Because we love ‘em all. Here’s your 90’s Video of the Day:
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Let's start off this week with a banger. Spike Jonze and the Beastie Boys go together like peas and carrots and here’s another all time classic that all started with a concept for a photo shoot.
It was Adam Horovitz's idea to do a photo shoot of the band members as undercover cops. When they decided to finally go wig shopping for the shoot, Spike Jonze tagged along. Inspiration struck that the entire video for “Sabotage” could use the same concept and go fully retro as a 1970’s detective show.
And talk about fully leaning into a video concept; Spike Jonze and Beastie Boys shot the whole video without acquiring any permits which had to make it all the more suspenseful to try and get stunts right on the first try. It also meant there was a lot of free styling on what they’d shoot and they just rolled with whatever the band felt like doing.
This gets a lot of love for being such an iconic video but also incredibly low budget, which is sort of true. Yes, without permits and DIY wig shopping, this was an inexpensive video to make, however Spike Jonze did accidentally have a camera destroyed during the shoot which cost about $84,000 which was about triple what it actually cost to make “Sabotage.” Ouch.
Hit me up with 90’s Videos you wanna see featured at abby@wxdx.com