Split Enz - History Never Repeats

What this video is

Released in March 1981, 'History Never Repeats' arrived at the precise inflection point between the punk/new wave upheaval and the dawn of the music video age. Split Enz — regarded as the first New Zealand band to achieve significant international recognition — embodied an art-rock theatricality that predated and in many ways anticipated MTV's visual appetite. The song, written by Neil Finn while on tour in Perth,…

Why it matters

A landmark of Antipodean new wave, this video established that non-Anglophone-centre acts could penetrate the emerging music television medium on purely aesthetic terms. Its warm-saturated, theatrical performance style — low-motion, long-take, costume-forward — represents an early template for…

The director

Geoffrey Noel Crombie (born 17 April 1953, Wellington, New Zealand) served as Split Enz percussionist and creative director from 1974–1984. He studied fine arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, where he met co-founder Phil Judd. Within Split Enz he…