Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers — Make It Better (Forget About Me)

JUL 01 1985 · 12:00

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers — Make It Better (Forget About Me) (1985) Director: Jeff Stein Era: MTV Golden Age / Mid-80s Concept Video Boom (1985) - Peak era of big-budget narrative music videos; American heartland rock bands embracing surrealist, concept-driven production to compete with synth-pop and new wave on MTV rotation. High. This video is a confirmed companion piece to the landmark 'Don't Come Around Here No More' video and shares its director, cast, and visual universe, making it essential for any comprehensive study of the Southern Accents visual campaign. It documents the transition of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from performance-only video makers to concept-video practitioners, a shift with lasting influence on their MTV presence and commercial trajectory. The fisheye interior-anatomy surrealism also represents a distinctive practical-effects approach that distinguishes it from contemporaneous digital-composite work. As a period artifact of 1985 MTV programming culture and heartland rock visual identity, it warrants Tier 1.5 curatorial status. Context: Released June 3, 1985 as the third single from Southern Accents, 'Make It Better (Forget About Me)' arrived at a pivotal moment when MTV had transformed music marketing and forced rock bands to compete visually with synth-pop acts dominating the channel. Co-written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, the song represented a Memphis Soul detour from the album's Southern-concept framework, a departure Petty later acknowledged he regretted artistically. The video extended the Alice in Wonderland surrealist universe established in 'Don't Come Around Here No More,' cementing a rare two-video visual mythology for a single album's singles campaign. The band's embrace of high-concept, big-budget videos during this period — driven by Stewart's influence and Stein's direction — marked their full entry into the MTV visual economy and secured their mainstream cross-generational appeal through the mid-80s. Director notes: Confirmed as director via IMDb (imdb.com/title/tt30581328/). Stein directed both this video and its immediate predecessor, 'Don't Come Around Here No More,' for the Southern Accents campaign, giving the two videos a shared visual vocabulary. The video continues the Alice in Wonderland concept from 'Don't Come Around Here No More,' this time setting the action inside a woman's head, with Petty and the band performing within her ear canal. The video employs a fisheye lens and large-scale built interior sets to simulate an anatomical fantasy landscape. Petty is ultimately expelled from the woman's head via an oversized Q-tip. Louise Foley, who appeared as Alice in 'Don't Come Around Here No More,' also appears in this video, further linking the two productions as a visual diptych for the Southern Accents singles campaign.