28 Facts About Music Videos That Are Under Investigation for Killing the Radio Star

These facts are guilty — of being so darn knowledgable!
28 Facts About Music Videos That Are Under Investigation for Killing the Radio Star
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We wouldn’t say that video “killed” the radio star, but it sure injured them pretty good for a while there. Strictly audible mediums like radio, satellite radio and the ever-popular podcast are all thriving to various degrees. Obviously some moving pictures help the audio’s cause, but we can’t be watching videos while driving to work, now can we? 

Why are we defending audio in a list about video? Maybe we love a god underdog story. We do have a ton of great lists about the music itself, but today we’re focusing on the visuals — or the times that audio and video teamed up for greatness.

Rick Roll

There was a Rick Roll hidden in Silicon Valley. CRACKED.COM In Silicon Valley, Gilfoyle hacks a smart fridge and this code is displayed. In the code is the URL for the music video of Rick Ast- ley's Never Gonna Give you up on YouTube.

Pink

CRACKED.COM PINK'S SO WHAT IS ABOUT HER SEPARATION FROM HER HUSBAND. VO Oddly, she still had the guy, Carey Hart, in the music video. It's not as awkward now as it was then, since the two got back together a couple years later.

Jennifer Coolidge and Ariana Grande

She Was Cast In An Ariana Grande Music Video CRACKED.COM Coolidge first discovered Ariana Grande was a fan after Grande did a pretty accurate impression of her on The Tonight Show. In response, Coolidge sent Grande a DM telling her she loved the impression which eventually led her to reprise her role from Legally Blonde in the Thank You Next music video.

David Fincher

David Fincher wanted the director of NIN' sCloser to make the title sequence. A fan of the music video, Fincher suggested director Mark Romanek to do the movie's titles. But designer Kyle Cooper insisted on doing it himself. SEVEN CRACKED.COM

Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele Не appeared in a Weird Al Yankovic video. Key and Peele show up in the music video for Yankovic's White & Nerdy, freaking out at just how white and how nerdy Al is. CRACKED.COM

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

PHIL COLLINS & BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY CRACKED.COM Bone Thugs-N-Harmony flew to Switzerland so Phil could sing live in the music video for Home. The collab went so well that the band made Collins an honorary member. His Bone Thugs-N-Harmony name? Chrome Bone.

Garth Brooks

GARTH BROOKS THUNDER ROLLS CRACKED.COM Good luck finding this video on YouTube (although it's on the Internet if you want to dig). Brooks plays an abusive husband who actually strikes down his wife in front of his young daughter. CMT wouldn't air the clip but it still won the CMA Video of the Year.

Erykah Badu

ERYKAH BADU WINDOW SEAT CRACKED.COM How much attention can you get for 500 bucks? Erykah Badu filmed a video where she walked through Dallas' Dealey Plaza, removed her clothes, and pretended to get shot in the exact same location JFK was assassinated. Dallas cops charged Badu with disorderly conduct-- and that $500 fine.

Britney Spears

BRITNEY SPEARS HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME CRACKED.COM The video's director caught flack for featuring the former Mouseketeer grinding in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit. All I did was tie up my shirt, protested Britney. I didn't do anything. Then again, she seems to know she was up to something: I'm not that innocent.

Billy Idol

BILLY IDOL CRADLE OF LOVE CRACKED.COM You might think the troubling part is the young neighbor crawling in her bra and panties to seduce the Business Guy. But MTV banned the video for featuring Adventures of Ford Fairlaine clips. (Andrew Dice Clay got a lifetime ban for telling naughty nursery rhymes at the MTV Video Music Awards.)

Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy

EDDIE MURPHY & MICHAEL JACKSON GRAGKED.COM They were both 80s icons but it's hard to imagine what else brought these two together. Watch for early greenscreen technology (is it raining Michael Jacksons?) and a handshake at the end, some kind of gentlemen's agreement that Whatzupwitu was a terrible, terrible idea.

Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave

KYLIE MINOGUE & NICK CAVE CRACKED.COM The pop princess and the Bad Seed teamed up for an unlikely love song. I had a quiet obsession with her for about six years, says Cave. It was only when I wrote this song, which is a dialogue between a killer and his victim, that I thought I'd written the right song for Kylie to sing. Creepy.

Music Videos for Brands

More and more, music artists are writing new songs just for brands. Wiz Khalifa and his son dunking Oreos in the Playful 4 Life music video For example, Kelly Rowland made Crown for Dove, Wiz Khalifa made Playful 4 Life for Oreo, 2 Chainz made Expensify This for Expensify, and Bebe Rexha made Right Here, Right Now for Lay's. These companies built whole musical branding campaigns that heavily revolved around these songs. CRACKED.COM

Total Request Live

MTV'S TOTAL REQUEST LIVE WAS A DAILY MUSIC VIDEO COUNTDOWN SHOW PULL SN Before YouTube, we had to patiently wait for Carson Daly to introduce one minute clips of our favorite music videos. CRACKED.COM

Madonna

Madonna roused the ire of the Vatican. PEPSI GRACKED.COM She actually debuted Like A Prayer in a Pepsi commercial. But the official music video aired two days later, featuring Madonna being acutely horny for a saint. The Vatican protested, and Pepsi pulled the plug.

Kanye

ONE OF KANYE'S FAVS CRACKED.COM Kanye West has gone on record (Twitter) by stating that Akira and There Will Be Blood are equally his favorite movies ever. Не even went as far as to parallel a lot of the scenes in the anime classic in his music video for Stronger.

MTV

MTV was only available in New Jersey when it first launched. CRACKED.COM Only certain cable sub- scribers in NJ were able to watch the new station and the first music video they decided to play, Video Killed The Radio Star, on August 1, 1981.

Ethan Hawke

Ethan Hawke Не directed the music video for Lisa Loeb's Stay. Loeb was part of Hawke's theater company back then. She hadn't even been signed by a label when her hit came out in the mid-'90s. CRACKED.COM

Pharrell

Pharrell made only $2,700 in songwriter royalties from 43 million plays of Нарру on Pandora. Happy was nominated for Best Music Video and Best Pop Solo Performance in 2015, but that didn't help his cut from the streaming service, where a million streams yields roughly just $60 in royalties. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW

Childish Gambino

THIS IS AMERICA by Childish Gambino sparked a ton of controversy. - ي In 2018, the Hiro Murai-directed video was discussed to no end. A very apt review said, It tackles police brutality, gun violence, and the use of African Americans as a brand shield, all while dancing in Jim Crow-style caricature. It won the Grammy for Best Music Video that year. CRACKED

OK Go

OK Go was a pioneer in viral music videos. Their treadmill choreography in 2009's Here It Goes Again was a massive hit that led to their rube goldberg machine video for This Too Shall Pass. With a crew of 60 people, the machine synced up with the song itself and took roughly 60 takes to complete. CRACKED

Michael Jackson

The morphing technology used in John Landis's $4 million epic was totally cutting-edge stuff at the time, which could probably be done fairly well on an iPhone these days. Plus, a cameo from Macaulay goddamn Culkin. CRACKED

Barbie Girl

Aqua did Barbie Girl, and as far as anyone is concerned, only Barbie Girl. That makes the inexplicable $3.5 million spent on the video directed by Tomás Mašín for this absolutely forgettable Eurodance follow-up all the more mysterious. CRACKED

P. Diddy

Directed by Marcus Nispel, this $2.7 million video set in the year 3002 has explosions aplenty, cameos from Danny DeVito and Dennis Hopper, and a bit where Puff Daddy releases two doves from each hand in slow motion. Incredible. CRACKED

Limp Bizkit

Limp Bizkit have always had a complicated relationship with irony - their $3.5 million video for Rollin', helmed by Fred Durst himself and shot atop the World Trade Center, is meant to be self-parody, but can you really spend millions satirizing your own excesses? CRACKED

Rupert Wainwright

James Brown, Eazy-E, Queen Latifah and, uh, Jim Belushi all show up in Rupert Wainwright's 15-minute epic, plus a who's-who of 1991 sports stars - Jose Canseco, Isiah Thomas, Wayne Gretzky, Deion Sanders and more. That's what $2.5 million gets you. CRACKED

The Scopitone

Music videos are 20 years older than MTV. CINEMATIC 50 They were made for the 1960s fad Scopitone, a jukebox that could play video. CRACKED.COM

Baby Driver

BABY DRIVER Edgar Wright based Baby Driver on a 2004 music video he'd directed. The video for Blue Song by Mint Royale has a getaway driver chilling and listening to music in his car while waiting for his buddies to finish a heist. Wright just expanded the concept. CRACKED.COM

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