Screenshots: YouTube
At the turn of the millennium, we had chrome control rooms, space-age architecture and fully futuristic fashion. These five music videos welcomed in Y2K and helped define the ultimate aesthetic:
1. TLC – No Scrubs
Directed by Hype Williams, No Scrubs released in 1999. TLC had become pop culture icons and FanMail was their victory lap. The video saw them singing, shimmying and throwing kicks in a chromatic space station. Sleek surfaces. Curved architecture. Soft silver lighting. The trio showed the lengths they would go to to escape a buster, asserting their independence in metallic fabrics and neon pastel eye shadow. Luxury futurism at its finest.
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2. Janet Jackson & Michael Jackson – Scream
Directed by Mark Romanek, Scream hit the screen in 1995 and did much to define the aesthetic that became Y2K futurism. Landing as something of a rebuttal to the noise around Michael, the short film sent the Jacksons into deep space. Production designer Tom Foden built an array of modules. A gym. A screening room. A sterile lounge. A sculptural corridor. The concept was simple: two superstars in self-imposed exile, cycling through environments to stay sane. The whole thing ran in stark black and white. Hair and makeup leaned into an anime aesthetic that was still niche at the time. And Janet and Michael wore the baddest spiked sweatshirt you’ve ever seen.
3. Jamiroquai – Virtual Insanity
Directed by Jonathan Glazer, Virtual Insanity dropped in 1996. The track was on Travelling Without Moving, but the video made the title literal. A man dancing in Adidas sneakers while the world slides sideways. The setting is a sealed white box. Panelled walls. Fluorescent ceiling grid. Grey floor with no detail to cling to. Leather furniture wrapped in plastic. Drifting toward dystopia, the video sees the room salted with ominous signals. A crow. A cockroach. A smear of blood disturbing our sterile future.
4. The Notorious B.I.G. feat. Ma$e and Puff Daddy – Mo Money Mo Problems
Directed by Hype Williams, Mo Money Mo Problems came out in 1997 as a celebration of the recently deceased Notorious B.I.G. The track flips Diana Ross’s I’m Coming Out into a hook about glitz and status. A black tunnel lined with fluorescent tubes. A stark white chamber where pressurised air lets Puff Daddy and Mase float like astronauts. Hip hop was escaping the streets and going stratospheric. Reflective jumpsuits catch the light. So much metallic leather and nylon. Any real hypebeast is still looking for a pair of those yellow goggles.
Watch the video here.
5. Britney Spears – Oops I Did It Again
Directed by Nigel Dick, Oops!… I Did It Again defined the year 2000, at last delivering Y2K pop as a consumer product. Britney wanted Mars. She wanted a red jumpsuit. The video built the whole world around that brief. It is a sci-fi set with club logic. Rust red surfaces. Chains. Dancers in shiny silver. A NASA-coded astronaut shows up with a rescued relic from the Titanic on Mars. And this all plays out on a circular screen in a control room that feels subaquatic. Of course, the suit is era-defining. Gloss red. Skin tight. High neck. Bootcut?! Wow.
Sources: Clash Magazine, Dazed, r/Music