This music video directed by Spike Jonze for Weezer portrays the band performing at Arnold’s Drive-In diner from the popular ‘70s television show Happy Days. The first time I saw this video clip was when I was exploring the CD for Windows 95 in 1996. The striking thing about this music video is in the way it appropriates footage from the original show and splices it with contemporary footage of the band playing with a cameo appearance by Al Molinaro (the owner of the diner in the show) for good measure. This music video signals for me the demise of hipster culture at the hands of MTV.
The music video now has become a vehicle for marketers and big money congolomerates seeking to capitalise on new trends and essentially make a buck. Dieckmann summarises MTV’s behaviour as survival through change, and change it has, from once only depicting white rock acts now every second music video is black and of an urban music genre. I think this change can be understood in the context of Weezer’s more recent music video for the song “Beverly Hills”. The video was shot in the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner himself making a camero appearance in the beginning of the clip. “Beverly Hills” can be read as sarcastic in an obvious way, and this new style is leaps and bounds from the irony laced videos of Weezer’s past material.
I think that this is strongly indicitive of MTV’s move to support it’s new favourite child in hip-hop and older bands like Weezer attempting to comment on their new position as the middle child of this new music generation. With lyrics like “truth is, it’s something that you’re born into and I just don’t belong” the bands obvious acknowledgement of the change in times reflects MTVs move to representing a narrow demographic of a teen-and-twentysomething audience who are less interested in the music and instead want programming about lifestyle, fashion, and relationships.
Unfortunately clips like Jonze’s “Buddy Holly” are no longer profitable in this world where hipsters have been relegated to the sidelines, these aristocrats of taste for our generation once acted as guardians of pop-culture but now the thick-rimmed glasses and sweater vests are lifestyle totems no longer relevant to todays “blinged” out youth.
