Revisit Pop-Up Video: The VH1 Sequence That Reinvented Song Movies & Pop Tradition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist

Within the 8­ies, peo­ple lament­ed the atten­tion-span-short­en­ing “MTV-iza­tion” of visu­al cul­ture. Through the mid-nineties, internet­works have been check out­ing to fig­ure out methods to get view­ers to sit down thru song movies in any respect. A solu­tion arrived within the type of Pop-Up Video, a professional­gram pitched via cre­ators Woody Thomp­son and Tad Low to VH1 when that much-less-cool MTV clone discovered itself strug­gling to stick automotive­ried via cable suppliers. It had an enchantment­ing­ly low-bud­get con­cept: take exist­ing song movies, and spice them up with textual content bub­bles con­tain­ing information in regards to the artists, behind-the-scenes anec­dotes, and amus­ing (if semi-rel­e­vant) triv­ia.

“We were given numerous resis­tance from VH1. They owned Block­buster Video on the time, so that they knew no person hire­ed for­eign motion pictures as a result of no person need­ed to learn the TV.” So remembers Low in a Invoice­board inter­view in regards to the his­to­ry of the display, which orig­i­nal­ly ran from 1996 to 2002 (with a short lived revival in 2011 and 2012). Like many cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na liked of mil­len­ni­als, Pop-Up Video has gained the oral-his­to­ry deal with­ment greater than as soon as: Uproxx additionally did one a cou­ple years ear­li­er. Those arti­cles are input­tain­ing in the similar approach as Pop-Up Video itself, open­ing up the doorways of the fac­to­ry and be offering­ing a glimpse of ways pop-cul­tur­al sausage will get made.

Introduced neatly sooner than the age of Wikipedia, Pop-Up Video required inten­sive analysis. That supposed no longer simply inter­internet seek­es, however telephone calls to direc­tors, professional­duc­tion design­ers, hair­styl­ists, automotive­pen­ters, cater­ers, and any­one else who would possibly have labored on a par­tic­u­lar song video (if no longer the musi­cians, few of whom knew how their movies have been made, or even few­er of whom have been will­ing to dish dust on them­selves). Those incessantly com­pli­cat­ed, rushed, and oth­er­smart trou­bled professional­duc­tions generally tend­ed to professional­duce mem­o­rable sto­ries, which par­tic­i­pants grew to become out to be hap­py to inform years lat­er — no longer that the web­paintings or the artists’ guy­age­ment have been at all times hap­py with the consequences.

Additionally like many cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na liked of mil­len­ni­als, the display was once sat­u­rat­ed with the well-known­ly irrev­er­ent sen­si­bil­i­ty of Gen­er­a­tion X. Tasked with deliv­er­ing amusing information, its writ­ers did­n’t hes­i­tate to knock celebri­ties off their pedestals whilst they have been at it, and with a humorousness that got here to be rec­og­nized as decep­tive­ly intel­li­gent. (Head creator Alan Pass has spo­ken of being impressed via Hunter S. Thomp­son, and Low via a favourite creator who made “exten­sive use of foot­notes,” which brings anoth­er three-ini­tial identify to thoughts.) You’ll watch over 100 “popped” song movies in this Youtube playlist, with extra on the Inter­internet Archive. Alas, many have nev­er come avail­in a position on-line, however then, Pop-Up Video did make a distinctive feature of ephemer­al­i­ty.

by the use of Metafil­ter

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Com­plete His­to­ry of the Song Video: From the Nineties to Lately

The 50 Nice­est Song Movies of All Time, Ranked via AV Membership

Watch the First Two Hours of MTV’s Inau­gur­al Extensive­forged (August 1, 1981)

Revis­it Episodes of Liq­uid Tele­vi­sion, MTV’s 90s Display­case of Amusing­new york, Irrev­er­ent & Odd Ani­ma­tion

How Rick Astley’s “Nev­er Gonna Give You Up” Went from 80s Pop Damage to Bas­tion of Inter­internet Cul­ture: A Quick Document­u­males­tary

Based totally in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and huge­casts on towns, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives come with the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Towns and the e book The State­much less Town: a Stroll thru Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him at the social internet­paintings for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.