Kelly Osbourne - One Word

What this video is

Released in May 2005 as the lead single from Kelly Osbourne's second studio album 'Sleeping in the Nothing', 'One Word' marked a decisive genre pivot away from the pop-punk sound of her debut. Written and produced by Linda Perry, the track embraced 1980s-inspired synth-pop and autotune-as-aesthetic, positioning Osbourne within the wider mid-2000s electropop wave. The video deepened this repositioning by abandoning…

Why it matters

A rare instance of celebrity-pop-crossover television talent (The Osbournes, MTV) deploying full art-cinema vocabulary — Godardian surrealism, numerical dystopia iconography, clinical institutional mise-en-scène — within a mainstream electropop release. Represents the confluence of the synth-pop…

The director

Chris Applebaum (born 1970, Los Angeles) studied film at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. He became the youngest director signed to Satellite Films (a Propaganda division) at age 21, directing over 250 music videos. A multiple MTV VMA winner and six-time…