Is it ok for a grown man to admit that he misses MTV's TRL? Of course it is, especially if that man is a professional director who closely studied each music video on that countdown, picking up all sorts of cinema and style tricks along the way.
The man in question is Isaac Rentz, who has a new tumblr with the self-explanatory title, This Day In TRL. And a quick read of blog may make you wish for a return of the show so you can sit on a couch with him and listen to him point out details like:
on Avril Lavigne "Complicated" - "If you want to know what real editing looks like, witness the moment at 00:03 where Avril skates up to her friends, stops on a dime, falls into a squatting position- presumably on her board- and gracefully manages to deliver her line. The editor deserves a Nobel Prize for bending the laws of physics to make it look like Avril knows how to skate."
or
on Hanson "If Only" - "[Director Dave] Meyers immediately confirms he’s behind the camera at :9 with his signature zoom-out transition that appeared in every video he ever directed. It looks like low-rent Matrix bullet time FX and I’m sure in 2000 it screamed “expensive.” It became a staple of early-00’s TRL videos, even ones Meyers didn’t direct"
So, while I don't think TRL is coming back — except when co-opted by Ariana Grande — maybe there's room for a sort of Beavis and Butthead, but with Isaac pointing out all that is genius and often overlooked in music videos. And, hey, I wouldn't mind playing Beavis in that duo.
