Did it? Music videos have almost become a different art form, in some ways separate from the singles they’re designed to promote. Videos are simply another way of approaching the music, a different medium through which to hear and experience the tunes. This quiz comes in two parts: the first is a series of straightforward questions about well-known pop videos, while the second is a mix-and-match affair spotlighting famous film directors’ forays into the pop video business.
Answers: here
1 Which Duran Duran video, directed by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), cost over £1 million to make in 1984? After her work with Hot Gossip, who was hired to come up with the choreography?
2 What was Brandon Flowers’ first solo single, a UK Top 10 hit? Which Academy Award-winning actress appeared in the accompanying video?
3 Which Madonna video won director Jonas Akerlund a host of awards in 1998? Who directed the video for her 2001 single ‘What It Feels Like for a Girl’?
4 The video for Eminem’s debut single featured the singer impersonating Bill Clinton, Marilyn Manson and a member of the Brady Bunch. What was its title? And who appeared in the video as Eminem’s doctor?
5 Which funk soul brother sang guest vocals on Fatboy Slim’s hit ‘Weapon of Choice’? And who danced up a storm on the video, directed by Spike Jonze?
6 Better known as a fashion photographer, Jean-Baptiste Mondino cleaned up most of the big video awards for his work on which 1985 hit for Don Henley? Which major artist has used Mondino on a number of videos, including ‘Open Your Heart’, ‘Justify My Love’ and ‘Human Nature’?
7 When Billboard magazine ran a poll for the best music video of the 1990s, which 1999 pop song won 40 per cent of the vote? Nigel Dick, its director, also directed which famous 1984 Christmas video?
8 Who directed the soft porn video that accompanied Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on Film’ in 1981? And from which band did this pair split in the late seventies?
9 Which Green Day video won Samuel Bayer a bucketful of awards in 2005? Which actress did Bayer and Justin Timberlake persuade to appear in the video for Timberlake’s hit ‘What Goes Around . . . Comes Around’?
10 Francis Lawrence, director of three of the Hunger Games movies, also directed which award-winning 2009 Lady Gaga video? Which fashion designer’s famous 12-inch heels did Gaga wear in the clip?
11 The popular video to which Queen single saw Freddie Mercury and the rest of the band dress in drag and do a spot of housecleaning? Where did Queen perform two years after the promo was made, a concert that was released on video and became, for a while, the bestselling music video in the UK?
12 Which film director and animator worked with Kate Bush on the concept for the video to ‘Cloudbusting’? Which Hollywood star was persuaded (reputedly, by Bush herself) to appear in the narrative film?
13 Which 1994 video caused something of a furore when it showed Prince gyrating, obviously naked, in a bathtub with the New Power Generation writhing around him? Who directed it?
14 Which 21-year-old comedian, about to get a lot more famous, did a Benny Hill-style routine in the video for Blur’s ‘Country House’? Who directed the video, which also featured the celebrity glamour model Jo Guest?
15 Which 1986 Peter Gabriel video saw director Stephen R Johnson take his work on stop-motion and figurine animation to a new level? Which British animation company wored with him on the video?
Match each director to the pop video they made and the mainstream movie they directed. If you correctly match a director to both video and movie, score two points. If you match a director to either video or movie, score one. And if you match video and film but put them both with the wrong director, score a big zero.
Directors:
1 Michael Bay. 2 Kathryn Bigelow. 3 Tim Burton. 4 Sofia Coppola. 5 Jonathan Demme. 6 Brian De Palma. 7 David Fincher. 8 Jonathan Glazer. 9 Michel Gondry. 10 Spike Jonze. 11 John Landis. 12 Spike Lee. 13 John Maybury. 14 Michael Moore. 15 Gus van Sant.
Movies:
Being John Malkovich. The Blues Brothers. Bowling for Columbine. Carrie. Do the Right Thing. Drugstore Cowboy. The Edge of Love. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Fight Club. The Hurt Locker. Pearl Harbor. Sexy Beast. The Silence of the Lambs. Sleepy Hollow. The Virgin Suicides.
Videos:
Aerosmith – ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’. Björk – ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’. Foo Fighters – ‘Everlong’. Michael Jackson – ‘Black or White’. The Killers – ‘Here with Me’. Meatloaf – ‘I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’. New Order – ‘Touched By the Hand of God’. Sinéad O’Connor – ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Public Enemy – ‘Fight the Power’. Radiohead – ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’. Rage Against the Machine – ‘Sleep Now in the Fire’. Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘Under the Bridge’. Bruce Springsteen – ‘Dancing in the Dark’. Tom Tom Club – ‘Genius of Love’. White Stripes – ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself’.