World Party - Put The Message In The Box

What this video is

Released in 1990 as a single from 'Goodbye Jumbo' on Ensign Records — an album named Q magazine's album of the year and Grammy-nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance — 'Put the Message in the Box' arrived at a transitional moment in British pop. Post-acid house, pre-Britpop, it occupied a space of earnest, socially conscious alternative rock rooted in 1960s melodic tradition. Karl Wallinger, a former…

Why it matters

Represents a key artifact of the late-1980s/early-1990s British neo-psychedelic alternative pop wave — a genre thread connecting The Waterboys, pre-Britpop melodic rock, and the earnest college-rock crossover that briefly flourished before grunge re-oriented the alternative mainstream. The single…

The director

Jake Tilson (born 1958, London) is an English multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, writer, and publisher. He studied painting at Chelsea School of Art (1976–79) and the Royal College of Art (1980–83). He founded the influential arts magazines Cipher…