Aha - Take On Me ...such a mesmerizing video. A girl reading a comic is sucked into a world in between the two realities. Really cool artistically and you can't help but wish you could see more of the story.
Dire Straits Money for Nothing was amazing at the time. Turn Down for What is amazing in its own way. Smashing Pumpkins Tonight, Tonight. Michael Jackson had a few good ones.
And the extremely underrated “Swiss Army Man” featuring a fart-propelled Harry Potter raft.
One of the Daniels directed “The Death of Dick Long”, which might be the best mystery movie I’ve ever seen. Go in blind mister and, hands down, you won’t be disappointed if you like mystery movies.
From Yesterday by 30 Seconds to Mars is like a whole short film and they went to China to film it. I remember it being a bit of a deal at the time.
Basically every OK Go music video, This Too Shall Pass is particularly impressive.
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel is pretty impressive the amount of work that must've gone into it.
The face morphing at the end of Black and White by Michael Jackson was cutting edge special effects at the time and it holds up well today (better than the rap verse breakdown in the song itself....)
Haha. Last night my teen was watching the MJ halftime performance. She was SO offended that they cut the rap out of Black and White because "it's the only part of the song that makes sense!"
R.E.M. - Imitation of Life. The entire song happens in a few seconds, with all parts at the same time. The video keeps rewinding, each time showing one of the parts.
"I had this idea that I wanted to do a story that's tragic but starts off happy and ends happy, and the video is about rewinding to that happy ending,"
Thraves needed to find a new way to tell a narrative story that moved forward even as the action moved backward.
"The original idea was a straight narrative without the lead singer in the video," said Thraves. "But Chris wanted to be in the video and he was really excited to learn how to sing the song backward."
"He got a tape of the song recorded backward and he listened to it over and over. He's a very passionate guy, so he got really into it. What we learned later on is about the problems with phonetics, because you have to be very careful with the lip movement so that when you end on a sound your mouth is formed in the right way."
I think this would be always the most impressive music video in my book, ALWAYS. The dedication Chris Martin put man, I cant even think how he learned all of that.
It's Thom York stumbling through historical scenes of his life and career looking old and tired. It took me a hot minute to realize what I was watching but as soon as it hits you it's inescapable and heartbreaking.
It's not "impressive" in the same sense as take on me, Californication, or money for nothing... but in terms of really augmenting the music with a well conceived visual storytelling mechanic? Top notch.
I quite like Around The World by Daft Punk (directed by Michel Gondry of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fame). I guess "impressive" isn't the primary word I'd use to describe it but thought it was worth a mention
Peter Gabriel has a new album out with a bunch of videos produced with AI. I don't think he meant them to be disturbing but I find them to be very so, in the way that AI when it gets things somewhat wrong is disturbing. I also think possibly his new songs were produced via AI as well - they sound a bit like music by an AI trained up on Peter Gabriel music.
Sledgehammer was fucking awesome, though - and it was done by the guy who went on to do the Wallace and Gromit series.
Why? Shot by one dude, all the instruments and vocals are one dude, shot through multiple seasons, and then you realize the lines on different season are keys on a piano/keyboard, playing the song.
Fuckin masterpiece.
Runner up: Turn Down for What, directed by the directors of Everything Everywhere All At Once.
I think the MTV era from the 80s to early 90s had the most creative videos. Likely because there was a bit more of a demand for music videos back then. You really had to stand out when your only platform at the time was MTV.
As far as favorite music videos, I've always been a fan of Tool's weird-ness.
First thing to come to mind is Childish Gambino - This is America. It's fairly simple on its face. Some people and a few props in a large empty warehouse. It mostly relies on Donald's presence but the filmography and post FX is pretty impressive.
It's been years. I tried looking for it, but nothing I could find looks like what I'm thinking of.
Apparently there's many reverse and some multiple show in reverse in one take now. The one I'm thinking of surely was one of the first, or the first of its kind.
But with how long ago it was and not a band or song I listened to, I can't recall nor find.
This one's got me right now. Not crazy editing or anything, it just REALLY drives the point home for the song. Probably mostly because it's a nostalgia bomb for me.:
Absolutely loved this. Never heard of the artist before this (though clearly she is very popular!). She seemed to have a lot of fun making the video.
The only thing that disappointed me was learning that a bunch of people had to volunteer their time to make this. Surely this made lot of money for the artist and video producers, could it really be that the margins were too thin to compensate all the people working on this?
I hear you but, to be fair, she wasn't popular when this came out.. She was just some nobody artist. This went semi-viral at the time and that's how she became more widely known.
Weezer - Pork and Beans. As someone who wasn't even alive during the era of YouTube when it came out, it is really mesmerizing seeing that day's stars all in one place. Not to mention the actual video is super funny and well done. The ending scene is so cathartic. Plus the song itself is cathcy and has a nice message.
Klangkarussell - All Eyes On You - this is probably my favourite music video ever. I'm a sucker for one-takes, and the fact that this one is nine minutes long makes it so impressive on a technical level. But also, the video really feels like an experience. I feel like there are a lot of different ways the characters and situation, and what they represent, can be interpreted; it feels like everyone reads into the video in their own way (and I'm totally down to discuss anyone else's interpretations once they've watched it). Plus the atmosphere of the video really enhances that of the song - I like the song well enough, but combined with the video I find it so hypnotizing and engrossing. (Plus, it doesn't feel cheap by any means but you can see it was made on a shoestring budget, so it gets extra points for that as far as I'm concerned.)
All India Radio - Rippled - long-exposure light stop-motion is so damn cool. It's such a pretty video, and I love how authentic it feels - it obviously took a lot of time, energy and talent to make (over 6 months according to the description) but it has so much personality to it, and you can obviously see the people in the background moving the lights around which makes it feel far less "clinical".
Delta Heavy - Get By - musically, it's a slightly above-average 2012 dubstep track, but the video is so fun (and terrifying, I suppose...). Again, I love the stop motion, but it's also just really fun on a conceptual level.
Anyway, all of these are a decade old, so I guess maybe you're right about modern music videos. I can't say I watch many music videos, though, so there are probably some good ones I miss!
So I love music videos as well as making my own, so I have a lot of favourites, but in particular half·alive's music videos are amazingly done. The lead singer Josh Taylor is an incredible producer for his music videos as well as the band being amazing dancers. All of the videos off of their new album are amazing, but two that I will highlight are:
First few times I heard the song, it was just on in the background and I wasn't paying much attention to the lyrics. Like... okay, we're watching you perform on a stage? Weird thing to write a song about, but whatev; sounds cool so screw it.
Finally pulled up the video and it went from "lol marionette puppets!" to "Oh... OOOH. Hoooooly shit!" pretty damn quick.
I can't remember the band or the song, but I remember the VH1 pop-up version where they told you tidbits during the video. The whole thing was 1 take (shot on film in those days) and included a part where they passed the camera through a car. The camera operator had to hand the camera off to someone, run around to the other side of the car and then take it back without it looking like that happened, and while everyone was singing in time. I was a film student at the time and in awe about how well it was done. So much so that I can still see that part, but I cannot remember the song.
I personally find the music video for Radioactive by Imagine Dragons to be absolutely hilarious. The juxtaposition of serious and nonsense is so good, it just gets me every time. Even though I think the actual song is way better as covered by Within Temptation. Seriously though, go watch that music video and tell me it's not hilarious.
Björk have made some that are absolutely spectacular, she has a way of making you feel what she feels with her voice and the visual impressions, she pulls you into her world. She's one of those artists that are completely unique and deeply talented.
Death Grips? I love their music but their videos have always been incredibly boring for me, especially with Zach Hill's background in video production and Stephan's visual art background. Eh is the only song that comes to mind as having a good MV
Ok go! Have aan archive of songs that I don't regularly listen to, but have really memorabele video clips. I likey them more for the videos than everything else.
Nigel Stanford has some amazing videoclips. I love Robots vs. Music the most (especially since the tune and the whole Automatica album is amazing), but Science vs. Music is also great.
And he also did a few making of videos. While I'm sure most of the final result is CGI anyway, it's still a nice touch.