Mojo Nixon - Burn Down The Malls

What this video is

Released in 1986 as part of the Get Out of My Way! EP on Enigma Records, 'Burn Down The Malls' was Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper's debut MTV appearance and an early salvo in late-Reagan-era anti-consumerist rock. The song's spoken-word rant format — railing against shopping malls, the national drinking age, and America's corporate monoculture — was a precise artifact of the alt-underground sensibility that thrived on 120…

Why it matters

A foundational document of psychobilly's collision with MTV-era college rock, 'Burn Down The Malls' established Nixon's template of spoken-word polemic over raw rockabilly instrumentation. It preceded 'Elvis Is Everywhere' in the MTV rotation and helped define the lo-fi, politically abrasive…