Jewel - Foolish Games

What this video is

Released in 1997 at the height of the Lilith Fair era, 'Foolish Games' crystallized the mid-decade appetite for confessional, acoustically grounded female singer-songwriter pop. The single peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the Guinness World Record for the longest chart run of a single at 65 weeks. Its concurrent placement on the Batman & Robin soundtrack broadened its reach while the music…

Why it matters

A landmark document of mid-90s folk-pop crossover aesthetics, the video exemplifies the Lilith Fair visual vocabulary: naturalistic settings, emotional realism, and anti-glamour presentation. Rolston's application of his signature lighting and compositional restraint to a stripped-down outdoor…

The director

Matthew Russell Rolston is an American artist, photographer, director, and creative director born in Los Angeles. Discovered by Andy Warhol while a student at ArtCenter College of Design, he built a career spanning over 100 music videos and 200 television…