The format gained higher levels of mainstream popularity when Madonna released "Justify My Love" as a video single in 1990 following the blacklisting of the video by MTV. U2 also released "Numb", the lead single from their 1993 album Zooropa as a video single.
Despite the success of these releases, the video single struggled as its releases were relatively periodical, and it was replaced by the DVD single by the early 2000s.