"making very interesting, quite hard-edged British videos at the moment. I felt it was important that it retained that outsider's perspective of America, you know." The video depicts Bowie as a man who is chased around the streets of New York by a stalker portrayed by Reznor, reflecting the song's theme of a frightened European in an American city. Discussing his character, Reznor stated: "They wanted a kind of Taxi Driver feel to the whole thing. That's kind of what it's based on. That's why I'm in my Travis Bickle outfit!" According to Spitz, the video received heavy rotation on MTV, a first for Bowie in over a decade. It also earned Bowie a nomination for Best Male Video at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards. O'Leary states that while the track has no "definitive" version, Reznor's 'V1' mix is the most recognisable, which has appeared on the compilation albums Best of Bowie (2002), Nothing Has Changed (2014), and Bowie Legacy (2016). The Showgirls version, 'V1' mix and Plati's "Original Edit" were included on the bonus disc of the Earthling expanded edition in 2004. Reception and legacy Reviewing Earthling on release, Mojos Andy Gill considered "I'm Afraid of Americans" the "most direct" track on the album. In another review for Rolling Stone, Mark Kemp acknowledged the song as "a stuttering rocker" that "seems detached from the other songs". Upon release of the single, Billboard writers Larry Flick and Shawnee Smith praised Reznor's remix as an improvement on the "already deeply moody and largely sharp" original. They further opined that the Ice Cube remix could provide a successful foray into a hardcore hip hop album. Reviewing the maxi-single for AllMusic, Christian Huey criticised it as "too derivative of Downward Spiral-era Nine Inch Nails" to please Bowie's fans. He argued that it acts better when viewed as a Reznor project rather than a Bowie one. He nevertheless praised Reznor's work on the remixes as well as Photek's contribution. In later decades, Pegg describes the track as "terrific" while Spitz considered it Bowie's finest single since 1984's "Loving the Alien". Following Bowie's death in 2016, Rolling Stone named "I'm Afraid of Americans" one of the 30 most essential songs of Bowie's catalogue. That same year, Ultimate Classic Rock placed "I'm Afraid of Americans" at number 23 in a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best, calling it the best song on