There was a time when AMV creation was not an art of digital manipulation. It's not well documented, it's not commonly talked about, and it's certainly not very easy to find examples. The early AMVs have in most cases vanished along with the happy few who made them, lost in vague fannish memory like a convention hangover. In the talky vidshow, convention hangover. In this talky vidshow, AbsoluteDestiny will guide you through the little-told story of AMV beginnings. It's a story filled with talkyface, big hair, shipper wars, Weird Al overdose, and lots and lots and lots of VHS tapes. VJ: AbsoluteDestiny
| # | Title | Vidder(s) | Song (if different) | Artist | Fandom(s) | Duration | Download URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dangerous | Brad DeMoss, Glenn Greasby and Jeff Krispow | Roxette | Multi | None | ||
| Made for the 1991 San Diego Comic Con to promote an animation room party, back when anime fans were often just general animation fans. | |||||||
| 2 | Beat It | Corn Pone Vids | Michael Jackson | Dragon's Lair | None | ||
| Corn Pone Vids, best known for their parody work from 1987 onwards, produced this fun music video which could also be one of the first machinima. | |||||||
| 3 | Nagisa Bonita | Fast Food Freedom Fighters | Amber Lind, Madonna | Iczer-1 | None | ||
| Fan parodies were an anime fandom favorite. This 1992 video crosses the popular fan dubbing tradition with music videos to tel the tragic lesbian love story from Iczer-1. | |||||||
| 4 | Girls with Guns | You Know Who | Tommy Shaw | Dirty Pair | None | ||
| The early 90s saw the start of a more familiar fan vid aesthetic. This 1990 recruiter vid shows how Kei and Yuri break buildings and the hearts of anime fanboys with equal gleeful abandon. | |||||||
| 5 | Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic | Bobby "C-ko" Beaver | The Police | Kiki's Delivery Service | None | ||
| Most late 90s AMV creators cit C-ko's works as being their first exposure to anime music videos. This simple talky-faced story gained notoriety at Otakon in 1994 and was heavily distributed on fan VHS. | |||||||
| 6 | My Euthanasia | Lorraine Savage | You Always Hurt the One You Love | Spike Jones & His City Slickers | Multi | None | |
| Excellent comic work by one of the early AMV scene's female editors. The title is a pun on the anime <i>My Youth in Arcadia</i>. | |||||||
| 7 | I Got a Girl | Duane Johnson | Tripping Daisy | Multi | None | ||
| The convention vid circa 1996. Witty reflections on popular shows, focusing heavily on anime's broken relationships. | |||||||
| 8 | Chantilly Lace | Kevin Caldwell | The Big Bopper | Golden Boy | None | ||
| Kevin Caldwell made digital videos that launched a thousand editors, but before that he did two-VCR videos like this comic work from 1997. | |||||||
| 9 | Master and Servant | Scott Melzer | Depeche Mode | Neon Genesis Evangelion | None | ||
| Another 1997 video. AMVs had no slash aesthetic in 1997, but if they had, this would surely qualify. Also, Misato/Ritsuko should be canon. | |||||||
| 10 | Linger | Duane Johnson | The Cranberries | Urusei Yatsura | None | ||
| Charmingly capturing the hurt/comfort relationship of Lum and Ataru. A swansong for the 90s romance aesthetic. | |||||||
| 11 | Crazy-Ass Violence | Big Big Truck | Mama Said Knock You Out | LL Cool J | Multi | None | |
| Taking every anime VHS on the shelf and making a video about all the ludicrous and wonderful macho posturing in anime. This two-VCR vid from 2000 is truly the end of the analog AMV era. | |||||||