It is 1998 and Jonas Åkerlund is in Times Square shooting footage for Ray of Light. He has yet to be accused of plagiarism by Stefano Salvati, who will claim Åkerlund’s award-winner takes its visual cues from his own video for Biagio Antonacci, who sounds like Sting but looks like Viggo Mortenson. But for now here’s Jonas, capturing life at regular speed, oblivious to Stefano, and thinking more of what he’s gonna have on his hotdog than Koyaanisqatsi-esque auteurism.
Then, slight as a hummingbird in the New York rush, he hears a riff to blur midday and night:
Spoon: Well Alright
(1998: Spoon are three years old. Madonna is forty. Lady Gaga, for the record, is twelve, making her one year younger than than this song is old today. A second per second can be fast enough.)
