Synopsis

Mansun are represented by crude, jerky-moving puppets in a miniature rock-star fairy tale. The band progresses from rehearsing in a garage and playing small clubs to signing with a record label, performing in a huge arena and enjoying sudden fame. As success brings inflated egos and internal tensions, the group's rise turns into a spectacular fall. The deliberately cheap-looking cardboard sets and doll-like performers turn familiar rock-video imagery into a funny, pointed satire of manufactured bands, music-industry ambition and celebrity collapse.

Factoids & Trivia

• Mansun do not appear in the video themselves. The band approved the idea of using puppets as a continuation of their preference for not appearing in some of their videos.

• Puppeteer Rick Lyon described the concept as a satire of the stereotypical rise and fall of a cookie-cutter pop band, moving from garage rehearsals through record-company success to ego problems and a breakup.

• The four principal puppets were nicknamed John, Paul, Ringo and George. Their identical faces were intended to suggest the anonymity and sameness associated with manufactured pop groups; they were not designed as literal portraits of Mansun.

• The video uses intentionally unconvincing cardboard backdrops and simple doll puppets, making its low-fi appearance part of the joke rather than a limitation to be concealed.

• "Legacy" was released on June 29, 1998, as the first single from Mansun's second album, "Six." It reached number 7 on the UK Singles Chart, making it the band's highest-charting single.

• The song's closing line, "Nobody cares when you're gone," later supplied the title for a documentary about Mansun included with DVD editions of "Legacy: The Best of Mansun."

• The single's title was also reused for the band's retrospective compilation, "Legacy: The Best of Mansun," released in 2006.