Christopher Williams — Talk To Myself

JUL 01 1989 · 12:00

Christopher Williams — Talk To Myself (1989) Director: Dieter Trattmann Era: New Jack Swing Emergence (1989) - Late-80s R&B transitional moment when smooth soul vocalists began absorbing uptempo new jack rhythms; Williams' debut single marks the genre's commercial crossover into mainstream pop-R&B visibility. High curatorial value as a confirmed debut-single music video by a subsequently significant new jack swing artist, directed by a documented pioneer of 1980s-1990s music video direction at the precise moment of his own transatlantic career transition. The video captures a specific aesthetic and cultural inflection point — the late-80s soul-to-new-jack crossover — with quantifiable production metrics that support detailed comparative analysis. A well-preserved artifact for both genre history and director retrospective programming. Context: Released in 1989 as the debut single from Christopher Williams' debut album Adventures in Paradise on Geffen Records, 'Talk to Myself' arrived at the precise moment new jack swing was reshaping mainstream R&B. Williams, a Virginia-born singer and arranger, represented a strand of the movement that retained smooth-soul vocal gravitas while adopting the era's kinetic production style. The song charted at #88 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1989, establishing Williams as a credible new presence in Black pop. The video's warm, saturated, high-contrast aesthetic reflects the prestige production values Geffen brought to its R&B roster, distinguishing it from lower-budget independent R&B releases of the period. Director notes: This video was produced in 1989, the same year Trattmann relocated from London to Los Angeles and signed with the A&R Group/Artists Company — placing 'Talk to Myself' among his earliest U.S.-based directorial commissions. The Geffen Records label connection aligns directly with Trattmann's documented client roster, which explicitly included Geffen as a commissioning label. The quantitative profile of the video (rapid 0.96s avg shot length, 229 scene changes, elevated saturation 140.6, warm color temperature 1.44, moderate brightness 90.7/255, high contrast 69.1) is consistent with Trattmann's documented signature of 'innovative lighting style, camera work and editing.' The video is listed on IMDb (tt12700312) with Trattmann as sole credited director.