This Is Hardcore

Director: Doug Nichol
Year Released: 1999
Rating: 3.5

One of the finest music videos I've ever seen, predominantly because it has little to do with the singer or musicians 'playing up' to the camera, and is more focused on telling a fragmented story made up of disparate elements from classic cinema (the sets range from film noir detective offices to Hollywood Technicolor to Busby Berkeley-inspired dance routines). The prim-and-proper decor and clean-and-polished actors and actresses - with their slicked coiffures and beehive hair - act as a negative parallel to Pulp lead-singer Jarvis Cocker's vocals about sleazy sex and waning romanticism.