Music videos

Martin de Thurah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F-CpE73o2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOt15JsLloU

The era's gone mostly, They aren't shown as much anymore, save for a few hours in the morning or at night on MTV/VH1. Which, btw, we'd show more videos, except that nobody watches them when we do.

I don't think that's quite true, blunderbuss.

Dougal Wilson, Lynn Fox, Brian Beletic, Johan Renck, Patrick Daughters... There're plenty great music video directors still out there.

This isn't worth starting a new thread for, so I'm just going to leave it here. This is the best music video I've ever seen. Admittedly I'm a huge Lady Gaga fan, but even if you're not this is an awesome music vid by any standards:

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

This is as good a place as any to stick Pitchfork's Top 50 Music Videos of the 2000s.

Some GREAT stuff in there.

The most recent thing to really knock my socks off was "Black Swan" - Sunset Rubdown

As much as I've enjoyed a fancy effects video or two in my time and respect the heckfire out of the artistry involved I find they start to feel gimmicky real quick. My favourites have always been the stupidly funny ones like Foo Fighters' "Low" or Blink 182's "All The Small Things", or the sexy business from the likes of Christina or Beyonce. Doesn't say much for my critical cred I know but I'm an easy mark that way. It's a shame, but I just can't help seeing music vids as a more or less throwaway craft, like a practice ground rather than a main stadium kind of deal.


She is something ain't she? I'm a big fan of watching her do stuff.

Even though Owl City to my ears seems a one song artist ( I.e. All their/his music sounds the same) I find my self enjoying the whimsy in the "Fireflies" music video.

By the way, can someone tell me if Owl City is just one guy or a band?

I had thought Much Music was immune from the nonsense that passes as MTV - more shows than actual music - and discovered they've copied the formula as well.

I don't think I've seen any music videos air. Not with the Dance reality contests and CW themed tv shows.

The last good music video I saw was on youtube with Okkervil River's Radio Song which is pretty great.

I still need to get that Gondry video collection dvd, but haven't been able to find it locally.

The poorly-written Wikipedia entry is ambiguous on the point:
It's also painfully complimentary:
Look, if you're going to rip off an artist that completely, just cop to it. The sound is way too close for any reasonable person to buy that it's a matter of shared influences.

I would say yes Owl City is completely indebted to the Postal Service, but his lyrics are much more upbeat, and that there is more variety to his work than appears on first listen.

Could be my fave video of the decade:

Missy Elliott - 'Pass That Dutch'

You want to see Missy dancing under a UFO in a cornfield, you say? Look no further.

For some reason, I've always been fond of Kylie Minogue's video for "Come into my world" (heh, just realized its directed by michaell gondry)

Also, Fatboy Slim still has the double prize in the awesome and cut categories with "Weapon of Choice" and "The Joker"

This band really doesn't do anything for me, but I can't deny that this is pretty cool video from Himsa. I mean it has marionette Sasquatches rocking out while a pissed off living tree picks them off one by one (I especially love how they went about the blood spatter scenes).

"Big Timber"

And there is "Oblivion" by Mastodon, which is probably the best video they've made.

This is the funniest vid I've ever seen. I can't stop playing it:

Miss Piggy singing Peaches' 'Fuck the Pain Away'.

And if you haven't seen the original vid, you're missing out on a bona fide classic of visual genius.

Has anyone seen that Missy Elliott music video that has a bit near the end where Tommy Lee emerges from a trashcan in the desert and then starts levitating?

If so, can someone please explain to me the significance of Tommy Lee emerging from a trashcan in the desert and then levitating? Thanks.

The sad song thread made me look up some videos I hadn't seen in a while, so I thought I'd contribute more of my favorites, even if they don't make me cry.

Same Blue Devils

Morning After Midnight

This Spike Jonze video for the Pharcyde still works for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3qMdkucM0

Also, at the time I had no idea who John C Reilly was, so I could not appreciate how awesome it was he was in the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co3qMdkucM0

For Tricky creepiness, this stands out for me: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7y...e-corner_music

And a couple of more recent ones that I thought were very cool:
Knife-Grizzly Bear (Original Star Trek meets David Lynch, anyone?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuYZbYtAl9A
I Start To Run-White Denim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW26TBF1boo

This is just too awesome fpr words.

The Village People-Sex Over The Phone

Wow, how have I not seen that before? That's great.

Another one that still cracks me up: Jason Forrest - STEPPIN OUT.
It's basically the Lord Of The Rings characters in a Spinal Tap tour scenario. The crass lo-fi production values and obvious use of found footage make it all the better.

That Pharcyde video was pretty sweet.

OMGGANDALFLIGHTNING!! Coolest thing in a music video evar.

I submit:

Turn It On

and

In A Funny Way

So Gaga's newest video (for Alejandro) is out, and is yet another step-up in sophistication and production value.

http://www.mtv.com/videos/lady-gaga/...tml#id=1518072

Thing is, might be my least favorite because of the terrible mismatch of song to imagery. The edit is also sloppier and more self-indulgent than I'd like (there's also this weird thing were every dance set-up should have the camera kinked a foot or two to the right or left). That said it's still a memorable piece with legit artistic integrity, even if it's attached to one of the more grossly trendy-sounding hits of hers. Extremely well shot though.

This one is my favorite of hers by far. Great visuals, easy-to-copy choreography, and those SHOES.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of this one, either. I hope she didn't peak at Bad Romance, because Telephone was a real piece of shit. I did not enjoy that shit at all.

Telephone is brilliant.

I love the song, but I cannot watch that video. I watched it the day it was released, and haven't watched it again. It is a disastuh.

I was taking the piss, but I really do love it. I'm a huge fan of the weaving back and forth between arty short-film and music video, and I'd like to see her or someone else take it farther. This only compounds the disappointment that the new one feels so long and self-indulgent.

You should elaborate on your distaste... I've gotten into a ton of arguments about the video and mostly with women. I loved being told in a film class that I was just enamored with titties and wasn't seeing it for the piece of shit it was. I've had three separate discussions that ended up with the woman I'm speaking to getting really flustered and angry about it without every expressing exactly what about it makes it so revolting. I'd love to hear a cogent criticism.

My problem with it is that it's trying way too hard to be something epic as opposed to just being epic. I don't know if I'm going to be able to explain my Telephone distaste thoroughly, but when I saw Bad Romance for the first time, I felt like I was watching a classic. I also saw it without hearing any hype, and the thing just blew me away.

In the wake of how popular that video was (it's the number one clip of all time on Youtube), Gaga talked up Telephone all over the place, saying that it was gonna take a shit all over Bad Romance, that it would be the new Thriller, etc. I was pumped. A lot of people were pumped. I watched it, and it underwhelmed me totally. The storyline did nothing for me. There are some nice visuals. I like the jail stuff. The choreography looks great. The way that they make Beyonce do that stutter-thing on the "eh, eh, eh, eh" is nice, but overall, it was just too crazy for me to enjoy. It's just all over the fucking place. The talking bits with Gaga and Beyonce made me cringe. I guess they were supposed to be corny, but I didn't like it. So, I suppose it's a combination of too much hype and an incoherent mess of a video. I applaud her for trying something different as opposed to having her and B just dancing in a club, but that video is a mess to me.

I do like this Black Keys video for "Tighten Up", it doesn't have Frank the dinosaur puppet in it, but it's pretty funny.

Also, the video for "Haifisch" by Rammstein is nice return to a narrative piece, rather than another performance video.

This Interpol video for Lights would have been perfect for Sprockets. Creepy, sexy, weird, monochrome.

As an 80s metal geek, I'm kind of digging Ozzy's new album. His new video for "Let Me Hear You Scream," however, is a giant pile of dog shit with drunken vomit mixed in.