3 Songs You Learned From Staying up Way Too Late Watching VH1

If you’ve ever been caught staying up way past your bedtime watching VH1, you might be familiar with these videos. The visuals capture the best and brightest of this network’s early era.

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“Criminal” — Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple’s video for “Criminal” is as sultry as it gets, which fits the song’s subject matter. “I’ve been a bad, bad girl / I’ve been careless with a delicate man / And it’s a sad, sad world / When a girl will break a boy just because she can,” the lyrics read, speaking about holding your sexuality over someone’s head. Apple mirrored that sentiment with a visual that is equal parts haunting and seductive.

This video made the rounds on VH1 plenty, and for good reason. It’s a hypnotizing visual that anyone could sink into. If you ever come across the visual, you have to watch until the end. Apple captures you, just as she explains in the lyrics to this 1990s staple.

“Virtual Insanity” — Jamiroquai

This is one of the most famous music videos ever. Not only were the lyrics ahead of their time, but the camera tricks and set design were leaps and bounds ahead of what their peers were doing.

“Nothing’s gonna change the way we live / ‘Cause we can always take, but never give / And now that things are changing for the worse, see / Whoa, it’s a crazy world we’re livin’ in,” the lyrics read. Lyrics like this need sobering visuals to match. Jamiroquai delivered just that with this VH1 powerhouse.

“The Freshmen” — The Verve Pipe

Instead of matching this song’s subject matter to a “T” with the accompanying visual, The Verve Pipe focused on the aesthetics of their genre. This frequent flyer on VH1 is as 1990s as it gets. From gritty sets to glazed-over camera work, this video epitomizes rock in this era.

“When I was young, I knew everything / And she, a punk who rarely ever took advice / Now I’m guilt-stricken, sobbin’, with my head on the floor / Stoppin’ baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice, now,” the lyrics read, capturing some pretty heady emotions. Instead of twisting the knife even further, the band knew their emotional limits with this video. They merely hint at the emotions present, delivering a video that anyone could watch many times over; and many VH1 viewers did just that.

(Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images)