Plain White Music Videos: 2024 Boasts the Return of an Industry Favourite

Make it stand out

The ever so elusive white backdrop is any aspiring artist’s go-to tool for many a reason; it’s an age-old aesthetic that continues to stand the test of time. First impressions can be deceiving so the white background’s canvas-like capabilities transcend medium with cost-effective bombast. It’s the blank pages of an author’s first publication, the collapsible cloth for a major fashion editorial, a setting for some of pop culture’s finest musical offerings - you’ll find Madonna in her prime dancing her lucky-star-socks off. Toni Basil showcasing an entire cheerleading routine. On 13 June 1973, David Bowie posed the everlasting question, “Is there life on Mars?”

Since the advent of Pinterest chic, the consumerist West has led with a “minimalist” approach in the attempted reaching of a stress-free utopian way of living. Dictated by the unembellished luxuries of name brands, together paired with the sanitised optics of health and fitness influencers, it’s hardly a surprise the marred character aspects of the colour white have become perfect meme fodder for the chronically online. Take for instance TikTok’s before-and-after home renovation trend, where millennials are the subject of ridicule from their Gen-Z successors for ditching mid-century modern interior design in favour of The White Company.

And yet controversy aside, the white backdrop perseveres. Its renewed appeal most prominent in the contemporary music videos of today’s new crop of industry leaders and culture shapers. Thanks in large part to everyone’s favourite nostalgia princess PinkPantheress, her presence leaving an indelible mark on the Y2K-obsessed once again as 2023 drew to a close. In support of her debut album Heaven knows, PinkPantheress’ latest visual for “Nice to meet you” featuring Central Cee are nothing short of standard childhood-memory fare, drawing comparisons aplenty to Disney Channel idents across social media. According to musician Left at London, “She was at MOST a FETUS when Britney & Justin wore those denim suits & yet she’s pretty much a human Motorola Razr. Insane.” Albeit not once, but twice, PinkPantheress’ clever spins on the white backdrop have given rise to an unspoken trend in the subversion of a habitual visual practice.
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To understand the trajectory of such a phenomenon we must cast our minds back to September 2021. The 2-step garage starlet has surprise dropped a low-res music video for her worldwide web hit “Just for Me” over on YouTube channel “PP_ROCKSXX”. It is commonplace for the white backdrop to accompany an artist’s introductory debut. Control over lighting and colour is effortless with surfaces that reflect and diffuse, meanwhile a clean, empty white room typically promises a cheaper, preferred means of shooting rather than the alternatives of building elaborate sets or location scouting. Much like her predecessors, PinkPantheress successfully utilises this stark environment by taking centre stage to channel desired storytelling. 

“It is commonplace for the white backdrop to accompany an artist’s introductory debut. Control over lighting and colour is effortless with surfaces that reflect and diffuse, meanwhile a clean, empty white room typically promises a cheaper, preferred means of shooting rather than the alternatives of building elaborate sets or location scouting.”

By strategy, if the streaming generation are to adopt the stylings and sensibilities of the early noughties, why not simply project it back onto the observer. With coy conviction, she performs for a small crowd of solemn teens in oversized emo garb straight out of a Jaded London catalogue. In what appears to be an homage to The Frays’ pop rock How to Save a Life, PinkPantheress’ obsessive yearning for an unrequited crush is expressed through sharp audience cutaways and fourth wall-breaking fisheye flashes. Nothing about it screams glamour or gloss. Its Kerrang!core edge is a stripped-back sheen, with helpless scribbled transcript to haunting black tarantulas.

Following suit from PinkPantheress is FKA Twigs’ jealousy, a funkadelic Afrobeats track with an equally rhythmic music video to match. As evidenced throughout the rollout of her 2022 Caprisongs mixtape, Twigs’ jealousy boasts a notable change in pace and direction from her model melancholic works, breathing new life into the white backdrop art form with a legacy celebration of Black British culture largely inspired by Soul II Soul’s Jazzie’s Groove, complete with original garb on loan. 

Like the patriotic pride of a Ray Petri Buffalo photograph, Twigs’ motley fashions only accentuate the already jubilant meanderings of a collective solidarity comfortable in their skins. Filling each white frame with perspective distortion, Kash Powell’s choreographed dance routine evokes the female universality of similar predated forays such as Justin Bieber’s Sorry and Los Del Rio’s Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix).

Returning to the present-day, Troye Sivan’s One Of Your Girls goes back to the basics with the white backdrop. In this steamy visual directed by Gordon von Steiner for the third single off new album Something To Give Each Other, the Australian icon sheds his boy-next-door image and dons a drag persona in the pursuit of sexual intimacy with queer-curious men. Drawing from personal experience, in an interview with People, Sivan revealed "I repeatedly found myself in this situation, [...] One of Your Girls is really me psychoanalyzsng myself about, like, why is that something that was interesting to me?" 

Sivan certainly is convincing in the role. A lap dance involving teen heartthrob Ross Lynch quickly became the talk of the town upon first viewings. What is most interesting, however, is Sivan’s determination to pastiche pop divas in his smart reinterpretation of the male gaze. Possessed by the Britney-esque powers that be, his blonde bombshell self speaks to classic depictions of feminine vulnerability. Whether it’s a slow-motion wander through the hallways of a hospital in Everytime, or even the extreme close-ups of a teary-eyed Miley Cyrus in Wrecking Ball, via a radical queer lens, Sivan’s genderbending moves in virginal white-on-white updated the genre in 2023.

Seasons change and so do we. A new year is upon us, and with it, the desire to reinvent the wheel, but what more can be done with the plain white backdrop in the music video format? Contrary to popular nostalgia discourse, familiar faces in entertainment are conscious of the extent of our growing obsession with silver spoon-feeding referential media - gen alpha are on the cusp of taking over and with them is a demand for innovation. In the case of PinkPantheress, a passion for yesteryear has most notably aided artistic output. Troye Sivan’s queer fanbase of pop girl-adoring devotees are making sure to loop his songs in solidarity. As for the next budding musician in line, perhaps the white walls will be left in the past once more.

Words: Douglas Jardim