If you owned a television between 1982 and 2005, chances are Nigel Dick directed a healthy chunk of your formative memories — you just didn’t know his name. That’s about to change. On September 15, 2026, Trouser Press will publish Music Video Mischief: Ozzy to Britney, Oasis to GN’R, McCartney to Cher: A Lifetime of Rock and Chaos, the boisterous memoir from the man responsible for more than 450 music videos and a not-insignificant portion of MTV’s DNA.

Dick’s résumé reads like a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony guest list. Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Oasis’ “Wonderwall.” Britney Spears’ “Oops!…I Did It Again.” Cher’s “Believe.” Def Leppard’s “Rocket.” Tears for Fears’ “Shout.” Nickelback’s “Photograph.” Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” He co-founded Propaganda Films, collected three MTV Awards, two Billboard Awards, three MVPA Awards and a Brit — and along the way apparently kept meticulous mental notes about every ego, disaster, and miracle he encountered.

From Motorcycle Messenger to McCartney

The memoir traces Dick’s improbable arc from busking in the Paris Metro to schlepping packages as a motorcycle messenger at London’s Stiff Records in the late ’70s. One of the book’s most charming passages recounts the moment Paul McCartney’s manager — a guy Dick used to drop parcels off to back in his messenger days — casually handed him a phone number and told him to ring up a Beatle directly. “Ullo, Dickey. Paul speaking. Say hello to Linda, she’s in the car with me.” That’s the entire music business in three sentences.

Then there’s the making of Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” where Dick tracked down former Avengers star Patrick Macnee, bowler hat and umbrella included, only for Noel Gallagher to later dismiss the finished clip as a “bag of shite” and “waste of a fucking afternoon.” That, folks, is what we call ingratitude — but also, honestly, exactly the kind of quote you buy this book for.

The Cast Speaks

The endorsements are appropriately affectionate. Toto’s Steve Lukather offers a preemptive apology “on behalf of all of us” for the “clothes and the hair,” while Chad Kroeger quips, “If you thought Nigel could direct a video, you should see him write a book!” Rob Tannenbaum, co-author of the definitive MTV oral history I Want My MTV, praises the memoir’s portrait of “the wild west early days of MTV and videos, when no one knew what they were doing and an entire art form was invented on the fly.”

That last line is really the pitch. Music Video Mischief isn’t just a name-drop tour — it’s a first-person account of a medium being built in real time, on the fly, by people making it up as they went. Dick was there when the rules didn’t exist yet, which is why he was in a position to break so many of them.

Watch the Work

Before you pre-order, do yourself a favor and revisit one of Dick’s undisputed masterpieces — the black-and-white, foosball-table-featuring, umbrella-wielding classic that helped define Britpop’s biggest anthem:

Music Video Mischief: Ozzy to Britney, Oasis to GN’R, McCartney to Cher: A Lifetime of Rock and Chaos publishes September 15, 2026 via Trouser Press. If you’ve ever mimed a guitar solo in your bedroom mirror, this one’s basically required reading.