you stayed up late for 120 Minutes for once. As it turns out, one Paula Greif directed it. Honestly, from a 2008 vantage point the idea of juxtaposing b&w footage of models just sitting there with brief flashes of colorful flowers and marbles seems pretty goofy, but back then it was the coolest:
Holy crap. I’d seen it linked everywhere today but assumed that it wouldn’t work outside the US. (Hulu doesn’t.) But I just checked it… AND IT DOES! THAT’S AWESOME.
Heh. Great call on the 120 Minutes thing. That waiting-up for videos I actually wanted to see (including “Round & Round”) was a formative part of my teenage years.