Pause Online: Music Videos

December 11, 2004 12:56 PM

Pause Online(Flash, QT content) An eclectic collection of music videos by various directors (Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry) and in certain categories (New York New York, French New Wave, Sonic Animation). Flash navigation sucks but you do get Matchbox 20!
posted by Cryptical Envelopment (20 comments total)

Oofah. Has ever such great material been marred by such awful site design? I'm a big music video fan, but damn!

/me lovingly strokes Directors Label Jonze and Gondry DVD sets
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:16 PM on December 11, 2004

Everybody needs to click on the "No More Stars" category and scroll all the way to the right, then watch "Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches. Probably one of my favorite music videos of all time. It's impossibly funny. (Too bad I didn't like the album all that much.)
posted by logovisual at 1:41 PM on December 11, 2004

I think the design is just fine. And I'm glad to see Radiohead's "Knives Out" which was left off of the Gondry DVD, a major disappointment.
posted by fungible at 1:43 PM on December 11, 2004

Awesome link! I saw this site sometime last year, but they didn't have as many videos then.

They still don't have the video Gondry did for Lacquer (QT, posted previously on Mefi).
posted by muddgirl at 2:05 PM on December 11, 2004

Thanks - that made my ... evening!
posted by homodigitalis at 2:07 PM on December 11, 2004

i actually kinda like the design. and i had no idea there was a spoon video. this is great, thanks c.e.
posted by blendor at 2:09 PM on December 11, 2004

Thanks for pointing out "Knives Out", fungible. I used to hear that song all the time at my local pub and people knew to stop talking when it came on and I was there. I didn't know which Radiohead song it was or even what the he was singing, I was just (and still am) transfixed by the melody and chord changes. Brilliant song even when you don't know the words.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 3:55 PM on December 11, 2004

I REALLY enjoyed this, thanks!!
posted by jonson at 4:11 PM on December 11, 2004

Check out "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai. Awesome visual effect (they move the walls and camera to make it look like the floor is moving).
posted by thebabelfish at 4:18 PM on December 11, 2004

That boy needs therapy!
posted by The Thnikkaman at 5:07 PM on December 11, 2004

I have not seen Weezer's "Buddy Holly" video in so long; seeing it reminded me of the days when mtv didn't suck. Thanks!
posted by hopeless romantique at 5:46 PM on December 11, 2004

Can anybody fimd a Jeff Beck video?
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 7:09 PM on December 11, 2004

I had completely forgotten about how much I loved that (French New Wave?) Flatbeat video. Thanks!
posted by painquale at 8:34 PM on December 11, 2004

I can't find "Flatbeat" anywhere (not surprising). Can you point me in the right direction, painquale?
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 8:41 PM on December 11, 2004

Found it. :-) This video made the rounds. :-)
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 8:43 PM on December 11, 2004

Fatboy Slim's "Ya Mama." Even if you hate FS, that video's a riot.

This just verifies something for me: We need a channel that plays music videos. Crazy idea, I know, since no one ever has the balls to play most of this stuff outside of the internet.
posted by fungible at 10:48 PM on December 11, 2004

Yup, the Flatbeat video's pretty well-known. The first time I saw it, it came on in a bar with the volume turned all the way down. That's the best way to experience it. My friends and I were transfixed.

Although I liked the song, I had never seen the video for Frontier Psychiatrist. It's fabulous! Fatboy Slim's Bushes was also pretty entertaining. This site is perfectly selective.

fungibile: Muchmusic, in Canada, is the only such station I've heard of.
posted by painquale at 11:30 PM on December 11, 2004

I hate to say it, painquale, but MuchMusic is terrible these days and has been for a decade. The playlist is chosen by the labels and the advertisers and steadied by the creeping conscious rot that is Clear Channel. MuchMusic no longer reflects teens' tastes and culture but rather frantically acts to control and define it. So it's a six-hour loop of cookie-cutter hip-hop, synthetic soul and dozens of divas. And contests! and sponsored! specials! (Zap those Zits and meet Blink-182!!) not to mention a good 1.5 hours per cycle of imported MTV crap showing stars and their cars and fans "Becoming..." There are more than a few jems that can fit that mould and still shine with honest good music and video, of course, but that they get airtime is lucky, not strategy, and regular rotation almost never happens. Not for stuff like I linked to. A few years ago I cried watching the Fatboy Slim "Praise You" video. It was like an oasis.

I won't get into a Moses Znaimer rant here, but when we were the MuchMusic target market, back in the 80s, it was a wonderful channel and part of a dynamic music scene. We never knew what we might see next and we were ready for it. We stayed up late to watch the full-length "Thriller" video and when Peter Gabriel made the "Sledgehammer" video they played it over and over and we talked about it for weeks and marveled at the craft of the song. MJ's "Thriller" video was akin to Dylan's 6-minute format busting "Like A Rolling Stone". Bah, seems too late now.

Denise Donolan, who used to be a MuchMusic VJ and taught us teens a lot at the time, went on to helm Sony Canada for a decade. And her old partner in the "New Music", J.D. Roberts, is now CBS's White House correspondant and in first in line to grab Dan Rather's stool. It died fast but they still re-run some of the good stuff on MuchMoreMusic. But the last time I remember being influenced by MuchMusic was when I tuned in at random and saw a live video with a long-haired wild-eyed freak in a plaid shirt singing:

Freezing. Rests his head on a pillow made of concrete. Again.
Oh-ah, feeling maybe he'll see a little better set a days.

I bought that record and after "Jeremy" they stopped making videos.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 1:32 AM on December 12, 2004

Aw, I got called out. When I lived in Canada, it was cool to make fun of the Americans for having an inferior music channel. Then I stopped paying attention. I should have known things have gone downhill. All culture becomes American sooner or later... that's Newton's second law!
posted by painquale at 3:11 AM on December 12, 2004

Seems I've seen this here before.....last year, maybe?
posted by codeofconduct at 10:20 AM on December 12, 2004