Fan mail
Music television is great. It combines my two great passions in life… music and television.
I was a late starter. MTV and the like were not really accessible in the UK whilst I was growing up. Without satellite or cable you were restricted to just the four channels. Sure we had the institution that was Top of the Pops, and you would occasionally see a music video there, but it’s not quite the same.
Recently, however, with the digital expansion, I found myself in possession of multiple MTV-like channels and a particularly bad habit of watching what are essentially adverts for songs all day long. I endured Def Leopard’s top 100 stadium rock yesterday, all one hundred of them… that’s a lot of hair and spandex.
Here’s the Alice Cooper video I saw… the bit about the jacket is at 2.19, just in case you want to skip through the hair posing.
I realise that I have missed some excellent music videos, especially early era ones from the 80s. Stuff like Peter Gabriel’s Sledge Hammer video, and even the full version of Thriller.
I also noticed that the amount of music per hour is often suspiciously low on these channels. Considering music videos are essentially adverts anyway, there seems to be a lot of filler. Finding the music can be a bit of a chore.
But, as usual, I’m behind the times, so I need to sprint to catch up – Music television is old hat compared to the internet, where I can see videos for pretty much any song I like. No longer do I have to watch through the other adverts… the problem is, without TV to hold my hand, I have no idea where to start.
What, in your opinion, are the best music videos? And whilst we are at it, what are the worst?
Philippa on
Anything SSSR did for the band Subtle is rather wonderful imo but i’m a sucker for animation
I think this link shows everything they’ve collaborated on.
They’re excellent.
The Mercury craze animation especially… creepy too.
I’m with you on this one, animation does it for me every time.
wow, that’s hypnotizing and weird
It’s not actually a music video, but some Pink Floyd fans insist that (as with Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz), the song Echoes syncs up with the Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now I’m not saying it does, but it’s really fun to watch (as is the DSOTM and W of Oz thing.)
Other videos I’ve always liked are Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants, any of Michel Gondry’s White Stripes videos, Audioslave’s Show Me How to Live video (which features extensive footage from 70’s muscle car film Vanishing Point), and while I’m loathe to associate myself with Weezer after they’ve just released another atrocious album, the video for Undone: The Sweater Song is great and an early example of Spike Jonze’s terrific work in the field.
Spike Jones… he did that one for the beastie boys too… and performed in the Fatboy slim video… top stuff.
I’ve not had the pleasure of the Weezer video. I do like the song though, so I’m going to check that out. And why is it that they’ve stopped making good albums?
I’ve tried the DSOTM/Wizard of Oz thing, and it sort of works… but so does pretty much any album of comparable or divisable length. It’s just the sort of thing that the human brain likes to do – link things together, and so watching and listening to two distinct inputs always creates a sense of unity… one of the underlying themes of this comic that is.
I was quite impressed with the videos for Daft Punk’s “One More Time” and “Aerodynamic”, in that they had a story which continued between the two, and indeed into their next two videos.
The story wasn’t amazing, (although considering it had no dialogue or sound effects, that’s not surprising) it and the videos did sort of play on the “zomg teh animes ^____^” crowd a little- something that I, too fell for when I first saw it- but it’s a nice idea nonetheless.
Eventually every track on the album (”Discovery”) got the same treatment, even if not released as a single, and this was released on DVD as “Interstella 5555″, which is worth a look to see how it was handled.
The Chemical Brothers (”Star Guitar” being a good example) and Fatboy Slim had a knack for making good videos too.
A very electronica-y selection, I know, but that was the popular stuff when I was still watching music channels (which was some time ago now, I admit), and given that was the start of dance making it big in the mainstream, you started to see a “look! we’re playing *real* instruments!” backlash from the rock set, which made their videos being predominantly the band wanking off over playing guitar.
But not literally, obviously.
Discovery… cracking album… *hunts for the videos online, watches two*… They’re pretty cool. They remind me of some of the imported anime we used to get on TV over here. Ulysees etc.
On the subject of just watching bands play their instruments, the only thing worse I suppose is watching videos of people that don’t even do that. Madonna being the prime culprit. I don’t want to watch any more videos featuring her dragging her scrawny carcass in lycra all over the screen.
I know, I sound harsh, but there has to be a limit and that’s mine. Yes, Madonna, you look good for your age, but so does the Queen and I wouldn’t want to see her do her stretches.
Oddly, Fatboy slim videos I know. You have to know them to be allowed to live in Brighton longer than two weeks. Norman tests you on it personally.
American Music by the Violent Femmes is one of my favorite music videos. It’s perfect. It is exactly what it is, without needing anything more or anything less. I was going to do a comic strip on six perfect rock video moments, and the closing image from American Music when Gordon’s being held back was going to be one of them.
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=38173Xi4TZc
Other favorites:
“Here it Goes Again” by OK Go
“Late in the Day” by Supergrass
“Say You Will” by Gogh Van Go- now on YouTube, but you don’t get the full effect of the visuals at this resolution.
“The Naked Rain” by The Waltons- not available on YouTube; brilliant use of umbrellas.
And now, a controversial one:
“Lay All Your Love On Me” by Erasure. Is it good or is it terrible? It’s one of my favorites, but maybe that’s just because it perfectly replicates the look and feel of my dreams. The characters of Caher and Vord from the GearHead universe are based on Andy and Vince from this video.
NIN- Closer
Aphex Twin- Windowlicker
Bjork- I Miss You
Favorite two videos: Pearl Jam–”Do the Evolution” and Matthew Good Band–”Strange Days”
Passionate about those two. Both are available on youTube, unsurprisingly.
I rather like the video to Girl Anachronism by The Dresden Dolls. Actually, all of their videos hold a certain appeal.
I tend to avoid music channels for the same reasons as you outlined above…too many adverts that go on for too long. So I don’t really know of that many videos. I want to, though. I love having something visual to match the sounds.
Favorite two videos: “Do the Evolution” by Pearl Jam, and “Strange Days” by the Matthew Good Band.
I spend a lot of time watching music videos on youtube every once and a while, i find a lot of interesting things i don’t think I’d see on most music channels here in the u.s.
mathieu chedid -le radeau
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-GRSbqOGxw
mathieu chedid -ma melodie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRurd1ia5P8&feature=related
Death Note opening; what’s up people!? by maximum the hormone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0J3CQJIMH4&feature=related
I really like most of the tool videos, but I just like the music, so my opinion is biased.
The video from Post Secret with music by Sia is pretty great.
Placebo - Meds is another good one.
Unfortuently, most of the music I listen to doesn’t have videos.
NS&D has pretty good taste.
Ofcourse, The Wall by Pink Floyd is a pretty good music movie.
I forgot, anything by Unkle or Massive Attack.
I love The Wall.
I haven’t watched it in ages.
That’ll be tonight’s job, then!
I once went to see the Wall in a movie theatre, which should have been awesome but the sound on the print was all f****d up so it wasn’t so great. The picture itself wasn’t so great either, they would’ve been better off using a cheap digital projector and playing it off my DVD. That probably would’ve been illegal, though.
I guess I’m a real sucker for happy, energy-pumping special effects, but two music videos that *always* manage to get my day going are ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ by Justice and ‘Let Forever Be’ by The Chemical Brothers.
-Kev
My favourite video is Daft Punk ‘Around the world’.
I love the way that each character represents a different part of the music.
It also reminds me of being 17, which is no bad thing.
Yes, that’s another of my favorites as well.
Yep, this.
Now I have to watch The Wall tonight, just on general principles.
My favorite music video is probably Aha’s “Take On Me.”
The first video played on MTV was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Little did they know that, eventually, YouTube would kill the video star.
Oh man, someone mentioned the Chemical Brothers? Salmon Dance has to be one of the best music videos ever made:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kJEacTZmd7I
I’m also particularly fond of anything Tool’s done — particularly the clay/puppet-mation ones. Anything animated, as said before, is more likely to be liked by me.
Chris Cunningham has done some really neat things with Aphex Twin and Bjørk, a couple examples:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Az_7U0-cK0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EjAoBKagWQA
That Bjørk video is particularly attractive to technophiliacs. Or is it technophiles? I forget which is the platonic kind.
Also if interest, though not strictly a music video, is this short animation:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4yQhXBeabUE
And the worst music video? Well, we can go with the eighties revival thing: have you seen Snoop Dog’s latest music video? Keep in mind that this was recorded in 2008:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pKz-RXSeIYA
I wonder if they did it on beta-max?
Also, I’m gunna spend a couple hours tonight wasting time, whatching all the videos that everyone’s posted!
I thought of another great one- “Southern California” by Wax, also directed by Spike Jonze.
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=dPT7q825gwI
I seem to have a real weakness for videos which are done in a single long take. This one, “Say You Will”, and “Here it Goes Again” were all done that way. Also, “I Don’t Care” by A.House, which was also a fine video but not really one of my favorites.
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=4OmszPhdEJs
I recall another video done in one long take; I seem to recall it was by a Canadian indie band. A guy was walking through a house where this wild party was taking place, and each room he went into was even more debauched and surreal than the previous. Does that ring any bells with anyone? Now that I’ve thought of it, it’s going to drive me nuts until I remember what it was.
Has anyone noticed how all of these good videos also have pretty good songs too…
… do you think that’s important, or are there any truly awful songs with great videos too?
I can think of some cases the other way around… of some great songs with terrible videos, but I’m at a loss otherwise.
There’s isn’t much in the way of “bad” music being released any more, but there’s a whole lot of “decidedly average”, usually in the manufactured pop act genre, where the music is usually selling off the back of the people performing it, so it tends to be that there’s no room for imagination in these in between shoving the band members on-screen, so all the good video directors get left to the music that can sell itself.
That being said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzJv5UzYMFU
If you like animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGjO9d211VQ&feature=related
band is called Voicst - pretty neat song too. (That’s one you can watch in “high quality”)
Uh, sorry to pick up on this conversation a little late, but really, has no one pointed out Salmon Dance?? Aha, yes they have! Gosh that’s good stuff, I mean for starters that kid is hilarious! Also, in my opinion that song contains the best use of synth drum I have ever heard. A great and clever video is Girl by Beck, if you’re a fast reader. Also, Heimsdelgate Like A Promethean Curse, by of Montreal, this is one of the weirdest videos I’ve ever seen! I’m fairly sure they are on one or more kinds of mind-altering substance.