Buzz Clips 1987 - 2004

We got inspired to throw together a complete "Buzz Clips" playlist based on the chronological "Buzzworthy" list that used to be on mtv.com.

While throwing this together, we made some discoveries:

#1 One incomplete list is found in this published academic research article which does not include specifics on where the list was retrieved, although its notes suggests their content was pulled from mtv.com's archive on the wayback machine.

Incidentally, the article's hypothesis presents a heavily flawed theory suspecting a programming bias against artists of color and non-male musicians -- a theory which might have held some weight if they had instead focused on adds for MTV's '80s videos. Thriller infamously broke MTV's color barrier in 1983; by the early '90s, the eligibility pool had broadened enough that they were airing bumpers boasting "MTV: The V Is For Variety" and similar taglines. (Pretty sure "the V" was in a summer '93 bumper with 3-second snippets from Aerosmith, Janet Jackson, Radiohead, Madonna, and Dr. Dre.)

It's true that 4 out of 5 Buzz Clips were guitar-rock bands, primarily focusing on alternative crossovers. And for about five years (1992-1996), the Buzz Clips tag primarily branded itself as rock promotion.

But it's also true that Buzz Clips comprised less than 10% of MTV's music programming. The study ignores non-rock branded promotions like "Jam Of The Week" (the feature that first introduced us to Notorious B.I.G.) or their largely varied weekly "Top 20 Video Countdown" show, or the crossover adds that derived from shows like MTV Jams, Yo! MTV Raps, The Grind, AMP, Dial MTV and TRL. All of MTV's "Top 100 Video Countdown" megablocks that they used to play over New Years are listed on IMDB. Choose any year from the '90s at random, and it should become pretty obvious very quickly that the variety in their programming intended to broaden their demographic as wide as possible.

MTV was, and still is, a business. They needed to sell OxyClean pads and Parfume Decour to every teenager whose parents could afford basic cable -- not just the Soul Asylum fans. It would not have aligned with their business model to hyperfocus on targeting white gen-x rock dudes.

We're guessing the research study was a fun excuse to watch every Buzz Clip video. But it's strange that the study's results were considered strong enough to warrant academic publishing. We get the impression that its authors' experience with MTV throughout the '90s was passive at best, and they purposely chose a narrow branded area of MTV's programming instead of considering a broader sample scope. If we were their professor, we would give them a C-. (If the authors happen to find this, we are sorry.)

#2 It's possible that an MTV.com intern was responsible for compiling this list of Buzz Clips since a lot of the videos were missing. (So the study linked above wasn't using accurate data anyway.) Here's a few missing videos we found:

- For whatever reason, the 1994 section had the most omissions.
- Cracker "Low" (early '94) does not appear on the mtv.com list, but it's on the first volume of the Buzz Bin comps. (That said, it was definitely not included in the bumper with Rage, Deep Forest, and Danzig from around the same era.)
- We have a tape with "Disarm" on it (early '94), and it says "Buzz Clip" in the video, which means it was.
- Primal Scream "Rocks" and Rollins Band "Liar" (April '94) do not appear in the big list, but we found both in someone's description of a Buzz Clips TV bumper along with "Longview" and Frente. (The clip is not on Youtube sadly.) When we double checked this in a back issue of Billboard, "Liar" was denoted as a Buzz Clip, but not "Rocks." In either case, we went with what the commercial said.
- NIN's "March of the Pigs" (March '94) and "Closer" (Summer '94) are both missing. We found evidence that these were Buzz Clips in Billboard magazine.
- Weezer "Buddy Holly" (Nov/Dec '94) does not appear either, but it's definitely in a late-'94 Buzz Clips bumper with "Seether," Urge Overkill, and "Doll Parts." We posted the bumper below.
- On the wikipedia page for the band Wax, it claims that "California" (March '95) was a buzz clip, but we can't find any evidence of this. However, we're almost certain it was branded as a Breakthrough Video, even though it was not nominated for "Best Breakthrough" at the VMAs that year.
- There's more, like "El Scorcho" (Sept '96) and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" (Sept '95) and a few others. We're tired of writing about this.



#3 There are many truly strange selections here. We don't feel like listing them all, but a few noteworthy ones include:
- Alan Ginsberg featuring Paul McCartney and Philip Glass??? Does anyone remember ever seeing this?
- A Bob Dylan video from Time Out Of Mind that we don't remember ever seeing on MTV.
- Bosstones' "So Sad To Say," despite that "Impression That I Get" does not appear on this list. (We suspect "Impression" was Buzz but the intern fucked up.)

Also an artist named Rachid is the final video listed for 1998, but the interns wrote Rancid and didn't bother fact-checking themselves.

After we were done loading up the buzz clip tracks, it still kinda felt incomplete, so we opted to include selections from the Breakthrough Video nominees. The additions become especially helpful in the 1999-2004 section.