Music Videos That Defined The 90s

The 60s saw the?birth of the music video, while MTV took it to a new level in the 80s, but the medium truly thrived – both creatively and commercially – with 90s music videos. Thanks to the mass proliferation that MTV afforded, it not only brought audiences and artists closer together but provided a fertile testing ground for exploring new ways of storytelling.

This Golden era of music videos also brought forth a second wave of music-video directors led by David Fincher, Hype Williams, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romance, Chris Cunningham, Peter Care, Michel Gondry, and, most notably, Spike Jonze – talents that were given artistic license to create grand-scale short films.

From flashy spectacle to low-fi realism, surreal fantasy to retro fetishism, here are just some of the best, decade-defining 90s music videos.

Spice Girls: Wannabe (1996)

“Girl Power” was the mantra of Britain’s?Spice Girls, a prefabricated quintet whose debut single “Wannabe” was a catchy empowerment anthem that blended pop with rap and quickly rocketed up the UK charts.

Sinéad O’Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U (1990)

The promo for Sinéad O’Connor’s cover of?Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” stands in stark contrast to the majority of 90s music videos. Stripped of any surrealist imagery and flashy visuals, it depicts the shorn O’Connor in a tight close-up and unflinching manner while she sings of her heartbreak.

Fiona Apple: Criminal (1996)

In the days when 99 per cent of everyone’s photos were littered with red-eye, Fiona “This World Is Bullshit” Apple was brooding in 70s rec rooms like a seedy Polaroid come to life. In other words, “Criminal’ exemplified 90s music videos. The provocative visuals aligned with the lyrics about exploiting your own sexuality, but Apple faced severe backlash for it.

?Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)

Just as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” catapulted?Nirvana?to mainstream success, its gritty video served as the benchmark for grunge culture and the teen rebellion to the MTV-watching masses, who ate it up with their morning breakfast. A familiar scene to most American high-school students, the video depicts a pep rally gone wrong, with anarchist cheerleaders and Kurt Cobain’s raw performance inciting a riot.

Nine Inch Nails: Closer (1994)

Shot on a vintage hand-crank camera with stylistic yet perverse shots of a disembodied heart, a twirling pig’s head and Trent Reznor in full S&M gear, the music video for?Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” resembles found footage from a Victorian snuff film rather than something you’d find on MTV. Despite its very NSFW visuals and lyrics, the track and video went on the become a massive hit. For the record, the monkey was not harmed during the making of the video.

Bj?rk: All Is Full Of Love (1999)

For some artists, music videos are not merely a tool for publicity, but an extension of their artistic expression, and no musician embodies that more than Bj?rk. Since her first foray into the medium with “Human Behaviour,” she’s pushed the boundaries of music videos, making them an integral part of the song, as evidenced by her sci-fi vision of love for “All Is Full Of Love.”

The Chemical Brothers: Elektrobank (1997)

Before she was an indie auteur director, Sofia Coppola was an acrobatic gymnast starring in this Spike Jonze-directed video. The intricate twists and turns of her gymnastic floor routine align perfectly with the heavy breakbeats of the instrumental track from?The Chemical Brothers’ sophomore album,?Dig Your Own Hole. With muted colours and cinematic flair, the whole thing plays more like an art house short than a music video.

Pearl Jam: Jeremy (1991)

Seattle’s Pearl Jam were alt-rock pioneers in the 1990s and “Jeremy,” the third single from the band’s debut album?Ten, is a dark, turbulent ballad based on a real life story about a schoolboy who shot himself in front of his classmates. Director Pellington created an immersive visual collage for the song, where storytelling drama – featuring young actor Trevor Wilson as the troubled Jeremy – the band’s music and fleeting on-screen fragments of text, some with biblical references, collided in rapidly cut sequences.?

Jamiroquai: Virtual Insanity (1996)

No list covering 90s music videos would be worth its salt without the mind-bending promo by UK pop-soul act Jamiroquai. A literal take on their album title,?Travelling Without Moving, the vertigo-inducing video made the band a global sensation and had everyone scratching their heads at both the technical wizardry and Jay Kay’s fuzzy top hat.