Greatest ever videos

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

This one has to be right up there and if it's beatable I'd be amazed.

Learn to Fly

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Greatest ever videos

This one, is also a favourite one from my youth, but looking at it now, the first twenty seconds turn the members of Queen from looking quite "urban cool" or whatever they call it in a noughties way into a real sad bunch of 80s style rockers. Funny, that.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Greatest ever videos

And this has to be the greatest ever 80s "mood video" shot by a misty bit of central europe.

[Crusoe]

Greatest ever videos

Sigur Ros, Vaka
Grizzly Bear, Two Weeks
Four Tet, Smile Around The Face
TV On The Radio, Dreams

And some current favourites:

Caribou, Sun
OK Go & The Muppets, Muppet Show Theme

[evilC]

Greatest ever videos

I've mentioned this one before in this context, but...

Legowelt: 'Disco Rout'

Watch until the end for the full effect.

[RobW]

Greatest ever videos

Not just a great video, but a fantastic song.

"At home or in the car, don't matter where you are"

[Spearmint Rhino]

Greatest ever videos

I had to write a little box-out thing about what I considered to be the best-ever music videos for a sIndy piece about the anniversary of MTV which never ran (cos Amy Winehouse went and died, and ate up the column inches). Written in a bit of a rush, and very much aimed at the general reader, but here it is...

Massive Attack - “Unfinished Sympathy” (Baillie Walsh, 1991)
The Verve may have taken all the credit with Richard Ashcroft‘s ‘inconsiderate pedestrian‘ turn on “Bittersweet Symphony”, but this was the original walking-and-singing video. A single Steadicam follows Shara Nelson along several blocks of W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles. Beautifully simple.

The Beastie Boys - “Sabotage” (Spike Jonze, 1994)
Inspired by Starsky And Hutch and The Streets Of San Francisco and shot on authentic grainy film stock, Spike Jonze’s "Sabotage" clip featured the Beasties, wearing unconvincing wigs and moustaches, as the stars of a fictional Seventies cop show, complete with slow-mo car chases, martial arts poses and motel baddie-busts. Mid-Nineties retromania at its peak.

The Aphex Twin - “Come To Daddy” (Chris Cunningham, 1997)
On the same bleak Thamesmead concrete council estate used in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, an old lady is terrorised by a gang of small children all wearing the face of Richard ‘Aphex Twin’ James. Chris Cunningham’s masterpiece, and one of the most unsettling music videos ever made.

The White Stripes - “Fell In Love With A Girl” (Michel Gondry, 2002)
A ‘live’ video with a difference: Jack and Meg White are represented by ever-shifting Lego figures created almost entirely by painstaking stop-motion photography (although Michel Gondry later admitted he created one small section using computers). The Stripes gained a reputation for innovative videos, but this was the most impressive.

Johnny Cash - “Hurt” (Mark Romanek, 2003)
Filmed seven months before his death, a frail septuagenarian Man In Black sits among the flood-damaged wreckage of his House Of Cash museum, memorabilia in his shaking hands, haunted by blurry colour footage of his golden years (and a touching staircase cameo from his wife June Carter). Enough to reduce grown men to tears. Including the original writer, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, who admitted the song wasn’t his any more.

OK Go - “Here It Goes Again” (Trish Sie, 2006)
The pop-punk quartet are better-known for their mostly low-budget but fiendishly high-concept videos than they are for their music. Filmed in one continuous shot, “Here It Goes Again” features a mind-boggling dance routine on gymnasium treadmills, and went seriously viral, clocking up over 50 million views on YouTube.

[Gerontophile]

Greatest ever videos

APhex Twin: asbolutely. (if its the 'screaming head' one, as that was quite unsettling*.)

I would nominate A-Ha: Take on Me, as (I think) it started the notion of video as song-seller... although I realise that it had been done multitudinously previously. (Bohemian Rhapsody etc).

A-Ha nailed it, and

isnt the best video ever, but I suspect it is one of the most important.

*sorry

[Come along, Min]

Greatest ever videos

Rogin, veranda chair fan wrote:

This one has to be right up there and if it's beatable I'd be amazed.

Learn to Fly

Good, but its not even the best FF video..

Everlong

[erwin]

Greatest ever videos

The Johnny Cash one ... the closing of the piano ... the stroking of it ... bu .. bu .. buaaaa.

Sublime.

[Cal Alamein]

Greatest ever videos

Never much of fan of music videos, but if you have to do one...KILLED BY DEATH

At the time, I think MTV banned it which was fine by me.

[evilC]

Greatest ever videos

The slightly unsettling 'Immolate Yourself' by Telefon Tel Aviv. Possibly not for the squeamish ...like me!

[RobW]

Greatest ever videos

Should surely now read...

Massive Attack - “Unfinished Sympathy” (Baillie Walsh, 1991)
A single Steadicam follows Shara Nelson along several blocks of W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles as she stalks Pete Tong

[Spearmint Rhino]

Greatest ever videos

robw wrote:

Should surely now read...

Massive Attack - “Unfinished Sympathy” (Baillie Walsh, 1991)
A single Steadicam follows Shara Nelson along several blocks of W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles as she stalks Pete Tong

I don't get it.

[evilC]

Greatest ever videos

Another couple of original Lego videos (as opposed to just 'cover versions').

My favourite: 'Brick It' by Printed Circuit.

...and another good one: '8-bit Trip' by Rymdrelage.

The White Stripes one that SR mentions is brilliant too, though.

[Spearmint Rhino]

Greatest ever videos

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote:

Spearmint Rhino wrote:

robw wrote:

Should surely now read...

Massive Attack - “Unfinished Sympathy” (Baillie Walsh, 1991)
A single Steadicam follows Shara Nelson along several blocks of W. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles as she stalks Pete Tong

I don't get it.

Pete Tong granted restraining order against former Massive Attack singer

Fucking hell's bells. I've often wondered what happened to Shara Nelson. I'd never have guessed the answer was "She went mental and turned into Blue Tulip Rose Tong".

[Purves Grundy]

Greatest ever videos

Wow. I mean, I know she'd been mad in love before, but this...

[Come along, Min]

Greatest ever videos

Shara Nelson-Tong! I always half fancied her. Weird, sad.

Wonder what she looks like these days.

[Bored Of Education]

Greatest ever videos

SR and everyone else in the world, pretty much, is right on the money with the "Hurt" video.

It is a video that works in matching the video with the song in building an emotional intensity and breadth through nothing much more than great camera work and judicious editing. You don't even need to know the back story that SR points out for it to be great but once you do, it only adds to it.

Any video that just plonks the new 'clever' video effect on top of the song is just lazy artistically. The other one that works well in the same way as the "Hurt" video but not quite as well (although better than a lot of others mentioned) is "One" by Metallica

[Spearmint Rhino]

Greatest ever videos

Purves Grundy wrote:

Wow. I mean, I know she'd been mad in love before, but this...

[MsD]

Greatest ever videos

I wonder when it all started to go pear-shaped?

Back on OT, the Johnny Cash Hurt video, yes, but also Hey Ya and Seven Nation Army for me.

Ant Rap is my personal favourite as it just cracks me up, every time. It's the dancing.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Greatest ever videos

Even after multiple viewings over the years, on so many levels this video is, well truly jaw-dropping... If I Could Turn Back Time — Cher.

... paging Doctor Freud... paging Doctor Freud...

[Diable Rouge]

Greatest ever videos

Everyone seems to be avoiding the elephants in the room by not mentioning Thriller, Bohemian Rhapsody or Sledgehammer.

[evilC]

Greatest ever videos

I'd thought of 'Thriller', but I was trying to stick to my 'specialist subjects'. (Actually, I assumed someone would have mentioned it, too!)

[Bored Of Education]

Greatest ever videos

Everyone seems to be avoiding the elephants in the room by not mentioning Thriller, Bohemian Rhapsody or Sledgehammer.

Seldgehammer was the start of the "Let's stick the new video/computer effect on the video and be done with it" trend, clever and effective as it was.

Both Thriller and Bohemian Rhapsody were great but haven't aged as well as the actual songs.