Sometimes you fall deep into a nostalgia-fuelled youtube hole and you’re watching Sugababes – Hole In The Head at 3am which you had totally forgotten about for literally like eight years and you’re all ‘wow god I thought Keisha was so hot when I was like, twelve’ and you get an idea for a blog post and you finish the whole thing in like two hours and you can’t think of a real intro so, dear reader, you get this atrocity fired into your inbox AT SPEED. Enjoy! Formative music videos! Yay!
/GARBAGE – BLEED LIKE ME
This is first on the list because I’ve kissed SO MANY GIRLS to this song. So many! I was thirteen when this came out and fully embroiled in hormonal hell and it made me want to kiss Shirley Manson a lot, but this was obviously unobtainable and I settled for kissing a girl in my ballet class instead. While thinking about Shirley Manson. Nothing’s changed, really.
/JEM – THEY
Commonly known as the ‘space stripping video’, this is sort of like a mildly sensual Alien if Alien didn’t have any aliens in it and there weren’t any other crew members and Ripley awoke from cryosleep with one thing on her mind: nude interpretive dance. In anti-gravity. Jem also looks quite a lot like Ellen Page, which is nice.
/PLACEBO – PURE MORNING
Remember Placebo? Remember Brian Molko circa 1999, arguably the pinnacle of androgynous human perfection? Despite being born a couple years too late to fully immerse myself in embarrassing Placebo fandom, this video perfectly facilitated my journey to becoming a snarling, sexually frustrated, half-starved baby queer and I apologise to everyone who had to deal with me during that time. Fuck you, Molko.
/PRINCESS SUPERSTAR – PERFECT
ONE TWO THREE FOUR LEMME HEAR YOU SCREAM IF YOU WANT SOME MORE
This absolute masterpiece of a music video spawned my desire to wear false eyelashes under even the most strenuous of circumstances, which may or may not include doing rhythm gymnastics in front of someone who looks like a Ken doll in all his aggressively desexualised plastic glory. The doll-faced cutie in the bikini comes comes first in the trophy ceremony at the end, but they’re all partly responsible for turning me into the lascivious lady lover I am today. You’re all no. 1 in my heart, girls.
/AMY STUDT – UNDER THE THUMB
Previously known for the acutely cringy Misfit, Amy Studt came back with the forgettable Under The Thumb and promptly ignited a morally inexcusable stockholm syndrome kink I didn’t realise I had until later. Amy’s wretched boyfriend’s tied up (flimsily) to a chair in a cute little cottage where she lovingly feeds him breakfast, washes his hair for him and occasionally engages in this weird half-kiss half-headbutt thing where the boyfriend looks like he’s about to give himself whiplash. She lets him go in the end. Beats me.
/ERIC PRYDZ – CALL ON ME
It took every inch of willpower in my body to not include this abomination in this list and I failed because honestly, how can you not? This video epitomises nearly every dated beauty standard of the early 00’s – pneumatic tits, garage door eyeshadow and a fake tan the exact colour of a digestive biscuit, and it single-handedly propelled acres of porno panic from The News Of The World et al. I’ve never actually found this remotely sexy, but I’m including it because I have a real thing for ultra high cut 80s leotards and I’m sure it’s at least a little bit to blame. Mmm, sweaty swamp crotch.
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