Martina Topley-Bird - Anything

What this video is

Released in 2003 during the critical renaissance of UK underground music following the commercial plateau of Britpop. Topley-Bird emerged from Tricky's Bristol trip-hop lineage (Maxinquaye, 1995) to establish a solo identity on Quixotic, a Mercury Prize finalist. The 'Anything' video lands at the intersection of the post-Portishead dark electronic aesthetic and a new wave of art-directed UK music videos that…

Why it matters

A canonical example of 2003-era dark neo-soul/trip-hop music video aesthetics: the production encodes the genre's key tensions — warmth vs. darkness, intimacy vs. dread — directly into its quantitative metrics. The low brightness and high contrast fingerprint mirrors the sonic chiaroscuro of…

The director

Italian-Canadian director, photographer, and visual artist (born 1965, Pescara, Italy; raised Hamilton, Ontario). Studied at Ontario College of Art and Design. Began as a fashion photographer before transitioning to music video direction via The Revolver…