It’s not news to anyone that nudity in music videos is a bona fide fad. But Kylie Minogue’s just-released video for her whispery, sensual dance-floor anthem “All the Lovers” has confirmed a trend within a trend: The naked-on-the-street video. After the jump, check out the orgiastic, potentially NSFW Kylie clip, as well as the recent videos that may have helped inspire it.
It all started with Matt and Kim, the Brooklyn indie-rock couple who won internet fame by dropping their drawers in Times Square in the video for “Lessons Learned”:
Then, the significantly better-known Erykah Badu released the clip for “Window Seat,” which features the singer stripping down on a city street. At the beginning of the video, she explicitly credits Matt and Kim for the inspiration:
Now, Kylie Minogue has rocketed the meme into the mainstream in “All the Lovers.” Like Badu and Matt and Kim, she begins her video with shots of folks taking off clothing. They don’t get all the way to naked, but the omnisexual human underwear period further proves that Minogue is no prude:
Meanwhile, remember Lisa Stansfield? She may not have started a trend, but she was years ahead of her time with her 1997 cover of Barry White’s “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up.” We remember watching this O.G. of naked-on-the-street music videos on late-night MTV.