Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.
#27: The Cult “Fire Woman”
Every now and then you’d be watching 120 Minutes and enjoying your new-wave and artsy-fartsy pop videos, and then the Cult would show up. Who invited these guys? Did someone shuffle around the tapes with Headbanger’s Ball? The Cult may have started in early-’80s England as a post-punk band (guitarist Billy Duffy was even in a group with pre-Smiths Morrissey), but by the end of the decade the Cult was clearly G N’ R-ing it. In this video for 1989’s “Fire Woman,” sometimes singer Ian Astbury is wearing a cowboy hat, and then suddenly he’s not. Who took the hat? Fire woman! You’re to blame! Fire woman, you’re to blame!
