Tanner Usrey Stumbled Upon A ’90s Music Video Rabbit Hole & Thinks It’s A Shame Music Videos Aren’t As Prevalent Today

Whatever happened to a good, old-fashioned music video?

Tanner Usrey joined the Whiskey Riff Raff podcast to talk about how a car accident jumpstarted his country music career, his biggest musical influences, his new album These Days, how TikTok has changed the music industry, being a road dog, having his music featured in hit TV shows like Yellowstone and Landman and much more.

We also got to talking about how music videos have become somewhat of a lost art. Back in the day, the music video was a quintessential part of releasing a song out into the world. Now, in the modern day, they’ve become more of an afterthought, or artists decide to skip out on doing them altogether.

The days of turning on MTV and watching music video after music video are long gone. But one fateful night, while Tanner Usrey was riding on a tour bus with Shane Smith & The Saints, MTV was alive and well… and playing music videos in a marathon fashion.

Usrey told us that he and bassist Chase Satterwhite pulled an all-nighter simply watching the music videos play one after the other:

“Me and Chase stayed up all night and watched some crazy music videos on MTV because that was the only thing that would come through. The 90’s were crazy for music videos by the way, if you ever want to go down that rabbit hole.”

And that’s true. Think of all the iconic country music videos that came out during that decade. Alan Jackson was basically a standalone iconic music video making factory. But there’s one song and music video that sticks out to Tanner Usrey, and it’s a song that we all know and remember… and probably wish we could forget:

“So Chumbawamba… we had been drinking, and Chumbawamba comes on, and I was like someone came up to the record label in the 90’s and said, ‘We have this idea for a song.’ (Label responds), ‘Okay, what’s it about?’

(They respond), ‘I don’t really know. He drinks a whiskey drink, he drinks a vodka drink.’ (Label says), ‘Okay cool, what’s it called?’ (They respond), ‘Tubthumping.’ Then they were like, ‘Okay cool, what’s the band name?’ (They say), ‘Chumbawamba, duh? What else?'”

Ahh the 90’s… a simpler time.

Despite “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba being an absolute ear-worm, the crazy, artistic nature of that music video stood out to Tanner Usrey. Even the next music video during he and Chase Satterwhite’s MTV marathon was memorable, even though he says he can’t necessarily remember what it was:

“The next video, I don’t remember what it was but it was the most frightening thing ever. I can’t remember what it was, but they were talking about sacrificing children. It was a big switch.”

@whiskeyriff @Tanner Usrey believes music videos are a lost art. // Check out the full Whiskey Riff Raff with Tanner Usrey available now on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Read More