Ben Folds Five - Army

What this video is

Released in 1999 as a single from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, 'Army' arrived at a moment when alternative rock's mainstream commercial dominance was beginning to fracture ahead of the early-2000s nu-metal and pop-punk reshaping of MTV. Ben Folds Five — a piano-led trio from Chapel Hill, NC — occupied an unusual position: critically lauded by the college-radio circuit yet commercially accessible…

Why it matters

A defining artifact of 90s piano rock, 'Army' demonstrated that a stripped-back, piano-and-rhythm-section format could sustain ironic, narrative-heavy songwriting within the alt-rock mainstream. The video reinforces the genre's anti-spectacle aesthetic, prioritising performance authenticity over…

The director

American director of music videos and commercials. Studied advertising design at Syracuse University and Saint Martin's School of Art, London. Broke into directing via the 1994 Lollapalooza tour and the Beastie Boys' 'Root Down' (1995). Clients include Green…