39.  Savage Garden – Truly, Madly, Deeply 
(½-star)  There must have been a stipulation in this group’s contract with the devil that said they’d have a second hit. That’s smart negotiating, my friend. That’s the kind of negotiating Harvey Danger might appreciate. The Savage singer walks through classy, green-and-white motifs, wondering why no one takes him seriously. Well, besides those 12-year-old girls. --AH 

38.  Master P f/Silkk the Shocker – Make Um Say Uhhh 
     (zero)  What Master P did to the other inmates. Absolutely horrid, this video takes every little thing that’s wrong with rap and elevates it to graven idol status. A bunch of guys in jerseys are rapping from a gold-plated basketball court as spotlights roam, a gold tank rolls up and sexy cheerleaders in gold prance around. Master P sports a nice gold "No Limit" medallion, as featured on the Homeboy Shopping Network and at the classier tailgates of the Slossen swap meet. --AH 
     (zero)  That’s how it would happen, too, if the gangstas took over. They’d try to make tanks, but they’d only have enough to pay for one because it would be gold-plated. --JW 

37.  Fastball – The Way 
     (***)  I’ll lose another notch of respect from everyone, but I’ve always liked this song. I say, if a group is going to be a one hit wonder, they should at least go for a good song and video. This one, made by McG (the white Hype Williams), has just the right quotient of rich, washed-out colors and Mexican girls shaking their asses. --AH 
     (**)  Am I the only one who thinks the lead singer looks like Shaggy? Why isn’t he wearing a green sweater? Where’s the talking dog sidekick? Nobody pays attention to details anymore. This video is another case of a song you liked the first few hundred times you heard it, but was absolutely killed by overplay on the radio, and a video that shows what pretentious bastards these guys really are. --JW 
     RANDOM JEREMY COMMENT: This guy looks like Adam Sandler if he never got over the mumps. 

36.  Wyclef Jean – Gone Till November 
     (**1/2)  Interesting premise this song has – Wyclef is going on a half-year vacation and is asking someone else to tell his girlfriend that, "Oh yeah, I’ll be out of the country for eight freaking months." So the video shows him walking through the airplane terminal, letting everyone know he’ll be "Gone Till November." Oh yes, x-ray woman, you too should know I’ll be gone till November. Northwest Airlines ticket clerk, I’ll be gone till November. You there, shining the shoes, I’ll be gone till November. --AH 

35.  Alanis Morissette – Thank U 
     (*)  Proving she can still wring out what little respect we might have for her, Alanis shows up naked in this video. She must have been taking payments from the fruit lobby, because her body sure does resemble a pear. Paula Cole’s thighs look strangely appealing in comparison. "Thank U" has a caring, nude Alanis walking through a supermarket, riding the subway and standing in the middle of the street, all while people act like nothing’s wrong. The whole premise sounds like one of those really bad "adult" episodes of "Candid Camera" that Alan Funt puts out to pretend he still has a heartbeat in his dick. –AH 
     (*)  Alanis, I’m only going to say this once: please put your clothes back on! You definitely can’t do that on television! I think Alanis in porno would be my worst nightmare, unless I developed some weird fetish involving monstrous thighs. Thank God for censorship, that’s all I have to say. Plus, does she have to sing with her mouth closed in every damned video now? Maybe it’s a metaphor for her being a puppet of this damned network. How very alternative. --JW 
     RANDOM JEREMY COMMENT: She’s got that "I’m amazed because everything’s so goddamn deep" look. 

34.  Will Smith – Miami 

     (**1/2)  Will Smith has to be the luckiest bastard in the world. He’s got charisma, he’s got a talent for comedy and he’s not as bad a rapper as Puff Daddy, but he really doesn’t deserve the success he’s gotten. But none of us care because we all like him. I mean, really, who doesn’t like Will? He’s the kind of guy Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn wouldn’t mind having brought to dinner yet he still has some street cred. And only Will could truly get away with garish exhibitions like this video, where he hints at all the awesome Latina groupie sex he has every time he goes to Miami. This will look awful in about ten years, but for now it’s not an unpleasant item on the MTV playlist. Bland, yes, but something to look at. --AH 

     (**1/2)  Congratulations, Will Smith! You’ve won an all-expenses-paid career! Latest stop on your prize package -- Miami! Will Smith is like an everyday buddy of yours who went to Fantasy Island and asked to be a pop sensation. Does that mean I don’t like him? No, I love him, you love him, we all love him and want to take him home to our parents. My only question is: what’s with the second half of the video? I keep expecting Miami Vice to burst into the dance floor in a speedboat. --JW 

33.  Mariah Carey – My All 
     (**1/2)  Just when it seems all Mariah does anymore is perform oral sex on rappers, out comes a guaranteed adult-contemporary hit like this. "My All" is in the tradition of past VH1 hits (I mean, it’s directed by Herb Ritts – how early ‘90s is that?), a trite ballad that sees Mariah looking sexy in tight, black-and-white clothing, inexplicably sitting out in the ocean and longing for that one gangsta rapper she can’t have. Ice Cube, your heart will soften soon enough. You’ve got her feelin’ emotions. --AH 
     (**)  What happened to Mariah Carey? One minute she’s the wholesome girl you’re in love with who’s busy with her next Christmas project, and the next she’s common street trash. In all fairness though, this video almost seems a nod to her more wholesome days and a step back from her current reign as Gangsta Bitch Supreme. --JW 
     JEREMY PROVIDES US WITH A TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH MARIAH: 
     INTERVIEWER: What are you? 
     MARIAH: What do you mean? 
     INTERVIEWER: Are you white or black? 
     MARIAH: What? 
     INTERVIEWER: Because you seem to have trouble deciding between the two. 
     MARIAH: Fuck you, Mama! 

32.  Semisonic – Closing Time 
     (**)  Just when you thought the poetry-reading Starbucks crowd had died down, Semisonic comes along with a whiny modern-rock ballad that pays homage to the practice of picking up strangers in singles bars. It’s easy when you have a hit single, right? The split-screen technique, innovative as hell (of course I’m serious), shows the band on one side and the hot women preparing to meet them on the other. Talk about a Chuck Barris game show gone wrong. --AH 
     (*)  Semisonic says this video is about whom you should and shouldn’t go home with from a bar. Yeah right, just look at these guys. Do you think any one of them could get a date if they weren’t "rock stars"? Do you think they ever got a date in high school? I don’t either. Who do you think they could take home, other than their 14-year-old fans? I bet you the lead singer has bodies in his basement, and likes to be privately called Clarice. Lest I forget, the song just drones on and on and on. The worst part is, bars are going to be using it to close up for decades to come…(sigh). --JW 
     RANDOM JEREMY COMMENT: I saw these guys at Pointfest 9. The 14-year-old girls all rushed the stage. You know the singer looked out into the crowd, thinking, "I can get this one," "I can get that one," and "Oooh, that one’s boobs are perky!" 

31.  ‘N Sync – Tearin’ Up My Heart 
     (½)  As if the Backstreet Boys weren’t enough, along comes this sound-alike, look-alike group that somehow makes them seem like The Beatles, or at least The Monkees. These kids, even more clean-cut and obnoxious, drive around town in Daddy’s convertible, do choreographed dance moves in an alley and play basketball with their hats turned backwards. It was tough growing up in the ‘hood, wasn’t it? --AH 
     (*)  It’s tearin’ up my stomach to have to sit through this garbage. I hear two of these guys used to dance for the New Mickey Mouse Club. It figures, they do seem at home on Disney or touring Six Flags theme parks across the country. What a wholesome bunch of boys for young girls to get wet over. I just hate it. --JW 
     RANDOM JEREMY COMMENT: Look, there’s a Latin guy and a prep and the All-American kid. And, oh, Justin is so fine!