But even before this "final end", music television changed a lot, and at some point after the millenium, the "music" part of television was slowly but surely replaced with cheesy crap, comedy shows (some of them quite cool actually - does anyone remember "crank yankers" or "drawn together"?), and the abovementioned dating shows (and at least in the UK version of MTV this apparently included a "naked" dating serial! yikes!).
Things were quite different in the 80s and 90s of course, and I was a teenager in 90s Germany, and MTV (and other music stations) came to us over the cable TV (and satellite for the richer kids...).
And, surprisingly, back then, in that decade, they had plenty of cool shows like "Alternative Nation", "Into the pit" (for headbangers who were still tuned to the channel after the ballroom), MTV's Party Zone (Techno / Electronica / Hardcore) or MTV's Chill Out Zone.
Especially the chill out zone was a true gem. Because, despite the "chilled" name, this was not just for ambient and "armchair techno", but usually the part where the real true electronic underground of the 90s found its place... I am talking stuff like Aphex Twin, Zhark Recordings, Alec Empire, Biochip C... or Air Liquide and Mouse on Mars.
Party Zone was more the rave party type thing... but they had exceptions to the rule, too, and, for example, Alec Empire hosted a "Digital Hardcore special" there, and this was the first time I listened to really, really Hardcore Techno music... (which ended up changing my entire life trajectory by inspiring me to become a DJ and producer myself... but please, dear readers, this is a vastly and entirely different story...!).
On with the show, I dearly remember many Friday and Saturday nights in the mid to late 90s, coming home from dirty nasty squat parties with gabber-skinheads and zany manic ravers in the mosh pit, feeling completely burned and trashed, but good on the inside, sinking into the couch in my parent's living room, and then tuning to these weird ambient and electronic music video shows on TV... ah, memories!
So, now let us get to the goods. Here is my idea of 5 of the best "underground" videos that found airplay on Music Television in that 1990s decade.
1. Atari Teenage Riot - Speed
Do you like Fast & The Furious? With Vin Diesel? And Paul Walker (Rip). I always thought the movie was kinda cool, and "Speed" was in Tokyo Drift, when the first "Drift" happens, in that Tokyo high rise... very fitting, imho!
The song itself was nearly 10 years older than the movie, though, and this is the very cool music video to it.
2. The Prodigy - Voodoo People
In the 90s, of course, every guy was into the "b*tch" video by The Prodigy, because of the tarantino-like happenings that go on in the aforementioned video... but i always prefered this one.
It's also the prodigy at their hardest, metal guitars, super fast beats, super deep bass... let's get ready to rumble!
But be careful with that voodoo magic, Eugene!
3. Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy
Uhhh yeah... Aphex Twin was always kind of a fusion of really Hardcore beats, but also very cerebral music... and this leans to the left side of this equation, because it is fudging Hardcore! "Metal" sounds, super fast beats, zombies that seemingly desire to eat up grandmas and scare dogs in the streets after spawn... it's all here.
The music video was made by a very famous director, too!
In the 90s, of course, every guy was into the "b*tch" video by The Prodigy, because of the tarantino-like happenings that go on in the aforementioned video... but i always prefered this one.
It's also the prodigy at their hardest, metal guitars, super fast beats, super deep bass... let's get ready to rumble!
But be careful with that voodoo magic, Eugene!
3. Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy
Uhhh yeah... Aphex Twin was always kind of a fusion of really Hardcore beats, but also very cerebral music... and this leans to the left side of this equation, because it is fudging Hardcore! "Metal" sounds, super fast beats, zombies that seemingly desire to eat up grandmas and scare dogs in the streets after spawn... it's all here.
The music video was made by a very famous director, too!
4. LFO - Tied Up
I heard that, at a later date, there was some cheesy pop band called "lite funky ones" aka LFO, too, but that is not what I am talking about... the original LFO were the inventors of "bleep techno" and, correct me, but I think they were around in the 80s already.
"Tied Up" was a later release on Warp records by them, and there is a strange remix on it.
It had gabber kicks, but in an industrial rhythms, lots of weird breathing and noise...
The music video is just as "Hardcore", and with a title like "Tied up", you might be able to guess the overall topic of the video...
It's a sight to behold!
5. Orbital - The Box
Orbital is another group of veteran UK ravers and "the box" is just... weird.
I think it is one of the videos with the heaviest rotation ever on MTV, at least amongst the videos aired after 8 PM. My brain is wired with memories of the video, the alien man/woman standing still in a confusing world of humans, images, colors and shapes, timelapse... and me feeling very similar to them, at that time, too.
6. Moby - That's When I reach for my Revolver
Sheena, of course, was a punk rocker, at least according to the Ramones (sorry for this bad joke / pun at the beginning of this text). But you know who else was a punk rocker? Moby! He was a HC punk, then he became a HC raver, and then he became an electro heart-throb for middle aged men and women, with his singles like "why does my heart feel so bad?".
But this video was made when he had a short relapse into his punk rock days. A quite good alternative rock song of the 90s (maybe a bit like pumpkins or foo fighters). the video feels quite bleak and pessimistic... and I think it fits to the mood of "generation x".
7. Alec Empire - The Report
Alec Empire is a member of Digital Hardcore band "Atari Teenage Riot", and this music video is the complete opposite of all the screaming and shouting, violent music and aggression... or is it, really?
Actually, it's not "really" a music video, it's a short movie that Digital Harcore Recordings did in the 90s. Directed by Philip Virus, who later became an acclaimed movie director...
The story is about a woman, she walks home from a funeral, her boyfriend just had died... and then she discovers strange documents... the government seems to be involved, there is surveillance, drug induced mental illness, borderline psy-chosis... a conspiracy...
The video, to me, encapsulates the whole "feeling" of the 90s, the paranoia, the helplessness, the inner scream for resistance, the desire to rise up and see through the illusions, the lie of reality...
In my opinion, this "feeling" can be found in other 90s movies too, like "dark city", "fight club", "strange days" or "the matrix"... but maybe this short movie does it even better!
There are actually two versions of it around, one where the lines related to the supposed "government" involvement in the video are blurred out and replaced with similar ones, that are a bit more ambiguous and vague... which, imho, adds to the paranoia... once more.
The music itself is electronica and dark ambient, or could maybe considered to be a kind of "digital musique concrete"... and one of the best things alec ever composed!
8. Human Resource - Dominator
"Dominator" was an early techno and house track, that also got popular in the gabber scene... it is the origin of the so called "hoover" sound in rave, a very messed up, "screeching" juno synth patch...
and the video... uh oh...
are we trapped in the z-th dimension now? it's just flickering lights, polygons, pixel graphics... occasionally a female face floats by... what where they thinking, when they made this video?
by the looks of it, i think a commodore 64 or amiga computer might have been involved... which makes all this, even more cool!
9. Ec8or - C*caine Ducks
Talking about Amigas... Patric was a "thunderdome"-approved gabber producer from cologne, gina was involved in indie and retro 60s rock bands, both of these german teenagers met in berlin, started a band, and who would have thought, MTV actually aired one of their videos later!
The entire "song" is produced on Amiga 500, an infamous 16 bit computer by the commodore company... the style of the song is early breakcore, mixed with a bit of the punk rock... and in this very lofi, "self shot" music video, the amiga computer actually gets trashed and stomped to pieces. that poor amiga!
10. The prodigy - out of space
The Prodigy were not always those "twisted firestarters" ("oh-weee oh-weee oh-weee oh!")
They made some "happy hardcore" breakbeat rave stuff, too! At the early days of their career.
The video is crazy and upbeat, too...
I especially like the "dance off", between a UK raver and some kind of nuclear alien... duck man?
Or maybe it's just another raver.
So, on this high and happy note, let us end the text.
Do you know videos like this, from the 90s, too?
Please let me know! Asap!
Note: No AI has been used when writing this text.
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