Maroon 5 - If I Never See Your Face Again ft. Rihanna

What this video is

Released in May 2008 as part of the deluxe reissue of Maroon 5's It Won't Be Soon Before Long and Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded, this video represents the peak of the mid-to-late 2000s major-label cross-promotional duet strategy, pairing two chart-dominant acts at concurrent career peaks. The retro-glamour visual language — evoking late-1970s and early-1980s high-fashion photography — situates the video…

Why it matters

A landmark late-2000s pop-R&B crossover artifact demonstrating the commercial and aesthetic ceiling of the major-label duet format. The video synthesizes rock-band performance tradition with R&B narrative sensuality, and its retro-glamour visual coding proved influential in the subsequent decade's…

The director

Anthony Mandler (born April 18, 1973) is an American film, television, and music video director and photographer. Beginning his career as a photographer with work featured on the covers of GQ, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, and ESPN The Magazine, he…