34 Facts About Music Videos That Are As Close As You’re Getting to ‘Pop-Up Video’ in the Digital Age

Pause that video for some facts real quick, would ya?
34 Facts About Music Videos That Are As Close As You’re Getting to ‘Pop-Up Video’ in the Digital Age

We can’t bring back Pop-Up Video, but we can have you read these music video facts while watching them. It’ll be a little bit of work on your end, but we promise you that it’ll be worth it. Simply open another window, pull up YouTube and cue up the music videos referenced in each fact to watch them as you read along.

Come on! We’ve taken the time to round up the facts. If you want that Pop-Up Video experience, it’s the least you can do.

Pharrell

Pharrell's 24-hour music video. ISE 08:57m AM 08 SHARE THIS MOMENT Directed by We Are from LA, the full length version of Pharrell's 2014 hit Happy is 24 hours long. It filmed hundreds of regular people and celebrities dancing to the song overll days of shooting and 42 separate locations around L.A. CRACKED

OK Go

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

Childish Gambino

THIS IS AMERICA by Childish Gambino sparked a ton of controversy. Louda State DE - 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

A-ha

A-ha's TAKE ON ME blended live action and animation. Director Steve Barron and animators Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger used a technique called rotoscoping, which involves tracing over live-action footage, frame by frame. Four months and over 3,000 drawings later, they had arguably the most iconic music video of all time. CRACKED

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello had the first fully animated music video. Released in 1979, Accidents Will Happen was made by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, who created a cartoon version of the band using 35mm stills as reference. CRACKED

Madonna (Again)

The world first saw an empowered female artist through Madonna's videos She is cited by Encyclopedia Britannica as the first female artist to fully exploit the potential of the music video. Her '80s videos for Like a Virgin and Material Girl paved the way for every female artist to follow. CRACKED

Thriller

Michael Jackson's THRILLER is so much more than a music video. In December 1983, the 13-minute short film was solely responsible for increasing MTV's ratings tenfold. It is the only music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. CRACKED

Queen

Rolling Stone said that Queen's BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY invented the music video. It only took four hours and £3,500 to make, but its success in 1975 had every record company thinking about video! Director Bruce Gowers became a star, and went on to make videos for the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, Michael Jackson, and Prince. CRACKED

David Bowie

ASHES TO ASHES by David Bowie is the music video's first art piece. Bowie co-directed his 1980 video, which cost £250,000 to make (a massive price tag at the time). It was a prime example of how music videos can be interpreted as art, and allowed artists to do more than just film themselves playing their instruments. CRACKED

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan was an early pioneer of the music video. In 1965, 16 years before MTV, Dylan filmed a video for his song Subterranean Homesick Blues, where he held cue cards with lyrics. Several bands have used the cue card approach since, most notably INXS with 1987's Mediate. GET BORN CRACKED

Andy Samberg

Andy Samberg His music has been nominated for Emmys. A classic Lonely Island tune, Dick in a Box, was nominated for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics in 2007. Motherlover, Shy Ronnie, and Jack Sparrow have also been nominated. CRACKED.COM

Andy Samberg

CRACKED.COM Andy Samberg Не has several Grammy nominations. The Lonely Island also create music, and they're damn good at it. I'm on a Boat? It was nominated for a Grammy back in 2010 - and Samberg has two other nominations.

Lazy Sunday

CRACKED.COM Andy Samberg Lazy Sunday made him famous overnight. Samberg and The Lonely Island (with and without SNL) had some underground hits. Yet it was only with Lazy Sunday's viral success during the early days of Youtube that Samberg started getting recognized on the street.

Celine Dion

Shot in Prague for $2.3 million by Nigel Dick, the video for It's All Coming Back to Me is a masterpiece of melodrama, all giant four-poster beds and transparent spectral lovers. There's a bit where it looks like a guy's head's fallen off that is very silly. CRACKED

Hype Williams

The special effects in Hype Williams' $2 million video haven't really stood the test of time, but the double entendres, skintight costumes and bits where their tongues nearly touch have. CRACKED

Soundtracks

Taken from the soundtrack of Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, but going for a very different vibe, Joseph Kahn's $2.5 million video takes place in an anime-inspired future. Well, futuristic for 2000 - an AIBO robotic dog makes an appearance. CRACKED

Mariah Carey

RE MENTS Directed by Brett Ratner and inspired by Grease and Enter the Dragon, this $2.5 million video pits Carey against herself, has a Powerpuff Girls-esque animated sequence and makes Jerry O'Connell tongue-kiss a dog. CRACKED

MC Hammer

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

Marcus Nispel

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

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 Tomáš Mašín for this absolutely forgettable Eurodance follow-up all the more mysterious. 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

Madonna’s Bond Theme

The theme tune to the crappiest Bond movie ever cost a whopping $6.1 million. Directed by the Swedish team Traktor, it put Madonna into Bond-esque battles and a fencing match against herself. Expensive silly fun featuring comedy teeth. CRACKED

Madonna

You'll have gathered by now, Madonna really, really liked spending money on music videos. Mark Romanek's $5 million surreal masterpiece featured innovative CGI, morphing landscapes, flying witch hats and Madonna in maybe 15 different wigs. CRACKED

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

Vanessa Carlton

CRACKED VANESSA CARLTON WAS THE QUEEN OF 2002. Her hit single A Thousand Miles and its music video made her world-famous. It remained in the Billboard Top Ten for 41 weeks, went double platinum and charted worldwide. No other song came close.

Blondie

Basquiat was in Blondie's music video for Rapture. Debbie Harry bought Basquiat's first painting for $200. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM

Source: Sotheby's

Tom Green

MTV hadn't expected the video to chart SO they hadn't included it in the shows with made-up rankings. BuffaLo MTV MADE HIM PUBLICLY RETIRE THE MUSIC V

Britney Spears

FUN FACT: Every article of clothing in the music video was bought at K-Mart for under $17. Britney Spears decided to tie up her shirt because she thou

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