There are so many trends to come out of music video production over the years that it’s hard to pick the ones we like the most. A music video can be anything, of course, but there are some formulas that have stuck around. In the early 2000s, creativity seemed endless, so here are three trends from that time that feel like we don’t see much anymore.
Tour Footage
This music video trend worked best for rock bands, and it seemed like the most fun when early 2000s pop-punk bands did it. Mostly because they were all young, uninhibited, and driving around in vans for the most part. Theater and arena tour footage is okay too, but the videos that seemed like a friend of the band following them around with a digital camera captured something gritty and real.
Highlights of this style include Fall Out Boy’s “Dead On Arrival”, The Academy Is’ “Same Blood”, The Maine’s “Girls Do What They Want”, and All Time Low’s “Lost In Stereo”. In 2011, post-divorce Panic! at the Disco did this trend a little more stylistically with the “Let’s Kill Tonight” music video. And of course Red Hot Chili Peppers did something similar for “Snow (Hey Oh)” in 2006, using footage of fans as well as the band’s performance.
Long-Form, Multi-part Sagas
It feels like no one is making long-form, multi-part sagas anymore. We’re not talking Taylor Swift’s 10-minute “All Too Well”. More like Beyoncé’s Lemonade visual album. Where are the concept albums that include a video for every track? We’re missing visual narratives and elaborate stories. Actually, this yearning for long-form sagas calls to mind the absolute insanity of Fall Out Boy music videos over the years.
From the pulp horror vampire video for “A Little Less ‘Sixteen Candles’” to a love story set against the backdrop of violent conflict in Northern Uganda for “I’m Like a Lawyer the Way I’m Always Trying to Get You Off”. Which is a crazy song title to attach to such a moving video, but that’s none of my business. Fall Out Boy took it a step further for their 2013 reunion album Save Rock and Roll, releasing music videos for each track. The Youngblood Chronicles, however, was a connected narrative that clocked in at 50 minutes.
One Person, Multiple Characters
This music video trend was notably executed by the Foo Fighters in “Learn to Fly” and André 3000 in “Hey Ya”. In the 1999 Foo Fighters video, the band portrays the majority of the quirky characters on an airplane, as well as themselves. Dave Grohl appears as the pilot, a flight attendant who flirts with himself as the pilot, and a teenage girl who asks himself for his own autograph. Taylor Hawkins, meanwhile, shows up as a sexy female flight attendant. Nate Mendel has a brief role as a crying baby, which is, of course, his adult head protruding from a doll’s body.
For OutKast’s 2003 video, André 3000 takes on almost every role in the elaborate production. He portrays all eight members of the fictional band, The Love Below, who each have a full name and backstory. There’s keyboardist Benjamin André, bassist Possum Aloysius Jenkins, vocalist André “Ice Cold” 3000, drummer Dookie Blossom Gain III, and guitarist Johnny Vulture. André also portrays three backing vocalists called the Love Haters.
Photo by M. Caulfield/WireImage for VH-1 Channel – New York
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