100 Awesome Music Videos

June 20, 2006 9:19 PM

100 Awesome Music Videos Note: not THE 100 MOST Awesome, just 100 awesome music videos. Some you'll know, some you may not, many you'll disagree with, just keep in mind, no one claimed this was a definitive list.
posted by jonson (65 comments total)

P.S., if you feel like having an argument about the merits of Pitchfork, I heartily encourage you to not. Just not.
posted by jonson at 9:19 PM on June 20, 2006

Definitive list my ass! Those choices aren't the most awesome by any stretch of the imagination. Plus everyone knows Pitchfork sucks.

Anyone else having trouble opening the site?
posted by lucien at 9:43 PM on June 20, 2006

I'm surprised they didn't include Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity. I'm not really a fan of theirs, but it's a great video.

Glad they included Coffee & TV, though!
posted by Camel of Space at 9:43 PM on June 20, 2006

That kelly watch teh stars video is helarious.


Crazy how so much kitsch-- slo-mo ping-pong, retro couture, acoustic guitars, out-of-body experiences, French people, and Pong for crissakes-- coalesces into a superlatively fun and surprise-filled play on the tired sports nail-biter. Doesn't hurt any that Kelly is totally crushworthy. [Matthew Solarski]

Crushworthy? I don't know why but that word just makes me hate Matthew Solarski, for being a hipster wanker. Isn't that what pitchforkmedia is all about? Hipster wankers wanking to their own hipness? Crushing on their own genitals into a din of self-refrential blindness.

Or perhaps I'm reading too much into a cute little turn of phrase.
posted by delmoi at 9:44 PM on June 20, 2006 [1 favorite]

They had a basement jaxx video, the one with the monkey, or whatever. But the best music video I've ever seen was a basement jaxx video where music was used as a metaphor for drugs, and there was a 'war on music'. It ends with the cops burning huge pile of old records. Really awesome.
posted by delmoi at 9:47 PM on June 20, 2006

delmoi; see point#1, above.
posted by jonson at 9:54 PM on June 20, 2006

I've haven't seen some of these videos since MTV showed music videos.

My God, I'm getting old.
posted by dw at 10:05 PM on June 20, 2006

I'll take any excuse to watch Will Oldham (Superwolf video, scroll down), thanks, jonson!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:11 PM on June 20, 2006

I miss my Mtv circa '83. sigh.
posted by shoepal at 10:13 PM on June 20, 2006

A lot of the details in some of these videos are really ruined by artifacting.
posted by delmoi at 10:17 PM on June 20, 2006

I love the cee-lo "Closet freak" video. Especially the epileptic interleving of the white suit/black background black suit/white background.
posted by delmoi at 10:21 PM on June 20, 2006

uh oh, faux pas... The copy for the DJ Shadow vid 6 days says "Lensed by his regular accomplice Brian Doyle" I think they mean Christopher Doyle. Any hipster pfork writer/editor worth his salt should have caught that.
posted by shoepal at 10:23 PM on June 20, 2006

Super Bowl Shuffle is an embarassment to all humans everywhere. A deliciously awful, craptactularly shitastic embarassment.
posted by jefbla at 10:38 PM on June 20, 2006

Good post. Personally, I'd substitute "memorable" for "awesome" but it's a cool trip down Memory Lane.
posted by 27 at 10:46 PM on June 20, 2006

God that was painful/fun.
posted by treepour at 11:02 PM on June 20, 2006

Kidz Bop: "Since U Been Gone"
2005
Directed by Wormseye Films
Can be found on Kidz Bop: The Videos DVD

Does anyone else get the feeling that if this had been a serious band's video, it could've been a really awesome concept?
posted by Mikey-San at 11:24 PM on June 20, 2006

Do music videos get any better than Rockit? It's held up pretty good over the last 23 years.
posted by Staggering Jack at 11:24 PM on June 20, 2006

I...I LOVE kidz bop.
their cover of "Float On" made my life complete, and that little kid in the "Since You've Been Gone" video (at the 2:37 mark) was pretty great too.

I just wish they'd picked Sigur Ros' "viðrar vel til loftárása" instead of "Untitled #1".
posted by carsonb at 11:45 PM on June 20, 2006

all i want to know is... how big is the boat that carries all of youtube's venture capital? that thing has just got to be freaking huge. i wonder if pitchfork cleared this with them before inciting at least a few gigabytes of throughput?
posted by kaytwo at 11:57 PM on June 20, 2006

Actually the video I was thinking of was "red alert" by basement jaxx. Not on youtube, though although there are some fan videos of the song.
posted by delmoi at 11:57 PM on June 20, 2006

all i want to know is... how big is the boat that carries all of youtube's venture capital? that thing has just got to be freaking huge. i wonder if pitchfork cleared this with them before inciting at least a few gigabytes of throughput?


posted by delmoi at 11:59 PM on June 20, 2006

Personally, I'd substitute "memorable" for "awesome"

Au contraire, mon frere. There's so much awesome in this, I don't know where to start. I'd never seen (after 22 years!) the original, banned version of Relax. What a fucking explosion of gay that was. And the Pulp video for Bad Cover Version, one of my favorite Pulp songs that feature bad celebrity imitators (faux Liam Gallagher, faux Kylie Minogue, etc) getting together to record a bad cover version of the song, while mocking the We Are The World sessions, it's just fantastic.
posted by jonson at 12:07 AM on June 21, 2006

Pulp 'bad cover version' was great, and I'm ashamed to admit that I think MCR 'Helena' is one of the greatest music videos ever made - how sad does that make me...

And does anyone know what the guy says in Radiohead 'Just'? There must have been one lipreader to have seen that video...
posted by Meccabilly at 12:31 AM on June 21, 2006

i wonder if pitchfork cleared this with them before inciting at least a few gigabytes of throughput?

Considering that youtube moves around 200 TB per day, I don't think they'd even notice a couple of gigabytes.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:49 AM on June 21, 2006

I just liked their choice of Missy Elliott video. Also, I totally forgot KRS-One did that in the video for "My Philosophy."
posted by furiousthought at 12:56 AM on June 21, 2006

Yeah, I just spent a few hours watching many of those videos. The most affecting, for me, was Sinead's Nothing Compares 2 U. I'd forgotten that.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:57 AM on June 21, 2006

Meh, I already linked this in another thread.

Where's the love, people?

(Gotta dig the Pavement though.)
posted by bardic at 1:27 AM on June 21, 2006

And does anyone know what the guy says in Radiohead 'Just'? There must have been one lipreader to have seen that video...

No one's been able to figure it out with any certainty, and the band refuses to tell.

http://www.greenplastic.com/lyrics/just.php

Small blurb about it there.
posted by Mikey-San at 2:01 AM on June 21, 2006

delmoi, what does impressions per day have to do with bytes transferred per day when comparing a site with mostly text vs. one that's spewing video?

Back on subject, goddamn that was awesome. Hell, I never even knew there was a video for Kelly Watch the Stars, much less that I'd ever get to see it.
posted by Swervo at 2:06 AM on June 21, 2006

That's it. Bill Gates needs to start a foundation to make sure youtube never goes out of business.
posted by Tlogmer at 2:25 AM on June 21, 2006

And Boards of Canada never made an impression on me before, but that video was fucking beautiful.
posted by Tlogmer at 2:30 AM on June 21, 2006

Camelspace wrote:
> I'm surprised they didn't include Jamiroquai's Virtual
> Insanity. I'm not really a fan of theirs, but it's a great video.

Here you go, Camel. I'm in the same boat as you: hate the band, love the clip.
posted by tim_in_oz at 2:36 AM on June 21, 2006

delmoi, what does impressions per day have to do with bytes transferred per day when comparing a site with mostly text vs. one that's spewing video?

I think his point was that MeFi's readership will create an equal or greater burden on youtube's bandwidth than pitchforkmedia's readership.
posted by Rhomboid at 2:51 AM on June 21, 2006

"I'm in the same boat as you: hate the band, love the clip."

Their Feels Just Like It Should is a great video and a great song.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:12 AM on June 21, 2006

The video they've got for Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights isn't the memorable dancing-on-the-moors one, oddly. Here it is.
posted by matthewr at 3:47 AM on June 21, 2006

Pitchfork has merits?
posted by psmealey at 5:42 AM on June 21, 2006

Woah, I must say I was expecting the list to be pretty poor choice wise, but I was kinda impressed (Didn't actually watch any of them, just read the list and fondly remembered).
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 6:39 AM on June 21, 2006

Maybe they smoke 'em, psmealey. Otherwise, no.
posted by jonmc at 6:40 AM on June 21, 2006

EB - that's amazing. Thanks.
posted by papercake at 6:48 AM on June 21, 2006

Bonus points for using a still from "Can You Feel It" as the banner for the article. Absolute classic, that.
posted by schoolgirl report at 6:57 AM on June 21, 2006

On re-examination, they get a small amount of consideration for including Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It." Even though they did it ironically and the vid for "You Can't Stop Rock & Roll," (and the album it came from) is superior.
posted by jonmc at 6:58 AM on June 21, 2006

And does anyone know what the guy says in Radiohead 'Just'? There must have been one lipreader to have seen that video...
posted by Meccabilly at 12:31 AM PST on June 21

This question is definitively answered in the Pitchfork blurb: "If you lie down here, you can see Radiohead playing in that apartment up there."

Seriously, he doesn't say anything.
posted by jokeefe at 7:08 AM on June 21, 2006

what is this "pitchforK" everyone keeps bashing. Is that the alias of the guy who runs that blog with the videos from U2-b?

Nice post, BTW.
posted by wah at 7:41 AM on June 21, 2006

*sigh* Young Morrissey.
posted by everichon at 8:04 AM on June 21, 2006

I'll say I'm impressed that a Pitchfork list of music videos took until page 4 to feature a Radiohead video.

I still wish Redman's "I'll Bee Dat" was on the list though.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:17 AM on June 21, 2006

I'll say I'm impressed that a Pitchfork list of music videos took until page 4 to feature a Radiohead video.

um, that's page 8 ... and they're in alphabetical order
posted by pyramid termite at 8:36 AM on June 21, 2006

delmoi, what does impressions per day have to do with bytes transferred per day when comparing a site with mostly text vs. one that's spewing video?

We link to youtube all the time, and thus would be causeing an even greater strain on the network...
posted by delmoi at 9:10 AM on June 21, 2006

Great collection, though of course I have my quibbles. Worth it just to be reminded of Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist - I had heard the song when they first put it out, overplayed it myself by a factor of ten, then had to listen as it finally caught on in the States on "alternative" radio, was annoyed then came to love it all over again... THEN finally saw the video and found even more to laugh at and enjoy than I had thought possible.
posted by soyjoy at 10:02 AM on June 21, 2006

I love the Decemberists video. It almost makes me weepy. Thanks.
posted by dame at 11:01 AM on June 21, 2006

I'm not sure it gets any better than the Journey video.
posted by Witty at 11:23 AM on June 21, 2006

um, that's page 8 ... and they're in alphabetical order

So it is.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:10 PM on June 21, 2006

By the way, pitchfork critics, this belated father's day card is for you.
posted by jonson at 12:33 PM on June 21, 2006

Oh, mercies. I'm buying some Steel Reserve 211 and rocking out to these gems all night.
posted by ELF Radio at 1:22 PM on June 21, 2006

Uh, I tend to like Bjork, but that video was awful. Can anyone explain to me what makes it "awesome?"
posted by arcticwoman at 2:17 PM on June 21, 2006

David Brent. lolz
posted by dopamine at 2:18 PM on June 21, 2006

David HASSELHOFF. ::cries::
posted by jenovus at 2:43 PM on June 21, 2006

"Can anyone explain to me what makes it 'awesome?'"

The cat. I didn't think it was possible for Bjork to not look incredibly attractive to me. I learned otherwise. But I think that if her fondest dreams could be realized, they would include dancing with a giant cat like that on a daily basis.

I am enormously ambivalent about the Pat Benetar video. (Which I definitely hadn't seen in the intervening 24 years.) I was impressed with the (sorta) feminist message of it (until the boobie shaking began). I was very impressed with Benetar's acting. I was impressed with the amount of sexual sleaziness. On the other hand, there was a lot of cheesiness, Benetar's makeup actually frightened me and probably gave nightmares to small children, and the choreographed dancing—though so very 1980—inspired in me a deep hatred. So, ambivalence.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:44 PM on June 21, 2006

Only after skipping right to "R" to see if they had Radiohead's "Just" did I bother to look at the rest of the list. I would have loved to see Genesis' "Land of Confusion" or Pearl Jam's "Do The Evolution."
posted by eunoia at 3:35 PM on June 21, 2006

That Boards of Canada video is great...not so much the surfing part (and you can surf in Canada, thank you very much), but the footage of that guy jumping out of the balloon. I don't have a fear of heights or anything, but that shot scares the shit out of me.
posted by you just lost the game at 3:54 PM on June 21, 2006

Crushworthy? I don't know why but that word just makes me hate Matthew Solarski, for being a hipster wanker. Isn't that what pitchforkmedia is all about? Hipster wankers wanking to their own hipness? Crushing on their own genitals into a din of self-refrential blindness.

delmoi, I've met that dude, and your comment totally made my day. You have no idea.
posted by kyleg at 3:59 PM on June 21, 2006

I'm saddened to see no mention of Basement Jaxx - Romeo.
posted by a. at 4:52 PM on June 21, 2006

Toni Basil co-directed "Once In A Lifetime"?

That is so badass. And it explains so much.
posted by padraigin at 5:47 PM on June 21, 2006

Hmm, the ELO "All Over The World" clip isn't really a music video -- it's footage from Xanadu, not even edited (at least in the first half of the video, which is all I watched). That's how that song was used in the movie. Scary, huh?
posted by litlnemo at 7:35 PM on June 21, 2006

Thanks for this. The music promo is a pretty cool, if vacuous, form. And it serves as an incubator for a lot of directors who go on to "bigger, better' (Brett Ratner, anyone? Anyone?). Bob Giraldi, (Lionel Richie) for e.g., became a big ticket commercials director in the '80s-90s (He did some B-Ball flick last year, I think.)

But there were only 2, maybe 3 Spike Jonze clips cited. Huh? Still, I was heartened to see two Kuntz & MacGuire clips in there. (Sadly, they no longer work together). And Floria's vid for Sigur Ros is outstanding. Her cinematographer, Chris Soos, and her editor, Michelle Czukar certainly deserve a lot of the credit, though.
posted by hobocode at 6:38 PM on June 22, 2006

That Boards of Canada video is great...not so much the surfing part (and you can surf in Canada, thank you very much), but the footage of that guy jumping out of the balloon.

more on it.
posted by carsonb at 7:17 AM on June 26, 2006