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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 1, 2009 14:47:57 GMT -5
38. The Police—“Every Breath You Take” www.youtube.com/watch?v=doFKkuzoawMAlbum: Synchronicity Label: A&M Records Directors: Godley & Crème I know I’ve ragged on performance videos as I’ve been writing this list. The thing is, sometimes a band just playing their instruments can be boring; but it doesn’t have to be. It depends on whether or not they’re a good band and how they’re shot. A good example of this would be a previous video on the list, Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” Or well, this one. The Police and some violinists play in a dark, ominous room that appears to not have any walls. The only light comes from a giant window that is also being cleaned. That’s all that happens, but it’s shot in such a beautiful way that the whole clip is just mesmerizing, thanks in large part to the directors Godley & Crème. Their editing tricks and black and white cinematography create a video that you can’t take your eyes off of and leaves the viewers wondering just where is this place and how did The Police get there. The amazing thing about the video is how it has an ominous and dark feel to it that matches the tone of the song, yet at the same time, it’s so beautiful that it actually caused viewers to miss the song’s meaning. The song was written during the collapse of Sting's marriage to Frances Tomelty, and the lyrics are the words of a sinister, controlling character, who is watching "every breath you take / every move you make." Sting has said about the song, “I woke up in the middle of the night with that line in my head, sat down at the piano and had written it in half an hour. The tune itself is generic, an aggregate of hundreds of others, but the words are interesting. It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance and control.” However, the video looks so good and melancholy that one can’t help but to see Sting as a man singing to his loved one. Not even Sting’s angry look in the video could make people see it’s dark meaning. Nevertheless, the video just shows that simple performance videos can be classics. All you need is a great band, like The Police, and some great directors, like Godley & Crème.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 1, 2009 15:13:13 GMT -5
37. Aerosmith—“Janie’s Got A Gun” www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVKdLQnfSJsAlbum: Pump Label: Geffen Records Director: David Fincher There are some filmmakers who can seemingly do no wrong. Guys like Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Alfred Hitchcock etc. Directors who’ve had a few misses but the bulk of their work is top notch. Their filmography is just basically a list of some of the best movies ever made. Today, there is one director working who is poised to be like these guys: David Fincher. Sure, his first film, “Alien 3,” was bad; but look at the films he made afterwards: “Se7en,” “The Game,” “Fight Club,” “Panic Room,” “Zodiac,” and “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.” All great films. If Fincher can consistently keep up the good work he’ll be among that high pedigree of directors I mention earlier. But, what does all this have to do with this Aerosmith video. Well, before he was a film director, Fincher made music videos; and this was one of his. And, much like “Fight Club” and “Se7en,” it shows how good of a director he is. The pitch for “Janie’s Got A Gun” must have read something like a Lifetime movie of the week: father rapes daughter, mother finds out, daughter shoots father in the head. However, in Fincher's hands, though, the noirish clip for "Janie's Got A Gun" became a groundbreaking video at the time, featuring gruesome, realistic scenes that would be utilized in subsequent videos of the 1990s. The video is a gorgeous amalgam of bopping police lights and dramatic overheads, inviting comparisons to “Se7en,” and made even more explicit the abovementioned references to incest than the song does (early in the video, the actor playing the father is shown exiting his daughter's room, and cuts to a shot of the girl crying). A moving corpse and a series of out-of-focus close-ups suggest Janie's got more than a gun; camp goddess Leslie Anne Warren keeps things together as shocked mother hen and possible accomplice. Extra points for Steve Tyler keeping his clothes on. But, it’s Fincher’s capable hands that makes the video spectacular.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 1, 2009 15:32:18 GMT -5
36. Jamiroquai—“Virtual Insanity”
Album: Traveling Without Moving Label: Sony Soho Square Director: Jonathan Glazer
There are basically three types of videos: ones with plot and story, like a short film; ones without plot but still have a deep meaning to it; and ones without any. Now, the short films can be entertaining. And, the ones with meaning and symbolism can be works of art. But, it’s usually the ones without a story or meaning that are the most fun and pleasing to look at. Sometimes you’ve just got to decide, “The video for this song is just going to make me look cool, OK? We’ll throw in some weird cockroaches and bleeding couches to create the illusion of meaning, but mostly the point is to jack my awesome-meter up through the roof.” Mission accomplished, Jay Kay. With a simple parlor trick, Jonathan Glazer improved Jay Kay’s already funky-smooth dance moves tenfold while sparking countless adolescent arguments over exactly how it was done. In case you’re wondering (and I know that you are), the floor isn’t moving but rather the wall is with the camera, the couches were bolted to the wall and released at certain parts, and the only digital manipulations were the crow and the cockroaches. And, if you didn’t care to know, then sorry; but that’s cool too. This video just shows that a cool special effect and one charismatic lead singer is enough to create a video just as entertaining as “Thriller” or “Losing My Religion.” And, it definitely tops my list of “Man, I’d Love to Try That Sometime!” music videos.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 1, 2009 15:34:32 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 35-31. Here are the hints:
Hot weather guys, pilots in training, cold as ice, this video shares the same name as a previous one, and what a restraining order says.
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Post by The Maxx on Aug 2, 2009 10:23:36 GMT -5
No idea on any of those. I will hazard a guess that U2's "One" may be in there.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 15:20:50 GMT -5
Time to make the donuts. No wait, it's countdown time. You'll have to go get your own donuts. Anyway, here's number 35:
35. Don Henley—“The Boys Of Summer”
Album: Building The Perfect Beast Label: Geffen Records Director: Jean-Baptiste Mondino
You wouldn’t think that one of The Eagles would make a French New Wave-influenced music video, but it did happen. Don Henley hired Jean-Baptiste Mondino to director the video for his melancholy nostalgia song “The Boys Of Summer,” and he obviously chose the cinema of his homeland for inspiration. Shot in black-and-white, it shows the main character of the song at three different stages of life: as a young boy, a young adult, and a middle-aged yuppie, in each case reminiscing about the past relationship. This is shown during the line "A little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back" at which point, each of the three people look back in turn. The young boy in the video (played by a seven year old Josh Paul) resembles Henley to the extent that he also is a left-handed drummer. The cutaways of the "boys" jumping in the air appear to have been influenced by the 1938 film “Olympia.” Interspersed with these scenes are segments of Henley miming the words of the song while driving in a convertible. There are also shots of a teenage girl in her room and a woman sitting by the pool. And, pretty much every scene has a young couple running around on a beach, which is obviously the memory the main character is reminiscing about. At its conclusion, the video uses the post-modern conceit of exposing its own workings, as with a wry expression Henley drives the car away from a rear projection screen. In the end, Mondino has created a hauntingly beautiful video that fully encapsulates the theme of Henley’s song: people growing old and feeling nostalgic for a time in their lives that seemed innocent.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 15:39:44 GMT -5
34. Foo Fighters—“Learn To Fly” www.youtube.com/watch?v=BieVgyrfglQAlbum: There Is Nothing Left To Lose Label: Roswell/RCA Records Director: Jesse Peretz Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl makes for an unlikely master of disguise in this clip for the band's hit "Learn To Fly." Tenacious D smuggles what looks like heroin (in an Entertainment Weekly interview, Grohl called it "erotic world-domination sleeping powder or something") onto a domestic flight via the airplane's kitchen coffeepot (while a Muzac version of “Everlong” is playing”). Each member of the band takes on multiple roles. Grohl appears as himself, the pilot, a flamboyant flight attendant, a teenage girl who is a big fan of the band (Alanis Morissette anyone?), one of the overweight ladies, and an FBI agent. Taylor Hawkins plays himself, a female flight attendant, one of the co-pilots of the plane, and one of the overweight ladies. And, Nate Mendal portrays himself, one of the co-pilots of the plane, a nerd-like man sitting between the two obese women portrayed by Grohl and Hawkins, a flight attendant who accidentally mixes the drugs with the coffee, and a baby. When the drugs kick in, so do the libidos. Like the good boys that they are, the Foo Fighters skip the caffeine and their sobriety (well, near sobriety; they chose alcohol instead of coffee) positions them as the clip's unlikely heroes. All in all, this is just one funny music video. Dave Grohl is let loose, and we see a side of him that we never would have thought we would see from the drummer of Nirvana. Though, it’s also quite disturbing, what with Grohl's facial ticks, him as a pilot flirting with himself as a flight attendant, and Taylor Hawkins's sexy stewardess (What!?). Nevertheless, this ode to self-love is easily the funniest music video ever made. Well, outside of anything Weird Al has done. Seriously, I can’t be the only one who thinks Taylor Hawkins makes one hot woman!
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 15:55:01 GMT -5
33. Madonna—“Frozen”
Album: Ray Of Light Label: Maverick, Warner Bros. Records Director: Chris Cunningham
She definitely doesn’t look like the Material Girl in this video. As a witch lost in an unidentified desert landscape, Madonna turns into a scary-as-shit Doberman and a flock of crows in a matter of minutes. She also gets to float in the air, dance with herself in triplicate, and summon a cosmic storm with the twirl of her Henna-covered hand. On the surface, it just looks like time capsule for one of Madonna’s many phases (this one is her “Yoga/Eastern Philosophy” period), but there is a little more to it. For one, it just looks cool. And, it’s dark tone makes the viewer feel, well, frozen. The overriding theme of “Frozen” is isolation, but, as directed by Chris Cunningham (you may remember him as the director of Aphex Twin's creepy "Come To Daddy"), the effect is not unlike stepping into the ravishing, apocalyptic hellfire of Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" and "The Ground Beneath Her Feet."
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 16:30:01 GMT -5
32. U2—“One” www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnXQS6oetQkAlbum: Achtung Baby Label: Island Records Director: Anton Corbijn There are actually three versions of this video. The one most people know, directed by Philip Joanou, who also director the band’s movie “Rattle And Hum,” shows concert footage of the band intercut with Bono in a bar smoking a cheroot and drinking. Another one, directed by Mark Pellington, shows buffaloes running in slow motion and shots of flowers interspersed with numerous black title cards featuring the word "one" in white lettering, depicted in numerous languages. But, the best version is this one. Directed by Anton Corbijn, it depicts the band playing in Berlin, driving around in Trabant cars, and dressed in drag. There are also shots of an old man, Bono’s father. So, what makes this best version? Well, like how their other video on this list, “Where The Streets Have No Name,” fully captured the band at the height of their 1980s popularity, this one fully captures the band trying to transition from that period. When asked what the sound of their new record, which would be Achtung Baby, would be, the band famously said, “It’s the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree.” However, it took them a long while to come up with that sound. It got so bad that U2 was afraid that it might be the end of the band; they felt creatively spent. However, one improvised session produced “One,” which saved the band. Ironically, the song is about splitting up; it speaks about how everyone has to share this planet, but no one is the same. Basically, it says that we got to be one planet because we got no choice. And, you can see that in the video. All the band members look like they would be somewhere else. But, they are there because they have no choice. The video also shows the frustration of the band trying to come up with a sound different from what made them popular. In the end, the video is just a beautiful clip that has led to some misinterpretations about the song: the most popular misinterpretation is that the song is about everyone coming together in peace, love, and harmony; while some say that the song is about a gay man confessing to his father that he has HIV because the video shows Bono’s father and the band in drag. Nevertheless, the video fully captures U2 as they were shedding their Joshua Tree sound. Hell, the only way it could have done a better job is if it actually showed U2 chopping down a Joshua tree.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 16:48:06 GMT -5
31. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers—“Don’t Come Around Here No More” www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5H0wUo37RYAlbum: Southern Accents Label: MCA Director: Jeff Stein Only in a Tom Petty video can Alice trip her way through Wonderland. Seriously, this video looks like Alice In Wonderland on LSD. Or…well…just Alice In Wonderland. No matter which way you cut it, that is one trippy tale. Anyway, in the video, a naïve Alice downs some psychedelic shrooms courtesy of a hookah-smoking caterpillar, played by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics (who also co-wrote the song; it was based on a night he spent with Stevie Nicks after she broke up with Joe Walsh). As the crazed Mad Hatter, Petty fucks with her high, with oversized sunglasses, a baby that turns into a pig, chicks in weird outfits and hairdos playing cellos with flamingos, and the rest of the Heartbreakers stealing her food and eating coffee cups. The clip itself hasn't aged too well, but its stunning art direction was remarkably ahead of its time. Here, it's a virtual threat to Alice's confused sense of perspective. When the munchies kick in, Alice herself is downright edible.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 2, 2009 16:51:41 GMT -5
Tomorrow, numbers 30-26. Here are the hints:
A 1950s rocker, a command from a police officer, almost 100 troubles, what you do with a car, and not open.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 3, 2009 12:13:27 GMT -5
Damn, I'm getting this one out of the way early. Here's number 30: 30. Weezer—“Buddy Holly” www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiIC5qcXeNUAlbum: Weezer (The Blue Album) Label: DGC Director: Spike Jonze Who better than the 70s to do the 50s? The 90s, of course. Utilizing the speed dial of David Geffen, Weezer got the permission of the whole Happy Days gang, including a cameo from Al Molinaro (who does a shout-out to his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin), to impersonate a band playing on a song about a 1950s music star on show from the 1970s that was based in the 1950s in the 1990s. Damn, it’s like a Russian nested doll of nostalgia. Anyway, Spike Jonze shot Weezer performing on the original Arnold's Drive-In set and cut between images of the band and vintage "Happy Days" footage. The marriage of old-school and new-school footage is ultimately less remarkable than Jonze's suggestion that it's all about the Fonz. When Henry Winkler enters frame, he dances for the crowd; and Weezer is soon forgotten, so much so that it's as if they never existed. But in retrospect, the video fits the band perfectly: a bunch of geeky rock kids in love with an idealized time and sound that never quite existed except in their imagination. And, in the end, "Buddy Holly" becomes a riveting paean to nostalgia itself.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 3, 2009 12:27:32 GMT -5
29. Busta Rhymes—“Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See”
Album: When Disaster Strikes Label: J-Records Directors: Hype Williams and Busta Rhymes
Working with Hype Williams has become an obligatory rite of passage for up-and-coming hip-hop artists. Williams remains one of the most prolific and sought after music video directors. Why? Well, it’s not because of his innovations per se. If anything, his videos are all derivative of each other. It’s because he's earned the unconditional loyalty of the hip-hop community. Think of him as the black Mark Romanek. Though he's directed hundreds of clips for artists as varied as PM Dawn and Ja Rule, only a handful of these creations stand apart from the rest. Glossier than Nas's "Sweet Dreams" and more politically charged than Wu Tang Clang's "Can It Be All So Simple," Williams' clip for "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" succeeds mainly because they bear the unmistakable energy of Busta Rhymes. Co-directed by Rhymes himself, "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See" is a delirious evocation of African decadence that took its inspiration from the 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle “Coming to America” and Jean-Jacques Annaud's “Quest for Fire.” From a dark princess rising from an opulent pool to a group of body-painted primitives dancing by a bonfire, the video is set to the track's addictive tribal electronic beats and traces the strange and uncertain de-evolvement of African iconography. Though, the video does have its problems, i.e. the fish-eye lens. Williams has gratuitously abused the fish-eye lens throughout his short career that it’s annoying to see it here. Nevertheless, as exemplified here, Williams knows how to cut an image to a beat.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 3, 2009 12:45:17 GMT -5
28. Jay-Z—“99 Problems”
Album: The Black Album Label: Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam Director: Mark Romanek
There’s so much wound into such a brief space here (Jay-Z and Rick Rubin in a car being stopped by the police, dancers moving to the rhythm of the song, inmates in a Bronx prison, a rabbi praying, a funeral, an African-American motorcycle club, and Jay-Z getting shot just to name a few) that the video for “99 Problems” practically has to be cut down frame by frame to be analyzed. The most startling and memorable (the costumed dancer in the tunnel, the man holding the urn among the coffins) are further underscored by the jarring contrast between the jumpy, canted action shots and the smooth close-ups on people’s faces. The rest of the world might take umbrage at the New-York-is-all universality of human experience on display, but the only reason that Spike Lee-style NY-centricity fits at all is because it unquestionably suits Jay-Z. If Public Enemy was the ideal soundtrack for the colorful but angry “Do the Right Thing,” then Black Album-era Jay-Z is the music that could match “25th Hour”: dark, fuming, fearless, and held back only by its inability to single out a clear enemy from a crowd of people whose problems all seem too numerous to count. This is a clip that will stand out for years because of its frenetic energy and not so glamorous look that differs it from the hip hop videos of its era. There are no rappers pouring Chrystal over bitches and hos in this video. Well, there are bitches and hos; but you wouldn’t want to pour Chrystal over them.
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Post by Kermit The Hulk on Aug 3, 2009 13:04:50 GMT -5
27. R.E.M.—“Drive” www.dailymotion.com/video/xv43o_rem-drive_musicAlbum: Automatic For The People Label: Warner Bros. Records Director: Peter Care It’s hard to tell from this clip, but R.E.M. use to be a shy band. Just go look at a clip of their first televised performing on Late Night with David Letterman. They seem hesitant to talk to Dave when he comes to talk to them after they’ve played. You can’t blame them for their early shyness. This was band with a unique sound that was afraid that success would mainstream it. But, a funny thing happened. Their alternative sound proved to be popular. R.E.M. was able to find success on their own terms and without having to change or compromise their sound to achieve. As that happened, the band’s shyness went away, especially Michael Stipe’s. He seemed to relish the spotlight, which you can really see in “Drive.” Placing his absolute trust in the audience, Stipe allows hungry hands to carry his weight across a sea of people. Streams of light and water seemingly flow from outstretched hands and bopping heads. Peter Care's gorgeous black-and-white photography mirrors the song's mechanical eroticism. This is Zen and the Art of Moshing. And, it shows a band lovingly embracing the fame they’ve achieved rather than hide from it.
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