The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

What this video is

Released on 11 June 1997 as the lead single from Urban Hymns, 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' arrived at the apex of Britpop's cultural saturation, weeks before Oasis's Be Here Now would signal the movement's commercial overreach. The video's Hoxton Street location captures pre-gentrification East London with documentary fidelity — The Telegraph later named it one of the sites that defined the Britpop era. The song's…

Why it matters

A defining artifact of mid-1990s British alternative rock and the Britpop movement. The video's minimalist walk-and-track concept became one of the most imitated formats in music video history, cementing the single-location unbroken-walk as a legitimate auteur statement. Nominated for three 1998…

The director

Walter A. Stern (born 16 November 1965, Marylebone, London) is a British music video and commercial director. He began his career at Control, a London production company, then moved to Stigma Films in 1993 where he first directed for The Prodigy. He joined…