Music Videos Made Us Better People

by Alexandra Molotkow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=168&v;=w1Wq5Tt-op8

And how do we feel about this video for Rose McGowan’s “RM486,” directed by Jonas Åkerlund? I’m still distinguishing Rose McGowan the Queen Bitch in Jawbreaker from Rose McGowan the Art Singer, but the song stayed in my head for a half hour and then faded into Bjork, which is a good sign. Really, I just can’t get over this:

I’ve been thinking it over and I totally support bejeweled masks based on the goriest imaginable human possibilities. But if I’d seen the video as a kid, it would have messed me right up, the way so many videos did!

Which gets me thinking about how strange a medium the music video is, and how strangely we consumed them growing up: short films without context, designed to drill themselves into your memory in under four minutes, and we watched them uninterruptedly for hours at a time. “Black Hole Sun,” with those loopy grins and melting dolls, gave me my first taste of dorror (that’s horror + disgust). “Naked” by the Goo Goo Dolls — it must have been some kind of homage to The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover (with a bit of Eraserhead?) but that movie is one of the most dorrible things I’ve ever seen and wait is that Udo Kier what is going on?! Then there’s “Puppet Master” by Dr. Dre ft B-Real and those Busta Rhymes videos and oh NOOOOOoooo not “Beautiful People” and YouTube is really a form of regression therapy.

What a way to spend a childhood, just wiling away the hours with short, lurid bursts of Soandso’s Interior World. How could that not have improved us?