I was reading this thread when I thought, what have been some music videos that provoked thought, awe, or just plain made you forget about the myriad of “band-in-a-box” or dance-oriented videos?
For example, I usually point to Radiohead’s video for “Just.”
Ah Ha, “Take on Me.” The one with the 30’s style cartoon animation.
Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer.”
That’s all I can think of right now. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a music video.
“And She Was” by Talking Heads. It was made with objects photographed from different angles and then animated. (The same technique was relatively popular at the time, before everybody jumped on morphing and Matrix-style freeze-pans, and was used less effectively in one of Michael Jackson’s videos where he dances with the Elephant Man’s bones.) It’s probably my favorite video ever.
Just about any Bjork video; my favorites are “It’s Oh So Quiet,” “Isobel,” and “Human Behavior.”
Pearl Jam’s video for “Do the Evolution” freaks me out every time I see it.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller
Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child O’ Mine
Guns N’ Roses November Rain for its excesses and its Spinal Tapish edge to it
Good call, IcicleFuzz. I also just thought of that one Replacements video where they just show the speaker for the entirety of the video.
“Street Spirit” by Radiohead is my all time fav. Other include Enigma - Return to Innocence, Fiona Apple - Criminal, and Deftones - Digital Bath. Any of the videos above would be well worth your time and effort
Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” with Christopher Walken and the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”. Spike Jonze rules.
And for the sheer awesomeness of the editing job, R.E.M.'s “Imitation of Life”. The video uses only a single 30 second snippet of footage of a huge outdoor scene. The video is zoomed in and out of, and played backwards and forwards and synchs up perfectly to the song. It has to be seen to be believed.
The video for “Spark” by Tori Amos is really good.
The videos I currently find the most striking are “Strange Little Girl” by Tori Amos (all of her videos have a pleasant sureal quality to them,) which reminds me of Little Red Ridinghood and “Open Your Eyes” by Goldfinger which has elements parodying The Twilight Zone in it.
I’ve only seen it once, but “Girl from Mars” by Ash has a pretty neat concept to it: a girl, probably 8 or 9, is in an art museum. Every time she looks at a painting, it becomes a window into a real scene, and adults rush her away so she can’t see it.
I can’t remember the song title but the video by U.N.K.L.E. with the cars that keep hitting the man walking through a tunnel is amazing.
Aphex Twin
While his video for Windowlicker is probably the most famous (you either love it or hate it, but that’s another debate (but at least see it)), I would say that the video for “Come to Daddy” does more in four minutes than 90% of most horror movies. It’s disturbing without being gratuitous; haunting and confusing, it’s one of the few videos I bother to own. It was apparently banned by MTV (I use banned loosely, because I have seen it on MTV once, on their banned videos show, go figure), for nothing other than being disturbing, which is testament to it’s power as it shows absolutely nothing. I have friends who refuse to sit through the whole thing.
All Radiohead references, and everything elwoodcuse said.
As Ich Bin’s mentioned, Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy is truly disturbing. Great video, but don’t watch it alone at night. So many Radiohead videos also fit into this category: Just, Street Spirit, Paranoid Android and Knives Out just to start with.
And the video widdershins mentions is Rabbit In Your Headlights.
And although it’s basically novelty appeal, who can not love seeing Fonzie groove to Weezer in Buddy Holly or their new muppet-laden video, Keep Fishing?
I’d go with most Michel Gondry videos- Foo Fighters Everlong, a lot of Bjork’s stuff, the Chemical Brother’s Star Guitar, White Stripes Fell in Love with a Girl, and probably some others that I wasn’t aware of. I just saw the video for Basement Jaxx Where’s Your Head At? and thought that was pretty good.
I think Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” still has great emotional impact, although I have seen it roughly fifteen billion times (as did everyone else who watched MTV in the early '90s).
These two are newer but I love them both:
White Stripes “dead leaves and the dirty ground.” It’s rare that a video come out that makes me actually sit down and watch the story being unfolded. Except it’s on story, different time periods, told in one frame. Really, really interesting.
Also: Underworld’s “Two Months Off.” Honestly, there is nothing groundbreaking about the video but they really capture the essence of the song. Just one guy, jumping around in the rain. Very simple but very effective.
Going waaaaaaaaayyyyy back Herbie Hancock’s Rockit
Metallica’s Unforgiven
Pink Floyd The Wall
Not related to the OP:
(I didn’t post this and you didn’t read it but…)
I thought The Spice Girls Wannabe was an interesting concept. Rapidly moving, colorful, 1 second shots of pure eye candy. I am still captivated by that video every time.
Tool, Sober is a beatiful piece of claymation. As is the one with teh baby thing in the box. (Is it Prison Sex)?
Most Weird Al videos manage to pack in even more laughs than the songs alone.
Mark Romanek’s video for Nine Inch Nails’s “Closer.” Although it’s basically a moving-image Joel-Peter Witkin photograph, those images really stuck with me.
Back in the proverbial day, I also liked Tears For Fears’s “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” with kind of the same look of “And She Was.”
INXS’s “Need You Tonight.”
And I can’t remember the name of the song, but that relatively new Coldplay video.
And I don’t agree with you.
Under the topic of “worthwhile videos”, I’d also add R.E.M.'s “Everybody Hurts”.
Do they even make music videos anymore that don’t just consist of seizure-inducing flashing lights and spastic synchronized dancing?