Jonas Brothers - Cool

What this video is

Released April 5, 2019, 'Cool' was the second single of the Jonas Brothers' high-profile comeback following a six-year hiatus. Arriving just weeks after 'Sucker' debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the video capitalized on a wave of 2010s pop nostalgia for 1980s aesthetics — Miami Vice color palettes, aerobics culture, and MTV-era performance tropes. The deliberate invocation of Duran Duran's 'Rio' and Elton…

Why it matters

A defining artifact of the late-2010s pop-nostalgia revival, the video demonstrates how contemporary HD production can be deployed to simulate analog-era MTV aesthetics without resorting to VHS degradation effects. It represents a strand of 2019 mainstream pop that traded in ironic 80s pastiche —…

The director

Anthony Mandler (born April 18, 1973, Los Angeles, CA) is an American film, television, and music video director and photographer. He began his career as a photographer, with work featured on covers of Entertainment Weekly, GQ, and Esquire. As a music video…