Vanessa Carlton - Pretty Baby

What this video is

Released December 2, 2002, 'Pretty Baby' arrived at the apex of Vanessa Carlton's breakthrough moment following the massive crossover success of 'A Thousand Miles.' The video exists within a post-Napster, TRL-era media landscape where MTV's narrative music video format still held significant promotional power. Carlton represented a strand of early-2000s pop that foregrounded piano virtuosity and earnest…

Why it matters

Represents the early-2000s female piano-pop movement that bridged post-Lilith Fair singer-songwriter culture with TRL-era mainstream pop. Carlton's 'Be Not Nobody' era established a template for classically trained, piano-led female artists crossing into MTV-friendly pop, influencing a wave of…

The director

Marcos Siega (b. June 8, 1969, Queens, NY) is an American film, television, and music video director. He co-founded the NYC punk band Bad Trip in the late 1980s before transitioning to directing in the early 1990s. He earned MTV VMA nominations for…