Adam Ant - Apollo 9

What this video is

Released in September 1984, 'Apollo 9' represented Adam Ant's pivot toward what was described as a 'rockers in space' aesthetic, a deliberate rebranding that fused his established new wave theatricality with space-age imagery at a moment when NASA iconography and science fiction held strong popular-cultural currency in the wake of the Space Shuttle programme. The video arrived during the apex of MTV's influence on…

Why it matters

A key document of the transitional mid-period of British new wave pop spectacle, 'Apollo 9' illustrates how artists leveraged the music video format as a primary vehicle for image reinvention. The 'Rockers in Space' concept anticipated the late-80s trend of genre pastiche in pop visuals, and the…

The director

Daniel Kleinman (born 23 December 1955) is a British television commercial and music video director. After graduating from Hornsey Art School, he directed his first music video in 1983 and went on to pioneer post-production special effects across hundreds of…