B (3:23)

And I remember the weekends we would go to my dad's house, my sister and I, I would make a beeline right up to the room I was sleeping in and just watch MTV all day long. I would watch it until I felt like I got to the end where like, I've seen Every Breath youh Take three times today. I think I've seen all the videos they have to offer. Cause I didn't want to miss anything. I didn't want to miss one video. And so I would sit there like as a 6 year old or 7 year old and just be like, I think I can turn it off now. I mean, when did you consciously remember the video being a part of your life?

A (4:08)

How? I think probably in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was this channel called the Box.

B (4:14)

Oh yes.

A (4:14)

And you could call up and request a video. And I remember just watching that channel all day. Like when we were grateful enough to have cable. Cause we didn't always have cable. But when we got.

B (4:25)

How old were you when you got it?

A (4:26)

Do you remember? I was probably 10 or 11. And I would just watch videos all day. You know, Nelly's hot in here was one of those ones that I saw a million times. Pink, when she still was like an R and B singer. I was in middle school, I got a little older. I feel like my whole social life was organized around music videos. Like, I would wake up in the morning, there would be like a block on mtv. And then I would go to school and talk about music videos. I would rush home to watch either TRL on mtv.

B (4:56)

Total Request Live, hosted by Carson Daly.

A (4:59)

Carson Daly. And then maybe 106 and park on BET. But it was like my whole day was just structured around when I would get to see music videos and when I would get to talk about them. You know, I'm curious, like, what?

B (5:13)

Like why. Why the music video? Like, what was it about that art form that magnetized you from the minute your bell rang to send you home from school?

A (5:27)

I mean, part of it is just like FOMO or whatever it was before that term came out.

B (5:31)

Cause people were talking about it.

A (5:32)

People were talking about it at school. You wanted to be a part of the conversation. But also, I think it was just sort of like, I think cluing me into the idea that, like, the song is one thing, but there could also be this other interpretation by a director or a producer or what have you that was slightly different. And there was a slightly more oblique take on the same exact material.

B (5:51)

Yes.

A (5:52)

And I was like, really excited by that. And maybe there's some part of me that like, was like a proto critic sprouting in that moment. Because you're like okay, this is how I imagined it in my head, but this is somebody else's take on that very same material.

B (6:06)

But it also feels important to say that it wasn't just MTV. I mean, you mentioned BET and VH1. Each one of these networks was doing a different thing. Mtv, I would say, was much more about what was basically hot in one way or another, according to the charts, but also just if you were a white person who could get a music video made, MTV would probably play it. VH1 was much more focused on women. That, to me, was the Women's Music Video Network. VH1 was where the women lived. And BET was where I would say urban contemporary black people lived because they weren't playing any hip hop on bet. MTV really was the first place to start playing rap videos. The first of those three networks to start playing rap videos. Anyway, the point is, they were like radio stations for videos, and they had a format.

A (7:04)

Yeah, that's true.

B (7:05)

And you knew if you wanted to see a Najee video, you knew to go see Najee do his thing on BET in the afternoons. And that was also exciting to me. I could watch my Poison, I could watch my Najee, and I could see a Kate Bush video. Well, if I flipped channels, I could see them all in, like, 10 minutes.

A (7:28)

Yeah, yeah.

B (7:29)

But that was how I would spend my summers. What are some videos that you could not wait to see or that you remember seeing? Cause, I mean, for me, you know, I remember the day Thriller premiered. Right. I mean, I guess that's not hard. Like, where were you when a planet. When a different planet hit? This planet. Yes. That's not hard to forget. But I can definitely remember the Thriller premiere. It was at my father's house, and it was. I saw it for the first time. I think it was like, two o' clock in the afternoon.

A (8:05)

It's a good time to see that.

B (8:06)

Music video on a Saturday.

A (8:07)

Mm. You know I like you, don't you? Yes. I was wondering if you would be my girl.

B (8:18)

And I just remember sitting there being completely eroticized. I know there was something about his true transformation from Michael to the werewolf.

A (8:31)

Are you all right?

B (8:33)

Get away. As a kid, I was like, I don't know what's happening right now, but this is kind of sexy.

A (8:44)

Yeah, There was definitely some titillation there.

B (8:46)

Yeah, that was mine. That was.

A (8:53)

Yeah. I mean, one of the earliest music videos that transfixed me was Missy Elliott's the Rain. Me, I'm super flop. Yeah. And it was just like, I'd never seen anything like it before in my life. Like, first of all, there's the trash bag imagery, which is iconic at this point.

B (9:12)

Missy Elliott in these inflated trash bags, what we're calling inflated trash bag suits. Um, and the. The helium that seemed to fill them and made her, like, airless, weightless.

A (9:26)

Yep. But it was sort of subversive in that it was seeming to comment on her own weight and the way that she was perceived in the industry as a. A heavier woman. And then you also had her, like, in these, like, kind of slightly absurd tableaus. She's sitting on a hill, she's wearing a wig. You know, she's referencing Lauryn Hill. Like, there's just something, like, interesting and riddle, like, about all of the imagery, and I just couldn't understand it. So it was.

B (9:54)

It was weird.

A (9:55)

Yeah.

B (9:55)

It was a very bizarre expression of this artist. And I mean, it wasn't that regular to experience black people doing really just truly weird things.

A (10:11)

Yes.

B (10:12)

Right.

A (10:12)

Yes.

B (10:13)

I mean, we were sexy, we were hot, we could dance. I mean, we understood how to be on camera. But this was something else.

A (10:23)

Yep.

B (10:24)

Right. This was somebody sort of mocking the priorities of at least, you know, an entire wing of music video iconography to invent something new.

A (10:35)

Mm. And then I think I also, like, really enjoyed the bad boy videos of the mid and late 90s. What you know about going out head.

B (10:45)

West, Red Legs TVs all about, like.

A (10:48)

The Shiny Suit era was my time when I was coming into an awakening around music videos. And you would see Puff Daddy and Mees and the whole cadre of bad boy artists, like, flossing and gesturing and just, like, making love to the camera as they see the camera was very.

B (11:05)

Much a part of that era's aesthetic. And the artist. I mean, it's one thing to know the camera is present, but to treat the camera almost as a person. Right. Like a person who is there to be entertained by the antics before it and to just, like, walk up to it and, like, put your face in. Hype Williams fisheye lens was really something.

A (11:30)

Yeah. And it's also. You're looking at me, but I'm looking at you.

B (11:33)

Yes.

A (11:33)

You know what I mean? This is like a two way thing here. It was all about radiating success, you know?

B (11:40)

Okay, you know what I think would be helpful right here is to just think about what a good music video is. And I think a way to do that is to break them down by taxonomy. There are different styles of music video. I'm just gonna, like, come up with a few off the top of my Head. And I will say that, you know, there are individual artists that, you know, the great legendary music video people. You know, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Bjork. I would say those, to me, are the four most important music video artists that helped make the music video the thing that it is today.

A (12:21)

Yep.

B (12:22)

And I would say that all of those artists occupied the different formats of the music video. And I would say, broadly speaking, these taxonomies basically break down this way. There is the portrait video, which is maybe the most common form, which is the artist essentially lip syncing the song to the camera and in different environments, scenes, soundstages, different outfits. Let's see, what else do we have? The single story location video, which is the artist telling a story that essentially functions like a little short film. And, you know, you can follow the story either through dancing or because there's an actual plot. There's the long form video, which is essentially a motion picture in which the story of the video lives beyond the length of the song. So there are some minutes spent before the music actually starts, or there's a break in the song to further some kind of story idea. But it's different from the single story music video in that there's some ambition to tell a story that contains the song, but is also bigger than the song. And what else would I say? The live performance video, of course.

A (13:39)

Okay.

B (13:40)

The great ones don't do a lot of these. It's like footage captured from somewhere else that is being repurposed for the purposes of just getting a music video made and proliferated. I think you and I might agree they're cheating a little bit.

A (13:53)

Yeah. But I love Whitney Houston's We Almost have It All.

B (13:57)

Oh, there's another one.

A (13:58)

Yeah.

B (13:59)

Oh, yeah. So emotional is the one for me.

A (14:01)

Because some of these people, you didn't know if they could sing or not. You didn't know if they were factory or studio creatures. And Whitney, I mean, obviously she could sing, but, like, I think that video really drives it home.

B (14:12)

And then there's probably even more common than the portrait video. There's the bunch of scenes that hopefully add up to something. Music video, which, you know, that is the sweet spot of the music video.

A (14:26)

Right.

B (14:27)

Like, we got a costume designer. They brought all these clothes. I can't pick one outfit. So y' all gotta find me some scenes to wear these clothes in. That is most music videos. It's like, I'm a big artist at this point. I want to play around with all of these sound stages and do a bunch of crazy Things that maybe by the time the editor gets done putting it all together, it's going to amount to something. I would say those are your. What is that? Four, five different styles of music video. How does this. Am I. Do you like what I'm doing?

A (14:58)

I think that's a really good taxonomy. I think that's a really good taxonomy. I don't think I can add to the taxonomy very substantively, but I can highlight a few tropes that I know for music videos.

B (15:10)

Are these. Can you frame these as do's and don'ts? Things you like and don't like? Give pet peeves.

A (15:15)

Well, okay. I think my do's and don'ts are slightly separate from the tropes.

B (15:20)

Okay, let's talk about some tropes.

A (15:22)

But some of the tropes are, like. I think from the 80s, one would be to have a metal gate somewhere, a metal fence, a chain. Oh, from what's Love Got to Do With It. Also, where are the cats?

B (15:36)

Camera sort of moving along the. Oh, yeah.

A (15:39)

Yes. Or like some evocative shot of a hand on the gate. So I'm thinking of Chaka Khan's I Feel for your.

B (15:46)

Yes, there's a fence in that one.

A (15:47)

There's a fence in that one.

B (15:49)

Another good portrait video.

A (15:50)

Another good portrait video. I think there's also, like, the Posse video, you know. Oh, yes, of course. Particularly in hip hop, you'll just have, like, a bunch of people going back to their neighborhood, right? Standing in front of the project, standing in front of their block with everybody out there. I mean, that trope has been, like, repeated in too many videos to name. But I'm just thinking of, like. Like Wu Tang, you know, popularized that for sure. Nas. Yeah. I mean, it was a big. I think, a big trope in hip hop. Like, I'm. I'm succeeding. I'm popular. Like, I have a video. There's a video crew here. But I'm not. I haven't forgot where I came from because my people are here with me.

B (16:27)

I mean, there's. I mean, that is still a hip hop video trope, for sure. Trope for me. Band videos. The other musicians are not allowed to do anything. The lead singer is the only person who matters in a music video trope. Every once in a while, somebody interesting in the band would do something, but it's rare. If you're in a band, it's Michael Stipe all day long. But even Ram was a little more generous in that regard. I mean, I think those guys really thought of them as A quartet, but, like, you know, or Red Hot Chili Peppers, at least. Flea and Anthony Kiedis were very apparent together in those videos. But basically, you know, lead singer. Lead singer.

A (17:08)

Vil, I have a question. So is this only applicable to rock bands, or is it also applicable to R and B groups?

B (17:15)

No. Now, the problem, of course, with the group video trope is it exposes the, like, insufficiencies of certain acts with the groups you're kind of like. But wait, what does Lance Bass do like Lance? What is Joey's point again? I kind of get what JC's all about, but really, this just seems like it's all about Justin. Sorry, Chris Kirkpatrick. I don't. I don't know.

A (17:45)

Also, I mean, I think that can be also applied to Destiny's Child. There was even.

B (17:50)

Oh, 100%.

A (17:51)

There was even this really funny MAD TV skit from back in the day. And one of my favorite things was that Mad TV would spoof the music videos of the era. And there was this one on spoofing the Destiny's Child video for Emotions. And it's just.

B (18:07)

Isn't that the one with the three of them just, like, side by side by side? Yes.

A (18:12)

They're in a triptych. Beyonce has her storyline. Kelly Michelle have their storyline. And then by the end of it, I believe that they converge. Right. In this Mad TV spoof, Debra Wilson plays Beyonce. And so the lyrics. Emotions are. It's just emotions taking me over. Right. But then in Deborah Wilson's version, it's just Beyonce taking it over. Beyonce's little triangle or her sliver of the screen, Bliss Green is in the middle. And by the end of it, she's over and she pushes everybody else out.

B (19:01)

Oh. Which leads to another trope. Nailah the wind fan. The industrial strength wind fan.

A (19:09)

Okay. Yes.

B (19:10)

I mean, you know, the heavy metal guys started it, but Mariah picked it up.

A (19:15)

Okay.

B (19:16)

And then, you know, Beyonce picked it up. Gotta have the hair. Must blow at all times. If it's not blowing, I'm not going.

A (19:24)

Yep. I would also add another trope, which is the. For a while in hip hop videos, there was this, like, thing where there would be all black space people having fun, people posing, people doing whatever, people dancing. And then there would be, like, a white person, a random white person that would come into the video and they would kind of make fun of them. Right. It was just like they're at a house party and somebody, a white guy just starts dancing. Or, like, there's like, some awkward white person doing Something. And it was just like, go, white boy. There's a commentary on, I think, hip hop's, you know, widening reach and the fact that at some point in the early 2000s, late 90s, it was probably mostly young white teenagers buying albums. So there was this, like, interesting moment of, like, wanting to invite them in, but also to make fun at the.

B (20:11)

Same time to let them know there's a line.

A (20:14)

Yep.

B (20:15)

And good luck trying to cross it. Although, you know, that ship has basically sailed. Yeah, that's a great one. I forgot about that.

A (20:22)

And I would also.

B (20:23)

It never even occurred to me.

A (20:25)

I would also add one more. And again, this is from hip hop and R and B of the late 90s, early 2000s. And that's this effort to showcase technology.

B (20:33)

Yes.

A (20:34)

Right. So there's like, we were futuristic. We were very futuristic people. I'm thinking of, like, the two way pagers in a number of videos. I'm thinking of the two way pager in Nellie and Kelly's Dilemma video. Nelly and Kelly Rowland's Dilemma video where she pulls out her 2A and she wants to text him, her boyfriend, something, but she ends up typing into an Excel spreadsheet. Right. So we were like, trouble.

B (21:00)

Talk about a dilemma.

A (21:03)

So eager to show ourselves as, like, being, like, tech savvy and with it. But, you know, just typing into it.

B (21:09)

But, you know, corollarily, there's the visionary version of that too. Where you get. That leads you to TLC's waterfalls.

A (21:14)

Yes.

B (21:15)

To Busta and Janet's what's It Gonna Be?

A (21:17)

What's It Gonna Be?

B (21:19)

I mean, I think that, like, in the same way that black musicians were in the 70s, thinking about outer space, you know, other dimensions. I think those same priorities. In the 80s, we were interested in robotics, computer love, becoming robots. And I think in music videos around the late 90s and early 2000s, the question was, how do we become just technology?

A (21:48)

Okay, final trope, I think I keep saying. I don't have that.

B (21:53)

You keep finding new ones.

A (21:54)

I keep finding ones.

B (21:55)

Your trope is a trove.

A (21:57)

I have a trove of tropes. Okay. It's the feminist empowerment trope where women get together to go up against a guy, Right?

B (22:05)

Yes. So there's Love is a Battlefield.

A (22:07)

Pat Benatar, Love is a Battlefield. Whitney Houston's it's not right, but it's okay.

B (22:11)

Oh, yes.

A (22:12)

Where all the women come together at the end. Or like towards the end, where she's got all this evidence against her husband or her man. Like you said, it was, you Were talking to the guys from up 54th Street. But it was an LA area code. You know, she has all covered.

B (22:27)

2 and 3.

A (22:28)

Exactly.

B (22:28)

Show up on my caller ID.

A (22:29)

Why did 2 and 3 show up on my caller ID? So why did 2 or 3 show.

B (22:36)

Up on your caller ID?

A (22:44)

You know, why did you. You said you went out with two people or four people. It was the guys, but it was just two people in your credit card receipt I found. You know, so she's laying out all this and then she has these women supporters that come up behind her. She's wearing a dominatrix outfit with this short bob and like a neck thing or like some kind of collar.

B (23:05)

She got a choker.

A (23:05)

You got a little choker on. She's giving like very dominatrix. And then I'm also thinking of Khalees. Khalees, I hate you so much.

B (23:15)

I hate you so much right now. Yep, yep. From 1999, 2000.

A (23:19)

Yes. Where she's also got a gripe against abusive or slandering man video too.

B (23:25)

Nailah. I think that video just, it strikes me as fence. I hate you so much right now.

A (23:32)

Yeah, but it's just so, it's hilarious and over the top and so campy. There are these women coming out of their houses to join the. To join this group. And I mean, they're communicating something about feminism, but I really don't know what it is because I think feminism is after, you know, more important ideals than.

B (23:53)

Like fucking up a man.

A (23:54)

Right, right. But they're all there and they have signs.

B (23:58)

Yes, yes. You know, I hate you so much right now.

A (24:01)

Exactly. So that might be my favorite because it just deployed so, so commonly and for like really confusing means. Go ahead, say something. You were gonna say something.

B (24:12)

No, I'm listening to you.

A (24:14)

Oh, okay. Do's, do's and don'ts. Okay. One of my do's is, I think the main do in a music video is to create like some really indelible imagery. Something that's like again, slightly mysterious, slightly hard to parse, that will keep people coming back to it. You know, I mentioned the rain already, which to me was like a it's ancient rune. I'm up in the middle of the night just like trying to better understand it. And I think that's what I think is a major do for me is just like to make something that begs repeating, begs repeat viewing that are gonna keep people coming back to it. My major don't is like when music video directors make the video extremely literal.

B (24:55)

Ooh.

A (24:55)

If they haven't committed to it if they haven't committed to it. So there are some exceptions, but, like, we don't really need to see because the music video is a separate thing from the song itself.

B (25:04)

We don't need this, like, close read.

A (25:06)

Of exactly what's happening. Or this, like, close adaptation or translation of the lyrics. Like you can do. Feel free to do something slightly different. What are some of your do's and don'ts?

B (25:17)

Oh, I mean, I'll keep it brief. I just want things to make sense in the video. I want every motif to add up to something. I don't even need a lot of motifs. Don't motif me. Just give me one. But don't give me seven different scenes that don't mean anything. Just pick a studio, pick a set and just stay in it. Tell me a story in this set. Or if you've got a few sets, make it add up to something. Also related to this is costume changes. They're the same. It's the same complaint. But I know you had the money to spend on these four outfits. But I only need one. I just need one. Save it for the next video. Because if we're talking about 1995, you're gonna get three more cracks. Toni Braxton, right? Just gimme one look. One look, maybe two. That's all I need.

A (26:18)

Yeah, there's some continuity errors all up and through those videos, for sure.

B (26:22)

Cause nobody's thinking about that.

A (26:24)

And no logic to it either.

B (26:25)

And often you can get away with it. Cause I'm just here for the artist, right? I don't care about continuity. But if enough people show you something that is coherent, right? If enough. Especially if you're an artist who I thought believed in coherence and you go and do something sloppy. I don't really know what to do with that. Why are we changing our clothes? You don't. You're not a clothes changer. Just stick with the program. Madonna. You do that sometimes. Sometimes you just, like, change your clothes for no reason. You've done it and it drives me nuts. Cause you're so good at the music video. Okay, I wanna take what we just talked about and try to apply it to what's happening to the music video now. Because first of all, I should ask, where do you think the art form is currently versus, you know, what you were watching when you were a teenager, what you were watching when you were in your 20s? Because at some point we enter the streaming era. What is happening from your perspective?

A (27:28)

I'll say. I think there are Some people who are still making some great videos, there are people who are very visually minded, have great aesthetic impulses and really care about the medium of the music video. Those people still exist and there's some great music videos that still come out. But I think the state of the music video is greatly diminished. Some of the like, biggest artists of our time don't even make music videos anymore, right. Beyonce, I think notably for Cowboy Carter, didn't make any music videos. They're like.

B (27:55)

Or for Renaissance, or for Renaissance.

A (27:57)

They're these visualizations, these like looping like moments of, you know, these moments of like the art is doing something that just get looped and looped and looped and it feels like we're losing the art form of the music video to social media. Right? People are on their phones. So I think it's that, I think it's this notion that like you have to make reels or like TikToks or very like bite sized sort of visual accompaniments for these projects. And I think that's part of the problem. And speaking to something you mentioned earlier, you said that one of the appeals of music videos when you were a kid, when you first got MTV at your dad's house, it was the ability to spend time with these artists, right?

B (28:41)

Yes.

A (28:41)

And for a while, I mean that was the only way you could spend time with them. This is the only way you could see what their hair was doing or what fashion was like, right? And now you can just open your phone and you can just go to a person's page and see what they're doing. You can see like what they ate for breakfast. You can just kind of. You don't need the technology of a music video to spend time with them. You can do that in a multitude of ways today.

B (29:03)

Let's think through like the industrial concern here, right? Because you know, historically the thing that kept music videos from being taken seriously from the outset was that they, we didn't use this word back then, but they were treated like content, right? And they were essentially a commercial for this long form music format called the album. And each video was essentially bankrolled by the record company to promote an album, to sell songs, but also sell albums. And I think that what has happened essentially is, you know, MTV wasn't paying to run these videos. I mean it was like a please play our video MTV break. Our artists, sell us millions of albums, please. And now in the streaming era, the music labels don't need that. They don't need MTV anymore, right? Mtv, you know, in theory, if they really wanted to stay in business, they'd be paying the labels themselves.

A (30:03)

Yep.

B (30:04)

Like, it's just not in an artist's interest now to just throw the music video on mtv where, like, Paramount, Viacom. Sorry, Skydance. Oh, Lord. Skydance gets all the money. Be that as it may. Nailah. There is still something called the Video Music Awards, and they're still giving out the Moon man statue in 2025. So we should take a break. And when we come back, I just. I just sort of want to spend some time thinking about the Video Music Awards in general and who the Video of the year nominees are.

A (30:43)

Let's do it.

B (30:44)

I'll be right back. Mont Blanc invites you to use life's quiet moments to pause, reflect, and put pen to paper. Chapter one.

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No, no, no, no.

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Part one.

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Perfect.

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The mountains are impressive. Oh, I wish you were here to see them. Dear diary, meet my new writing companion, the Meister. Stuck for every journey. The perfect companion awaits.

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Montblanc. Let's write.

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Visit montblanc.com for exquisitely crafted writing instruments, leather goods, and more.

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Find out more@nytimes.com YourWorld.

B (32:39)

Okay, we're back. We're talking about music videos in 2025, which is, you know, a thing. I don't know if anybody really thought that was gonna happen, but we're doing it on cannonball. The VMAs are this weekend, and I just sort of wanted to think through this award show. It's been around 41 years.

A (33:00)

Wow.

B (33:01)

And in addition to them giving out a bunch of awards, it was an award show where cool, random, but essentially cool things happened, right?

A (33:11)

Yep.

B (33:11)

They were an alternative to the perceived stodginess of the Grammys.

A (33:15)

Yes.

B (33:17)

Do you remember your first one?

A (33:19)

Yeah, I think my first one must have been the 1999 VMAs. There's this moment where little Kim comes out of the limo or the car or whatever.

B (33:28)

I thought Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York, had outlawed outfits like this.

A (33:31)

This is amazing. This is the year with the purple outfit, the purple wig and the exposed breast.

B (33:38)

Yes.

A (33:39)

With the little pasty over it. And it was so shocking. I don't think I'd ever seen anything like that in my life. Not only did she make it on the awards, but Diana Ross.

B (33:50)

She presents an award.

A (33:51)

She presents an award.

B (33:52)

She comes to the one and only Ms. Diana Ross.

A (33:56)

And then she, like, leans across her body and jiggles her breast. Oh, my God. I think it's a new Supreme. And. And it was like. I don't think. I mean, it was so shocking. Right? Like.

B (34:11)

Exactly.

A (34:12)

Even though they're both women, there's something strange about what just transpired.

B (34:17)

Love the generational black history.

A (34:19)

Yes.

B (34:19)

I loved the like. Oh, so this is what we're doing now.

A (34:22)

Yeah.

B (34:23)

This is where pop music is. Yep. Oh, no, I'm calling Mary right now.

A (34:27)

Yep.

B (34:27)

We need. This is unacceptable. But also, it wasn't judgy. It wasn't.

A (34:33)

Right, right. It wasn't. It was playful.

B (34:35)

This is cute. Right. I love it.

A (34:37)

But it was like all the tabloids could talk about for the next week and a half.

B (34:42)

Scenes like that happened every year. There was always something.

A (34:47)

Yes.

B (34:47)

Madonna kissing Britney and Christina.

A (34:49)

Yep.

B (34:49)

You know, we'll just leave it at that. Madonna rolling around on the floor in the wedding dress, doing Like a Virgin. I mean, that's the antics that happen on stage. Right. So I just want to do a little exercise here. I don't want to take you on a. On a micro tour of 41 years of winners.

A (35:06)

Okay.

B (35:06)

I'm not going to go through them all, but, you know, if I said to you, Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer, can you see the video?

A (35:16)

Yes.

B (35:17)

Sinead o', Connors. Nothing compares to you.

A (35:19)

Nothing compares.

B (35:21)

These are all winners.

A (35:22)

Yes.

B (35:22)

You can see the video.

A (35:23)

Yes.

B (35:26)

Tlc, Waterfalls. You can see the video. Madonna's ray of Light. Can you see the video?

A (35:36)

I can see it like a rail.

B (35:37)

8 dingity ding. Eminem's without Me. Can you see the video?

A (35:42)

Yes.

B (35:43)

Missy Elliott's working. Can you see it? Oh, let's see. Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

A (35:51)

Yes. It's starting to.

B (35:52)

Great video.

A (35:53)

Yeah.

B (35:54)

It's interesting what you're about to say. What are you about to say?

A (35:56)

I'm starting to say that my memory is. I'm starting to lose my memory of some of the ones that you're mentioning in the 2010s.

B (36:03)

This is fascinating. Katy Perry's firework.

A (36:06)

Yes. Kind of.

B (36:08)

Uh huh. This is interesting. Camila Cabello's Havana, vaguely. The look on your face is great. So essentially, like an important development happens in 2006, which is basically that the fans begin to vote. And so Starting in around 2006, it's no longer industry people, the artists voting for these awards, it's us. And so I'll just catch us up. I'll go. I did not get into the 2000, I guess Camilla Cabello's 2018. But the last 10 years of the Video of the Year, MTV Video Music Award winners are mostly Taylor Swift, mostly Taylor Swift. She wins in 2015 for Bad Blood. Beyonce wins for Formation in 2016. Kendrick Lamar wins for Humble in 2017. Camila Cabello. I mentioned 2019, Taylor Swift, and you need to calm down. Crazy. The Weeknd's blinding lights in 2020, Taylor Swift's all too well. Taylor Swift wins 2022, 2023 and 2024.

A (37:18)

Wow. Okay.

B (37:20)

Like, this is where we are. It's interesting because once you allow that to happen, I think that change, that shift in 2006 mirrors the sort of technological and therefore cultural shift in terms of how the videos are gonna be ingested.

A (37:37)

Yep.

B (37:38)

Right. I mean, because in some way, Nailah, the art form has never been more quantifiably popular. Right. Because most people now experience their music videos in YouTube. On YouTube, we never knew how many people watch David Bowie's Let's Dance or, you know, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's Parents Just Don't Understand. Or Onyx's Slam video. We don't know.

A (38:08)

We didn't know.

B (38:08)

We didn't have numbers. But now we have. I can see that, you know, for instance, you know, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars Die with a Smile was watched, I think, you know, a billion dies a billion times.

A (38:23)

Yeah.

B (38:24)

At least maybe 1.2.

A (38:26)

Yep.

B (38:26)

And we can see what's popular.

A (38:28)

I think that the views on YouTube count towards a song's streaming count.

B (38:36)

And it's factored in chart popularity.

A (38:39)

Yes, chart popularity. Yeah, those. So those streams are factored in.

B (38:41)

So in some ways, chart position, I should say.

A (38:44)

Yeah. Music videos in some ways are more important than ever in terms of like their ability to sway a song's success or to determine its fluctuation up and down the Billboard charts. But in other ways, like culturally it just feels like they're just like marginalized, you know, at the same time, just a very, very strange moment to like be a music. A fan of music videos.

B (39:03)

So in some ways the video, we're not really that concerned with the video. We experience it, but only to. Only for the song. The video is like a vestige of a period in which it was once a primal source of like artistic imagination and commercial viability. And so we have this award show, the Video Music Awards, which for the first time are gonna be shown on network tv. CBS is broadcasting, which means you can probably watch it on the Paramount streaming network, Paramount Plus. But it also means that you can't just rely. A CBS broadcast award show can't live on videos alone.

A (39:48)

Right, right.

B (39:49)

They have now added album of the year. Song of the Year.

A (39:55)

What?

B (39:56)

Yes. And these other non video oriented categories.

A (40:00)

That's wild.

B (40:00)

So it's just like. So now they're just doing things that the Grammys would do. Which by the way, home of the Grammys on CBS.

A (40:07)

CBS.

B (40:08)

So they have kind of gramified the VMAs. It's a tragedy within this tragedy. I just want to take a second to just like look at celebrate, cry over thumbs down. These seven nominees.

A (40:23)

Let's do it.

B (40:24)

Cause they're here.

A (40:25)

I think we should do it.

B (40:26)

Where should we start? Nailah.

A (40:28)

Where should we start?

B (40:31)

I'm just going to say Ariana Grande.

A (40:32)

Okay.

B (40:34)

Ariana Grande is nominated for a bunch of these things. The video, the quote video unquote is Brighter Days ahead. It is a 27 minute long form video, like a movie. And this is an extension of an old music video, Eternal Sunshine where she is riffing on she wants to forget an ex boyfriend. It's the concept. Here is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Welcome to Brighter Days Inc. And now our friend Ariana Grande. She's wheeled into some memory company by an attendant to erase her four remaining memory eggs.

A (41:22)

Yeah.

B (41:23)

Had the sole mission of relieving people from painful memories that might be harming.

A (41:28)

You know, it's like conceptually it's eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's mostly coming from there, but there's also a little bit of inside out. And there is so many things happening.

B (41:37)

That is inside out.

A (41:38)

It's inside out with the memory, the core memories coming down, the little thing or whatever. I mean I found it to be really interesting and really kind of. I could see what she was aiming for. I could see the ambition.

B (41:50)

I could see what was Being aimed for.

A (41:52)

I could see it. But I think the thing that was most striking to me about this video was like, the moment when she plays her first core memory. Okay. It says here you have four memories left. Which one would you like to watch? And it's for the song intro into the world. How can I tell if I'm in the right relationship? And we see these. This, like, stream of home videos, like, from this character's youth. The thing I find interesting about this moment is that there's this, like, moment of convergence between the personal and the professional.

B (42:31)

Yes. Those videos appear to be Ariana Grande's own family videos.

A (42:35)

Yes. And it just sort of. It made me think the first thing I thought of was YouTube itself. Right. Like, and when you watch YouTube. And the first thing I do, I love this. I like to watch YouTube, but I also like to read the comments as well. And down in the comments you see people talking just all about, like, when they first heard a song. And this is a shout out to my girlfriend. And we first met in 1984 and we drove down Lakeshore Drive and we played this song, et cetera, et cetera. And just how, like, entwined like, music is with people's personal memories. Right. We've been talking about music videos and our personal relationship to them. I bet we could mark moments in our life by certain videos. Right. And it just to me was like this, like, palimpsest of personal and entertainment and how it all comes together, particularly in YouTube.

B (43:22)

It's deeply nostalgic. But here's my question, Ayla. But really I'm gonna ask. Ariana, Ariana, where's the joy? Where's the twinkle? Where's the Glinda of it all? Where's the Wicked? Where's the shade? You made this after you shot at least one Wicked movie. Like, what are we doing? Where is it? Like, you look catatonic the entire time. Why? Because, Nailah, my favorite thing about Wicked is I didn't wanna see that movie.

A (43:55)

Mm.

B (43:56)

But Ariana Grande is so good in it. And she's not even given press tour. She's not even giving Wicked press tour in this video. What's missing from it is what I would describe as the thing that we were going home to see, which was something that was distinct from the movies, but was giving you what the movies have the power to give you, which is stardom. We now talk about it as main character energy.

A (44:23)

Right? Yeah.

B (44:24)

That used to just be movie star. That used to just be music video star. And nobody, very few people are Giving that. But I want to say it is not absent from this category. The next video I think we should talk about with respect to video stardom is maybe Sabrina Carpenter's Man Child.

A (44:48)

I really like that video. Oh, boy. It's a video inspired by movie trailers. So there's a cinematic element of it. You said your phone was broken.

B (45:01)

Just forgot to charge it.

A (45:07)

It's taking its motion or it's. It's mean thrust from trailers and the chaotic energy in trailers. I guess the loose plot of it is that Sabrina Carpenter is hitchhiking across the American west and she's riding with men. And she gets into this. A variety of women.

B (45:28)

Name a kind of man. She's in a car or some vehicle with it.

A (45:31)

Single guys, avuncular types. I mean, every kind of man in these cars. And moving from chaotic moment to moment, from strange image to strange image where kind of bleeds into like uncanny valley. In fact, I feel like the whole video is taking place in some uncanny. In the American West. But like a strange image of Sabrina sitting in a diner and an elephant crashing through. Right. Like the elephant in the room. It's just evoking all kinds of things. And there's this really wonderful moment. I think we were talking earlier. I was saying one of the things I really treasure in a music video is evocative imagery. Like mysteries. Visual mysteries.

B (46:13)

Visual mysteries.

A (46:14)

So there's this moment where she's in what could be a station wagon or an old school sedan and there's a chandelier hanging from.

B (46:23)

The art direction in this thing is fantastic.

A (46:25)

It's so fantastic.

B (46:26)

This is nominated for best editing. It is. It almost. I mean, I'm not gonna say it's the only winner, but it definitely deserves to win best editing for sure. I love this video. Some of the like dream imagery that comes through just in one cut. Right. It lasts for a second, the shot. But I remember seeing. I think it's an ax as a gear shift.

A (46:49)

Yep.

B (46:49)

Right.

A (46:50)

Yep. So it's evoking too like AI slop. And how all this stuff comes together in our algorithms and our consciousnesses. It's like it's a very. I think of the moment video in a strange kind of sort of understated way.

B (47:04)

And the person in it is a star.

A (47:07)

Yes.

B (47:07)

In the world of this video, there's no way to leave it and not think. This is a person who has complete control, complete self understanding, knows how to wink.

A (47:18)

Yep. And he's playing with all these sort of ideas about innocence and maturity. And she's Giving like Dolly Parton. Like, this is very Dolly Parton 9 to 5 era. Kind of like she's like. There's like a hold up that happens in the video.

B (47:34)

She's got the 9 to 5 hair.

A (47:36)

The 9 to 5 hair. Also Ethan Cohen's recent, like, madcap capers.

B (47:42)

Yes. Yes. You know what I would call the lesbian caper movies.

A (47:46)

Yes.

B (47:46)

It's got a little bit of Tarantino, you know, but I actually think she's more Olivia Newton John. I mean, literally in this video, she's got Dolly Parton's wig and everything.

A (47:55)

Yes.

B (47:56)

But there's something kind of Olivia Newton John, both as a vocalist and as a screen performer.

A (48:02)

Coquettish, sort of kittenish, sort of like.

B (48:04)

Yes. But winking in a way that Olivia Newton John didn't need to. But now, you know, given our politics, I mean, anyway, we don't need to get into the politics of Sabrina Carpenter now. But she gets the joke, y'.

A (48:18)

All.

B (48:18)

She knows what the joke is.

A (48:20)

She knows what she's doing.

B (48:21)

She's telling it.

A (48:22)

Yep. And there's somewhere in my mind that chandelier is still tinkling. I'm still thinking about what it all means and it's just. Yeah, I'm just thinking of that chandelier still.

B (48:32)

So next, Kendrick Lamar's not like us. I mean, you and I have talked about this song. It never gets old. It's so deep. There's so much going on. I had not spent a lot of time with the music video, unlike 388 million other people. But, man, this really, according to my taxonomy, this is a very satisfying bunch of things thrown, and let's see how it goes.

A (49:16)

Yep.

B (49:17)

I love this thing both for its insideriness. Right.

A (49:21)

Yes.

B (49:21)

You know, just to be clear about some of the iconography in the video, it opens at a Martin Luther King memorial in Compton, California. And this video is doing everything you love, Nailah, and nothing you don't love. Like, it has assembled a bunch of people to celebrate and shout along to the lyrics of this song.

A (49:45)

Yes. It's a. There's posse in thereal. Yep.

B (49:47)

I mean, it is a. It. It feels like a national posse.

A (49:51)

Yes.

B (49:52)

They not like us. They not like us. They not like us. That's one set. And then another set is at some point in the middle of the video, we're standing a bun in front of a bunch of shipping containers.

A (50:04)

Yes.

B (50:05)

That is some grim imagery in terms of, like, what Kendrick Lamar is suggesting. He's the co director of this video and, you know, he's Arguing that the shipping containers might have once, at one point, contained. Contained women.

A (50:21)

Contained women. And also, I mean, there's also the implications of us right of the middle of passage. You know, not to get too heavy, but, I mean, when you see a black person in front of a shipping container, I mean, there are so many associations. And that's a major one, right? For me. I mean, again, another how we live now moment for me is just like, the rapacity with which fandoms go online and Reddit and they have their, like, theories about what all the imagery means and, like, all the double entendres and triple entendres that are in Kendrick's songs, particularly his beef songs, the songs that he had in the beef with Drake.

B (50:58)

I think this music video. I think it's a great music video from the standpoint of the way we've been talking about, like, what a successful one is. Yes, it's a great Kendrick performance. Yes, a wonderful Kendrick music video performance. And in terms of, like, the power of chanting not like us, and all of the other sort of mantra, like, anthemic moments in this song, having, like, hundreds of people shout them at a camera that is at the Martin Luther King Memorial, it is simultaneously chilling for its insidiousness, but also for its history, you know, like, the way that these people have gathered to, like, essentially expunge somebody.

A (51:49)

And excommunication is happening, right? Yeah.

B (51:52)

Really? Anyway, we gotta move on, but that video's a winner.

A (51:57)

Mm.

B (51:58)

Next. Timeless.

A (52:00)

Timeless.

B (52:02)

The Weeknd and Playboi Carti.

A (52:04)

Playboi Carti video is a very dark video.

B (52:08)

Literally. It is. It is. It is literally dark.

A (52:11)

Literally and figuratively dark. You have the Weeknd and Playboi Carti on a soundstage somewhere. They are performing their lyrics to the camera while a bunch of women gyrate around them in a very joyless way. If I can say, now you look.

B (52:26)

These women look lost.

A (52:28)

They do.

B (52:28)

They look confused. Yeah. And I hate to be this person, but it's like they got out of one of those containers that Kendrick is dancing in front of, and they're like, wait, where are we?

A (52:38)

I mean, there's.

B (52:38)

Y' all said we was coming to Kendrick. They say, kendrick, where are we?

A (52:43)

There's a moment where one of the women looks at the camera and breaks.

B (52:45)

The fourth wall, and she's like, what is going on here?

A (52:55)

I mean, I. I found this to.

B (52:56)

Be, like, sort of like, this is the darkness.

A (53:00)

Almost a photo negative of those bad boy videos we talked about, right? Like, if the bad boy Videos are trying to impart this idea of, like, shininess and success and New Negroes. Playboi Carti has a jersey on. A jersey that says Iverson on it, right? Referencing wearing it backwards to Allen Iverson. But also he's got tags all on his. Throughout his clothes, right? So it's like a joke, right? Or some kind of, like, way of referencing just the new Negro ness energy of those old videos, right? Like, it's just.

B (53:34)

But the new Negro was happy. This video is so dark and, you know, we can't get a decent, clean shot of really anything except blinding lights. Blinding lights, for some reason, is the only thing we can really see clearly. Okay, moving on. There are two. The two Bruno Mars videos are nominated. APT is the first video, and Die with a Smile is the other one. You and I had a wonderful conversation about this man and these two songs. Neither one of those is gonna win. I don't think either one of those should. A video I do think should win, though is Billie Eilish's Birds of a Feather.

A (54:32)

Tell Me why.

B (54:34)

I just feel like this is such a great, like, star performance. The video is really like a subconscious dream of the song to me.

A (54:47)

Tell me about this setting.

B (54:48)

She's in an office. She's in a workplace. She's in an office, like, interviewing. She's sitting where an interviewee would sit. We don't see a desk, but she's in a chair. And while she's really giving the song to us with her eyes, with her snarls, with her sides, she's being pulled somewhere. Like, her arm starts to move. And then she sits again and she continues. And then there's another tug. And all of a sudden she is being dragged through this office space. She's crashing through walls. She's falling into glass coffee tables and just being dragged some more. This video, to me, is about the helplessness, in some ways, of her own behavior toward the person in the song. I feel pulled in a lot of different directions by things I can't control. I also feel guilty about how I act, and I can't control that either.

A (55:49)

And, I mean, I just. I was most struck by just, like, the juxtaposition of her youth and probably isn't. She's probably a Gen Z' er in an office building. In a dilapidated office building, right?

B (56:01)

Like, and they probably got this on sale, which is why they filmed it in it, right?

A (56:05)

But just, like, is there some commentary she's trying to make about her generation or. It's relationship to work. It's relationship to workspaces. I don't know, I could be putting 20 on 10.

B (56:14)

I thought, I'll take your 20 and I'll give you back a 10, a 5 and 5 ones. What I will say is like, I actually think this is about the labor of being in a relationship, of being famous. And the thing that's tugging at her we don't see, which is a great special effect trick. And I just love that she is the star of this thing the whole time. And she never gives up the lip syncing part. Right. And there's nobody else in the video, it's just her.

A (56:45)

And there's a chair that plays a crucial role in it. And so I automatically think of Janet. Janet Jackson. Pleasure. Principal. Pleasure.

B (56:52)

Principal video. So anyway, talk about a star performance, like iconic star performance. But yes, Janet Jackson.

A (56:59)

I'm thinking about how those two videos speak to each other and emotional labor.

B (57:04)

That's deep. Nailah. Damn. Okay, let's be basic for one second. We've talked about these nominees, these seven nominees. Who's your winner?

A (57:14)

I mean, it's between two people for me. I think Kendrick Lamar has had a banner year and I think this would just be another thing in his trophy case. But he truly deserves it. It's such a.

B (57:24)

Come get another one.

A (57:25)

It's such a rich text. It's such a galvanizing moment in pop culture. And Sabrina Carpenter, I really enjoyed that video. And I think. I think what she's doing with some of the imagery in the video, I think speaks to that very controversial cover of Man's Best Friend and the vague, like, traces of Robert Mapplethorpe in that cover, you know, a thousand percent. And it's just. It's so provocative and interesting. And both of those videos, I think, speak to this moment in their own ways. What about you?

B (57:52)

I mean, obviously the Kendrick video, I mean, it's funny cause I. I sat down with all seven of them, like in one sitting a couple of times and. Well, I'm lying. I couldn't watch the Ariana Grande more than once. That wasn't enough for me. But I liked the intimacy and again, the coherence of Birds of a Feather. I mean, both songs are really good. I love Birds of a Feather as a production musically. And I think that the tightness and kind of fragrance of that production, like, really makes its way into the music video. But look, there's no denying to me that the power and impenetrability of Not Like Us is a text. It is a bottomless document and I kind of love that you could basically spend an entire semester unpacking that thing.

A (58:54)

Yep.

B (58:55)

But, yeah, I think. I think Kendrick's gonna win, but I'd be happy if Billie Eilish or even Sabrina Carpenter, but mostly Billie Eilish, if she won. Okay, so we gotta go.

A (59:07)

Yep.

B (59:08)

This show is on Sunday. I don't know, it's just meaningful to me that this art form has never been being experienced, even passively, by more people. And yet it does. No. It no longer feels primal to who we are as a culture.

A (59:27)

Yep.

B (59:27)

And yet it's telling to me that all these young artists are still making good videos. Dochi, great music video person.

A (59:37)

Yep.

B (59:37)

Dua Lipa, great music video person. Lola Young, this person who just showed up in the last year, her messy video, just her in one space, did two takes. It's fantastic.

A (59:51)

Just last month, Tyler, the creator, unveiled a slew of beautiful and interesting videos. And Little Sims is also another great person.

B (60:00)

Yes.

A (60:01)

Yep.

B (60:01)

So it's saying to me that the medium is still vital.

A (60:04)

Yep.

B (60:05)

And these videos, I know that we are practicing criticism on them to unearth and extract the ways in which they absorb the priorities of social media, but they exist for you and me and all the YouTube viewers in the house as music videos. They're not TikToks. And so there's still a primacy there.

A (60:29)

Yep.

B (60:29)

There's some juice in that grid.

A (60:30)

There's a lot of juice in there. I mean, I think the music video is in good hands, you know, from the artist perspective, from the industry perspective, I'm not so sure. From big tech perspective, I'm not so sure. But hopefully artists who are increasingly independent mining will still find a way to deliver this art form to us. Nayella, we did it.

B (60:54)

Thanks for coming.

A (60:54)

Thank you for allowing me to relive my youth.

B (60:58)

Listen, I mean, that is like 40% of what we do on this show. So thanks for Cannonballing.

A (61:04)

Thank you for having me. Again.

B (61:29)

This episode of Cannonball was produced by Janelle Anderson, Elissa Dudley, Austin Mitchell and Josh, with production assistance from Kate Lopresti. It was edited by Lisa Tobin. This episode was engineered by Daniel Ramirez. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman and features original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Dave Mayers. It was edited by Eddie Costas, Mark Zimmel and Jeremy Rocklin. We're on YouTube. I've said it before. Y' all need to watch and subscribe, please. We'll be back next week. And listen, it's gonna get real in here because I'm inviting a very special friend to talk about the state of all our stuff nationally, Americanly, blackly white. Thanks for listening, everybody. See you next week.