Music

Looking back at Ed the Sock's #1 Fromage videos

by Aaron Brophy

Long before self-aware dorks like Drake used “Hotline Bling” to launch a million memes, the music video was about one thing — the artist’s own hubris.

Back in the day not everyone was a budding videographer with iMovie on their phone. Videos cost a bajillion dollars and were the products of powerful people making powerful decisions about what powerful messages they wanted to send out to the world. In the face of this cinematic propaganda there often stood only one man. Or, more specifically, one sock — Ed The Sock.

A stalwart voice of truth, Ed’s almost-annual Fromage television specials on MuchMusic (and later, on various internet channels) was the one day each year when a music channel would go, “Wait a minute! This video we’ve aired a hundred times? Yes, it IS stupid.” (Though the series originated with other Much VJs as hosts, Ed’s reign since 1999* is the one remembered most fondly. We’ve included Fromage #1’s from as far back as 1993.)

Unfortunately, the foggy memories from days gone by have replaced much of Ed’s righteous fire with a hazy, bemused nostalgia. This will not stand. We must never forget the music video transgressions of the past and for this reason we jumped into the AUX P. McFly Time Machine and revisited some of the worst videos Ed The Sock warned us about over the years.

It turns out many are just as bad today as Ed said they were years ago…

*This article originally stated incorrectly that Ed the Sock hosted Fromage since 1993.