The Music Video 125 Project: the whole shebang, because I surrender

[slipjig3]

A while back, in a typical fit of boredom I assembled a list (not for the first time) of my choices for the 125 greatest music videos ever created, with the intention of talking about them in detail online, one at a time. Thus followed a long period of brainstorming, shuffling around a few hundred index cards, transferring data to a spreadsheet, researching dates and directors, hunting down the videos in question (damned hard at times), uploading them to Vimeo when Vimeo didn't have them and then getting yelled at by Vimeo for doing that, etc. In the end it was finally time to do the analysis I had been preparing in my head all this time.

And then the write-ups never happened. Part of that was attention-span failure, but the main problem was that although there were clips I very much wanted to talk about, all too many boiled down to a shrug and a curt, "This is awesome, you should totes check it out." I got about a dozen or so screeds written up, hit one title that I really had nothing to say about, and once several months of dithering had passed and I began rethinking my choices and finding items that I hadn't seen prior to my initial list that I desperately wanted to include, the game was pretty much toast. Le sigh.

But I still have that list, and since the thought of all that work going down the tubes makes me cry almost as hard as last night's screening of Inside Out, here is the complete list in order, with links to the videos in question. Please share your agreements, your disagreements, your comments, your omissions—in short, please, somebody say something. I know it violates the cardinal rule that bloggers maintain the illusion that we're not attention-grubbing, but goddammit, this was several weeks of my life we're talking about here. (In particular, if you're wondering why I included something, please feel free to ask. There's probably half an essay about it still in my head.)

[EDIT: Soooo a bunch of the videos listed here are ones I'd uploaded to Vimeo myself, which some of the copyright holders weren't especially happy with. Long story short, they shut down my account, which means a lot of these links are now broken. Phooey. I trust your collective Google-fu, however, to find what's missing.]

The 125 Greatest Music Videos: One Bored Guy's Unsolicited Opinion

* = not safe for work

1) "Bachelorette," Björk (dir. Michel Gondry, 1997)

2) "California," Wax (dir. Spike Jonze, 1995)

3) "Sugar Water," Cibo Matto (dir. Michel Gondry, 1996)

4) "Trouble," Coldplay (dir. Tim Hope, 2001)

5) "Close to the Edit," Art of Noise (dir. Zbigniew Rybczynski, 1984)

6) "Losing My Religion," R.E.M. (dir. Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, 1991)

7) "Dear God," XTC (dir. Nick Brandt, 1986)

8) "Street Spirit," Radiohead (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 1996)

9) "Bastards of Young," The Replacements (dir. The Replacements, 1986)

10) "Glósóli," Sigur Rós (dir. Arni & Kinski, 2005)

11) "Subterranean Homesick Blues," Bob Dylan (dir. D.A. Pennebaker, 1967)

12) "Rabbit in Your Headlights," U.N.K.L.E. feat. Thom Yorke (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 1998)

13) "Hurt," Johnny Cash (dir. Mark Romanek, 2003)

14) "Lucas With the Lid Off," Lucas (dir. Michel Gondry, 1994)

15) "Jeremy," Pearl Jam (dir. Mark Pellington, 1992)

16) "My Culture," 1 Giant Leap feat. Maxi Jazz & Robbie Williams (dir. Tim Hope, 2002)

17) "Islands," The Xx (dir. Saam Farahmand, 2010)

18) "El Scorcho," Weezer (dir. Mark Romanek, 1996)

19) "The Scientist," Coldplay (dir. Jamie Thraves, 2003)

20) "Let Forever Be," Chemical Brothers (dir. Michel Gondry, 1999)

21) "Virtual Insanity," Jamiroquai (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 1996)

22) "Just," Radiohead (dir. Jamie Thraves, 1995)

23) "Long Way Down (Look What the Cat Drug In)," Michael Penn (dir. The Brothers Quay, 1993)

24) "Come Into My World," Kylie Minogue (dir. Michel Gondry, 2002)

25) "Push It," Garbage (dir. Andrea Giaccobbe, 1998)  *

26) "Ava Adore," Smashing Pumpkins (dir. Dom & Nic, 1998)  *

27) "Coffee & TV," Blur (dir. Hammer & Tongs, 1999)

28) "Sledgehammer," Peter Gabriel (dir. Stephen R. Johnson, 1986)

29) "New York Is Killing Me," Gil Scott-Heron (dir. Chris Cunningham, 2010)

30) "Closer," Nine Inch Nails (dir. Mark Romanek, 1994)  *

31) "Protection," Massive Attack (dir. Michel Gondry, 1994)

32) "Sabotage," The Beastie Boys (dir. Spike Jonze, 1994)

33) "Stinkfist," Tool (dir. Adam Jones, 1996)

34) "Fell in Love With a Girl," The White Stripes (dir. Michel Gondry, 2002)

35) "Cloudbusting," Kate Bush (dir. Julian Doyle, 1985)

36) "Hell Bent," Kenna (dir. Mark Osborne, 2003)

37) "Road to Nowhere," Talking Heads (dir. Stephen R. Johnson, 1985)

38) "Kiko and the Lavender Moon," Los Lobos (dir. Ondrej Rudavsky, 1993)

39) "My Country," tUnE-yArDs (dir. Mimi Cave, 2012)

40) "Pretty Good Year," Tori Amos (dir. Cindy Palmano and Sam Riley, 1992)

41) "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," U2 (dir. Barry Devlin, 1987)

42) "Only You," Portishead (dir. Chris Cunningham, 1998)

43) "Thursday's Child," David Bowie (dir. Walter Stern, 1999)

44) "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" Gnarls Barkley (dir. Chris Milk, 2008)

45) "Ana Ng," They Might Be Giants (dir. Adam Bernstein, 1989)

46) "Mr. Krinkle," Primus (dir. Mark Kohr, 1993)  *

47) "Easy Way Out," Gotye (dir. Darcy Prendergast, 2012)

48) "Imitation of Life," R.E.M. (dir. Garth Jennings, 2001)

49) "Burning Down the House," Talking Heads (dir. David Byrne, 1983)

50) "Lessons Learned," Matt & Kim (dir. Otto Arsenault & Taylor Cohen, 2009)  *

51) "Karmacoma," Massive Attack (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 1995)

52) "From Your Mouth," God Lives Underwater (dir. Roman Coppola, 1994)

53) "Cry," Godley & Crème (dir. Godley & Crème, 1985)

54) "Freedom '90," George Michael (dir. David Fincher, 1990)

55) "Drop," The Pharcyde (dir. Spike Jonze, 1995)

56) "This Too Shall Pass," OK Go (dir. James Frost, 2010)

57) "Missionary Man," The Eurythmics (dir. Willy Smax, 1986)

58) "Around the World," Daft Punk (dir. Michel Gondry, 1997)

59) "Afrika Shox," Leftfield & Afrika Bambaataa (dir. Chris Cunningham, 1999)

60) "Praise You," Fatboy Slim (dir. Torrence Community Dance Group, 1998)

61) "Twist in My Sobriety," Tanita Tikaram (dir. Gerard de Thame, 1988)

62) "Weapon of Choice," Fatboy Slim (dir. Spike Jonze, 2001)

63) "Pagan Poetry," Björk (dir. Nick Knight, 2001)  *

64) "First Day of My Life," Bright Eyes (dir. John Cameron Mitchell, 2005)

65) "Nothing Compares 2 U," Sinead O'Connor (dir. John Maybury, 1990)

66) "March of the Pigs," Nine Inch Nails (dir. Peter Christopherson, 1994)

67) "Pumping on Your Stereo," Supergrass (dir. Hammer & Tongs, 1999)

68) "The Box," Orbital (dir. Luke Losey, 1996)

69) "Mad World," Gary Jules (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)

70) "Airhead," Thomas Dolby (dir. Thomas Dolby & Drew Takahashi, 1988)

71) "Exhibit 13," Blue Man Group (dir. Blue Man Group and Kevin Frech, 2002)

72) "Want It Back," Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra (dir. Jim Batt, 2011)  *

73) "Ride," The Vines (dir. Michel and Olivier Gondry, 2004)

74) "Smack My Bitch Up," Prodigy (dir. Jonas Åkerlund, 1997)  *

75) "In Bloom," Nirvana (dir. Kevin Kerslake, 1991)

76) "Chiquitita," Sinead O'Connor (dir. Sophie Muller, 2003)

77) "The Perfect Drug," Nine Inch Nails (dir. Mark Romanek, 1997)

78) "I'm Afraid of Americans," David Bowie feat. Trent Reznor (dir. Dom & Nic, 1997)

79) "Oxford Comma," Vampire Weekend (dir. Richard Ayoade, 2008)

80) "On," Aphex Twin (dir. Jarvis Cocker, 1993)

81) "Oh Father," Madonna (dir. David Fincher, 1989)

82) "Twin Flames," Klaxons (dir. Saam Farahmand, 2010)  *

83) "Head On," The Pixies (dir. Scott Litt, 1991)

84) "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore," Elton John (dir. David LaChapelle, 2001)

85) "Low Rising," The Swell Season (dir. Sam Beam, 2009)

86) "Leave Me Alone," Michael Jackson (dir. Jim Blashfield and Paul Denier, 1989)

87) "Who We Be," DMX (dir. Joseph Kahn, 2001)

88) "Can't Stop," Red Hot Chili Peppers (dir. Mark Romanek, 2003)

89) "Heart Shaped Box," Nirvana (dir. Anton Corbijn, 1993)

90) "Believe," Chemical Brothers (dir. Dom & Nic, 2005)

91) "Teardrop," Massive Attack (dir. Walter Stern, 1998)

92) "Declare Independence," Björk (dir. Michel Gondry, 2007)

93) "Pressure," Billy Joel (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1982)

94) "Freak on a Leash," Korn (dir. Todd McFarlane, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 1999)

95) "Boys of Summer," Don Henley (dir. Jean-Baptiste Mondino, 1984)

96) "Rockit," Herbie Hancock (dir. Godley & Crème, 1983)

97) "Hush," Kula Shaker (dir. Zowie Broach, 1997)

98) "Le Vent Nous Portera," Noir Désir (dir. Alexandre and Jacques Veneruso Courtes, 2002)

99) "Romantic Death," The Sun (dir. Alex Nam, 2005)  *

100) "Caught a Lite Sneeze," Tori Amos (dir. Mike Lipscombe, 1996)

101) "Yonkers," Tyler, the Creator (dir. Wolf Haley, 2011)

102) "Right Here, Right Now," Fatboy Slim (dir. Hammer & Tongs, 1999)

103) "Stupid Girl," Garbage (dir. Samuel Bayer, 1996)

104) "Rock DJ," Robbie Williams (dir. Vaughn Arnell, 2000)  *

105) "Atlas," Battles (dir. Timothy Saccenti, 2007)

106) "Knights of Cydonia," Muse (dir. Joseph Kahn, 2006)

107) "Take Me Out," Franz Ferdinand (dir. Jonas Odell, 2004)

108) "Addicted to Love," Robert Palmer (dir. Terence Donovan, 1986)

109) "Revolution 909," Daft Punk (dir. Roman Coppola, 1998)

110) "Star Guitar," Chemical Brothers (dir. Michel Gondry, 2002)

111) "Smooth Criminal," Michael Jackson (dir. Colin Chilvers, 1987)

112) "Never Is a Promise," Fiona Apple (dir. Stephane Sednaoui, 1996)

113) "Toe Jam," The BPA feat. Dizzee Rascal and David Byrne (dir. Keith Schofield, 2008)  *

114) "Monkey Drummer (Mt. Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount)," Aphex Twin (dir. Chris Cunningham, 2001)

115) "Valtari," Sigur Rós (dir. Christian Larson, 2012)  *

116) "Sacrilege," Yeah Yeah Yeahs (dir. Megaforce, 2013)  *

117) "Bad Day," R.E.M. (dir. Tim Hope, 2003)

118) "Cell Phone's Dead," Beck (dir. Michel Gondry, 2006)

119) "You Gonna Want Me," Tiga (dir. Olivier Gondry, 2005)

120) "Free as a Bird," The Beatles (dir. Joe Pytka, 1995)

121) "High and Dry," Radiohead (dir. Paul Cunningham, 1995)

122) "Since I Left You," The Avalanches (dir. Rob Leggat and Leigh Marling, 2000)

123) "Remind Me," Royksopp (dir. Ludovic Houplan & Hervé de Crécy, 2002)

124) "Least Complicated," Indigo Girls (dir. Mark Fenske, 1994)

125) "Flat Beat," Mr. Oizo (dir. Quentin Dupieux, 2000)

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

This is going to take a while for me to wade through. But at least I do see all of the videos I'd have definitely included on this list. Some way further down than I would have listed them, though.

[ckd]

I probably would have had to put "Take On Me" on there somewhere; even though it did what it did so definitively that it hasn't been riffed off of nearly as much as, say, "Addicted To Love" it's still a milestone.

Lots of good ones on that list, though, and I'll probably say more about several of them when I have more time.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Coolness. Which ones, out of curiosity?

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think "Take on Me" was on the shortlist, but there was something about it that never sat right with me. (Possibly the waitress, who manages to overact without saying a word.) Agreed that it's a milestone, however.

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

I'd have put "Weapon of Choice" in my own top 10, to start. "Virtual Insanity" and "Jeremy" would have been higher up than you placed them, as well.

This is acknowledging that the only song (let alone video) I even know from your Top 10 is "Losing My Religion".

One song I don't see that I would absolutely have added is "Stan" by Eminem.

[ckd]

It'd be interesting to slice and dice the list by year, artist, and director. You have a whole lot of Michel Gondry (exactly 10% of your list, if we give him half credit for #73 :-) and another video and a half by Olivier. I like MG's work well enough, but that seems excessive to me.

Meanwhile, only one for Russell Mulcahy and five for Spike Jonze (he should get credit for #60 as well)? Actually, 5 seems about right for SJ to me, though I would probably add in one of his Weezer videos (either "Buddy Holly" or "Undone — The Sweater Song") and Mathew Cullen's video for their "Pork and Beans". (Even though Barenaked Ladies did it first with "Sound of Your Voice", I'd put "Pinch Me" in ahead of SoYV.)

Russell Mulcahy, OTOH...Wikipedia lists 53 for him so only one entry is rather underrepresenting his work; while "Pressure" is one of his best there is no way, NO WAY AT ALL, that "Total Eclipse of the Heart" should be left off this list. I'd also put one of his Duran Durans (probably "Wild Boys" rather than "Hungry Like The Wolf"/"Rio"/"Save a Prayer", though, and certainly not "The Reflex"), and maybe one of the Queen videos (probably "A Kind of Magic"; "Princes of the Universe" loses out because it's so much of a homage to his own movie). Supertramp's "It's Raining Again" is okay but not stellar, so I don't think it'd make my list.

"Sugar Water" does Semisonic's "Closing Time" one better in the split-video genre, so as much as I like the latter I'd agree with your choice here.

For U2, I'd put "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" well below "Walk On" (US/Liz Friedlander version), "One" (Anton Corbijn version), or "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" (US/Joseph Kahn version). I'm with you on the three R.E.M. choices, though.

I'd move "Remind Me" up at least a few spots on my own list, but I'm a sucker for good information presentation. :-)

The list also needs at least one "Weird Al" Yankovic (most likely "White and Nerdy").

[ckd]

An interesting alternate list would be "meta-videos": videos that parody/reference not just one other video, but multiple videos or video genres.

Some examples:
"Don't Lose My Number", Phil Collins
"Just a Gigolo", David Lee Roth
"Thanks That Was Fun", Barenaked Ladies
"Would You Be Happier?", The Corrs
"1985", Bowling For Soup
"UHF", "Weird Al" Yankovic

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the magnificent reply! To address your points:

* I do have a rather serious Gondry fetish, which I'm prepared to defend. (In one of my write-ups, I even noticed the 10% thing). I'm a sucker for the specific sort of conceptual reality-bending that he dishes out, and am floored by his execution thereof. That said, I could have probably trimmed a few, notably "Star Guitar," which I tend to waffle on.

* Technically, "Praise You" is a .5 for Jonze; it was a co-direct with Roman Coppola. Talk about your whimsy overloads.

* Mea culpa on Mulcahy, who totally deserves more space than he got (at the very least "Wild Boys," which is a killer clip; disagreed, though, on "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which always struck me as silly). I think the real issue is my bias against early 80's videos, which for all intents and purposes WERE Russell Mulcahy. A lot of people call that period the Golden Age of Music Video, but I would put it solidly in the 90's, after MTV started including director's credits in their info flashes and put Marty Callner and his hair-metal hack brethren out of business. The early 80's stuff doesn't hold up for me as well, with a lot of excess and not a lot to back it up, it seems to me; even so, I gave it very short shrift, which is unfair and shortsighted.

* Huh, kind of weird that I didn't look at more U2, so you have a point. One more I'd add, and the other one I'd shortlisted, was "Where the Streets Have No Name."

* Yeah, shoulda had Al, and yep, that one.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I like this idea! Add "Heart and Soul" by the Monkees, "The Wrong Heartbeat" by Richard Thompson, and the pair of videos whose titles I can't recall by the Roots and Tesla, skewering hip-hop and alt-rock video cliches, respectively (Tesla was first, and the Roots used it for inspiration).

[ourika.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to spending a free Saturday afternoon browsing through these. Or, more realistically, browsing through bits and pieces of these. There's enough here that I haven't heard or or seen that I don't have an opinion on the list, yet.

[rubian77.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yet another list of yours containing a bunch of songs I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF. (And plenty that I have, too -- OMG, Mr. Krinkle!) Woohoo!!

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

"Wild Boys" is a great video for a song that makes me cringe.

Ditto "Dear God". Eurgh.

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

So, lotta Icelandic Waif genre on here - Björk, Sigur Ros, Royksopp. Do they naturally have better videos? I'd have put "What Else Is There?" in the mix, but that's because it's a favorite video of mine and I'm biased.

Massive Attack has the best videos! J brought a video compilation of theirs as his dowry and I like to put it on as background color sometimes.

A few songs here that have great videos but are anathema to me, as mentioned above. And I have a slightly darker personal taste in videos, of course - what, so no "Rubber Johnny" by Aphex Twin (DO NOT WATCH THAT IN THE DARK ALONE, ADAM)? No "The Spaces In Between" by How To Destroy Angels? EVERYTHING IS A TRAVESTY BECAUSE IT DOES NOT CONFORM TO MY EXACT TASTES, WHAARGARBL

I think that might be my 2c. Now I will hook up a friend who is in the hospital with this link and let his opinion gland get some exercise.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Coolness! A lot of these I only know about because of someone else's top-whatever list along the way.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Squee! Yeah, a lot of these I'd never have given a listen to if they didn't have wonderful videos attached. (And to be frank, there's plenty of songs I still wouldn't listen to if it weren't for the video. Kylie Minogue's Come Into My World" by itself it ignorable twaddle; that plus Michel Gondry is holy gods amazing.)

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

* Dunno if it's a country-wide Icelandic video thing. Sigur Ros has their own bleak-landscape-and-slomo aesthetic going on, which serves them well. Björk is both famous and idiosyncratic enough to be able to work with great directors: Jonze, Cunningham, all the Gondry ever (I believe she was one of the first non-French artists to use him). No clue about Royksopp. Weirdly enough, this list predates my Icelandic music fetish by a few years. (Will look up "What Else Is There?" once I'm home.)

* So very so on Massive Attack. I remember you introducing me to the "Inertia Creeps" clip, which ended up on the shortlist. (Can you call it a shortlist when there's 200 things on it?)

* Darker tastes? You? I'm shocked, I say. Shocked to the core. One thing you bring up, however, is the Chris Cunningham Problem: he's bloody fucking brilliant, one of the best, but I keep having to play the game of Is This a Music Video or Not ever since he took to calling his stuff "video installations." "Monkey Drummer" is one of those, but because it's such a self-contained little thing and so directly in service of the music that I felt it passed as a music video. "Rubber Johnny," though (yes, I've seen it, in as broad daylight as I could engineer, and yeah, it's incredible), feels much more like a film short, with a broader narrative and the music in service of the visuals and not the other way around. I dunno, it's all arbitrary in the end, and if the wind had been blowing from a different direction that day I might have given it consideration, and if I had it'd be on there. (Haven't seen "The Spaces in Between." Do I need a warning?)

* Bring it on! My pedantry needs to feed.

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

I... don't know if you need a warning for "Spaces". It's not gross or anything? But I'm obviously a rotten judge of what's going to upset other people, given that a single movie quote managed to genuinely trouble both J1 and J2.

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Well, the "Rubber Johnny" caution was a good call; even though I've watched it, it took some amount of loin-girding going in. (Me and my delicate constitution, don'cha know.) And you're not the sort to do the whole "Oh, you'll be fiiiine. It's a FUNNY zombie movie!" thing, so I trust you on this one.

Don't tell me the quote. My curiosity muscles are straining at this one, but I like to think I've finally learned better. (I wouldn't mind knowing the movie in question, though.)

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

It's called The Poughkeepsie Tapes.

And yeah, given that the single line bothered *Jason*, you needn't ask. :)

[slipjig.livejournal.com]

Say no more. The Poughkeepsie Tapes said it all. Thanks!