User Reviews

These 5.5 minutes we got here are the music video for Michael Jackson's "Stranger in Moscow" from 1996, so this one will soon have its 25th anniversary. The director is Nicholas Brandt who was only around the age of 30 at that time, but before and after that, he worked with other big names like Moby, Whitney Houston adn Take That for their music video after his filmmaking career did not succeed. Jackson was almost 40 when he made this one here and it is a black-and-white video. Well, it is nowhere near the King of Pop's most known works at all and I can see why. It is really nothing special, then again I like some of his works, but generally I would not call myself a fan. Here he walks through a city (that definitely is not Moscow) where he seems like quite a starnger. But this "lost" element does not really work too well, even if I got that somehow everybody in this city feels like a stranger, even those who live there. I must say I am also not familiar with the line "stranger in Moscow" as if it was some kinf of proverb or so. But yeah, maybe back then, even it the Cold War had been over for a long time already too, there were still more crucial associations coming with the word Moscow from a political or deserted perspective. All in all, on the same subject, the defining song is still Sting's "Englishman in New York. "Stranger in Moscow", even if it has known names in the cast like Axelrod from Power Rangers and more, gets a thumbs-down from me. It is not a failure and the music video elevates the song a little bit, but overall both comes too short for a positive recommendation. Watch and listen to something else instead.