The Hippos - Wasting My Life

What this video is

Released during the tail end of the third-wave ska boom, 'Wasting My Life' represents The Hippos' major-label moment on Interscope Records at a time when ska-punk's mainstream viability was rapidly declining. The album 'Heads Are Gonna Roll' (August 1999) marked a deliberate stylistic pivot away from traditional ska brass arrangements toward Moog synthesizers, Farfisa organs, and power-pop hooks—a transition…

Why it matters

A key artifact of the third-wave ska genre's major-label crossover and decline, 'Wasting My Life' captures the precise moment the SoCal ska-punk scene pivoted toward synth-pop accessibility. As The Hippos' only Interscope single, the video documents the genre's MTV-era promotional visual language…

The director

The Malloys are brothers Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy, self-taught LA-based directors who rose from surf filmmaking to become prominent music video directors in the late 1990s and 2000s. Their early music video work included clips for Unwritten Law and…