Beck - Where It's At

What this video is

Released in May 1996 as the lead single from Beck's landmark album Odelay, 'Where It's At' arrived at the peak of mid-90s alternative rock's cultural dominance on MTV. Produced by the Dust Brothers — whose hip-hop collage methodology had defined the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique — the track embodied the era's genre-blurring ethos, fusing abstract hip-hop, lo-fi rock, and vintage soul samples. The video's absurdist…

Why it matters

A canonical artifact of mid-90s alternative rock and abstract hip-hop crossover. 'Where It's At' codified a video aesthetic — fragmented, ironic, lo-fi, location-based — that directly contrasted with the high-production-value excess of concurrent pop and hair metal videos, influencing a generation…

The director

Steve Hanft (born May 1966, Ventura, California) is an American music video and film director holding an MFA in Experimental Narrative Film from CalArts. His extensive music video work includes Beck ('Loser', 'Where It's At', 'Jack-Ass', 'The Golden Age'),…