Everclear - I Will Buy You A New Life

What this video is

Released in 1998 as a single from So Much for the Afterglow, this video arrived at the commercial peak of post-grunge's mainstream penetration. Everclear, a Portland-based trio on Capitol Records, channeled explicitly autobiographical working-class themes — financial precarity, domestic aspiration, romantic sacrifice — into melodically accessible alt-rock at a moment when MTV's TRL era was beginning to displace…

Why it matters

A landmark document of late-90s post-grunge's mainstream moment, demonstrating how Capitol Records packaged working-class narrative rock for MTV consumption without sanitizing its emotional rawness. The video's mixed performance-narrative format and naturalistic visual grammar set a template…

The director

Frank W. Ockenfels III (professionally: Frank Ockenfels 3) is an American photographer, artist, and director born c. 1960 in Pennsylvania, raised in Lockport, NY. He studied at the School of Visual Arts, NYC. Career launched in 1988 with a Tracy Chapman…