Τα 30 καλύτερα video clips σύμφωνα με το περιοδικό TIME
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Talking Heads, 'Once in a Lifetime' (1980)
The Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" video is so odd, so '80s, so David Byrne, you can't look away. Thirty years later, it's still an iconic video for a band that was never commercially successful or had huge radio hits. But when MTV debuted a year after its 1980 release, "Once in a Lifetime" became one of its most rotated and popular clips, giving many music fans their first look at Byrne's brilliant bizarreness. In the video, the singer dances around like a demented marionette, jerking his arms and crouching into a ball, then swimming through a fake blue sea. He's joined by a chorus of Byrnes in the background who mimic him (or is he mimicking them?). The video was later exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Michael Jackson, 'Thriller' (1984)
For all his star power, Michael Jackson never had much success on the silver screen. His one major movie role — as Scarecrow to Diana Ross's Dorothy in Sidney Lumet's The Wiz — was a critical and financial flop. But on that set, Jackson met impresario Quincy Jones, who would help produce the mega-hit albums Off the Wall and Thriller. What the King of Pop lacked in movie roles, he made up for by luring major talent (including Martin Scorsese) to direct and star in his videos. His first coup de Tinseltown was on the video for Thriller's title track. Director John Landis, fresh from An American Werewolf in London, invited collaborators Elmer Bernstein (who composed incidental music) and makeup artist Rick Baker to create a nearly 14-min.-long trip across horror genres. Add überghoul Vincent Price as narrator and a much imitated zombie line dance — not to mention a line of dialogue that was the understatement of the decade: "I'm not like other guys" — and no mere mortal could resist it.
Godley and Creme, 'Cry' (1985)
The entire medium of music video owes Kevin Godley and Lol Creme an enormous debt. Established musicians in their own right — they formed a double act after splitting from the band 10cc — they were also behind some of the greatest videos of all time. If this list had stretched to, say, 50 clips, we'd surely be writing about their genius for their work with the Police ("Every Breath You Take"), Duran Duran ("Girls on Film"), Herbie Hancock ("Rockit") and Frankie Goes to Hollywood ("Two Tribes"). But their most significant achievement might have been the self-directed video for their own track "Cry." Certainly the most simple premise on this list, it was a pioneering example of morphing, the technique behind (in this case) blending two faces. (Fast-forward a few years and director John Landis would go the same route, albeit in color, at the end of Michael Jackson's "Black or White.") And while some of the actors aren't exactly being subtle — hamming it up doesn't even begin to come close to describe what they're doing — beauty lies in the staggeringly seamless approach.
a-Ha, 'Take On Me' (1985)
By the time director Steve Barron took on Norwegian band a-Ha's hit "Take On Me," he'd already been responsible for helming the iconic "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson and "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. But this arguably represents his peak — especially when you bear in mind that he would go on to direct the feature-length Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Notable for using the combination of pencil-sketch animation and live action called rotoscoping (whereby real footage is traced over), "Take On Me" wasn't just groundbreaking but genuinely nerve-racking. The young woman reading a comic book in a café (who was actually lead singer Morten Harket's girlfriend at the time) literally gets dragged into a dangerous motorcycle race and becomes part of the story. More than 25 years on, it remains as thrilling as ever to watch. And the tune isn't shabby, if you're not too distracted by Harket's famous cheekbones to actually listen.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 'Don't Come Around Here No More' (1985)
"Let them eat cake." That must have been said in one of the production meetings for the making of Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" video. Perhaps it was first uttered by Jeff Stein — the prolific early-'80s music-video director who also helmed the Who biodoc The Kids Are Alright. Stein sets this song in a creepier-than-Carroll Wonderland, with Petty in an outsize mad hat. The cake in question is Alice herself, devoured at the end by Petty and friends after a menacing chase in a black-and-white-checkered room. Audiences ate it up. The single was a big hit, and the video is one of the most memorable from a decade that defined the form. There's also a lesson here for young women everywhere: if you meet the guy from the Eurythmics (Dave Stewart, who first wrote the song for Stevie Nicks but finished it with Petty) sitting on a mushroom, smoking a hookah and playing sitar, it's best not to eat what he offers.
Run-DMC, 'Walk This Way' (1986)
It's difficult to think of a more obvious metaphor for the divide between rock and hip-hop than the one in this video: literally a brick wall (one, by the way, that doesn't appear to be very stable). In 1986, Run-DMC was an Adidas-rocking rap group on its way up, Aerosmith a quickly fading rock band that had achieved its peak in the mid-to-late '70s (and whose members looked it — honestly, they still do). Originally recorded for 1975's Toys in the Attic album, the song "Walk This Way" had a fantastic, jagged guitar lick. A little more than a decade later, Run-DMC blindly sampled it, discovered where it came from and got in touch with Aerosmith. A genre-smashing video was born. The concept is straightforward: The two bands practice in adjacent studios. Their music is different, but their servitude to the power of the beat is the same. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler busts through that wall, and a new partnership is formed. What's it matter the type of music as long as it thrills the ears and compels the hips? Yes, it's literal, but everyone who watched this video got the message loud and clear.
Peter Gabriel, 'Sledgehammer' (1986)
Those horns kick in, and we're transported into breathtaking music-video territory. Stop-motion animation was the name of this new game, with Peter Gabriel allowing himself to lie under a sheet of glass for 16 hours while filming "Sledgehammer" one frame at a time. Director Stephen R. Johnson is clearly having the time of his life, matching up lyrics to images — Gabriel sings about "a bumper car bumping," and that's what happens to our hapless star. It's one of MTV's most important videos ever: not only did it win nine Video Music Awards in 1987 (a feat still unsurpassed); it's also the most played clip in the history of the channel. As for the people who provided the claymation, pixelation and stop-motion animation — they were called Aardman Animations. What became of them? They would go on to make a certain Oscar-winning series of shorts about Wallace and Gromit.
Madonna, 'Express Yourself' (1989)
Madonna has always been a keen student of pop-culture history, and her creative powers were probably at their peak in the late 1980s on the album Like a Prayer. But while the title track generated the most controversy, the multimillion-dollar video for "Express Yourself" generated the most praise. Shamelessly ripping off the 1920s Fritz Lang classic Metropolis (the epigraph of the clip — "Without the heart, there can be no understanding between the hand and the mind" — paraphrases a recurring mantra of the movie), a young director by the name of David Fincher expressed himself by harnessing all of Madge's signature leitmotifs (the blond hair! her outfits! naked men! a running metaphor to do with a cat!). The video is as powerful to watch as the star herself.
Sinéad O'Connor, 'Nothing Compares 2 U' (1990)
It's one of the simplest music-video concepts ever: a closeup of elfin Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor, sporting a crew cut and a black turtleneck, singing directly to the camera. It's also the most heartbreaking. Written by Prince, the song is a lover's lament. As such, the look on O'Connor's face pinballs between nostalgia, anger and sadness, a temporary schizophrenia familiar to anyone who has ever experienced a significant breakup. Near the end, when O'Connor sings, "All the flowers that you planted, mama/ in the backyard/ all died when you went away," two tears roll down her cheeks — the result, said O'Connor later, of her tempestuous relationship with her own mother. (When Prince sings the song, he replaces "mama" with "baby.") You're a robot if you don't follow suit. It's raw and intimate and unforgettable.
Nirvana, 'Heart-Shaped Box' (1993)
Nirvana's final studio album, In Utero, desperately wants not to be beautiful. Yet despite the dissonant chord squalls, the bipolar production and a song called "Rape Me," it can't break free of Kurt Cobain's gift for soaring, structured, pretty pop — and in this tension lies its genius. A similar friction buzzes in Anton Corbijn's clip for the record's lead single, "Heart-Shaped Box." Imagining a Grimms-on-LSD poppy field frequented by an emaciated man on a cross, a hulking angel and a little girl skipping around in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, it has the jagged contours and startled innocence of a wise child's nightmare. It's beautiful and it's terrible. And the video's most unnervingly gorgeous element is also its simplest: Cobain singing the third verse and chorus straight to the camera, his eyes beaming deep-blue orbs powerful enough to crack the lens.
Nine Inch Nails, 'Closer' (1994)
For Nine Inch Nails' menacing ode to finding God through S&M-tinged devotion, director Mark Romanek stages tableaux vivants from a horror movie, or perhaps a documentary about a forgotten wing of the Mütter Museum: its film stock aged and distressed, its palette thick with dust and spores. A disembodied heart pulsates on a chair; a pig's head whirls on a spike; Trent Reznor hangs from a chain in black leather. Skulls and roaches everywhere. Even the "Scene Missing" inserts (largely intended to conceal a comely minotaur's breasts, which are by far the least disturbing things about the video) add to the insinuation of latent terror and unthinkable perversion. David Fincher borrowed a remix of the song and the video's chamber-of-horrors air the following year for the opening credits of his film Seven, whose God-lovin' serial killer would have been right at home at the house of "Closer."
The Beastie Boys, 'Sabotage' (1994)
The mischievous humor and anarchic energy of Spike Jonze's videos were essential ingredients of 1990s MTV (and later of MTV's Jackass), and Jonze pulled off one of his most thrilling stunts for the punk-funk lark "Sabotage," a '70s goof that cast the Beastie Boys as roof-jumping, suspect-beating, mean-street-sprinting, mustache-rocking hero cops. It will not spoil the video's fun to note its impressive technical precision — the edits are perfectly syncopated to the song's ragged beats, and the doughnut-eating breakdown is sublime in its pacing. But regardless of execution, the concept is foolproof: the Beastie Boys stage the credit sequence for a Starsky & Hutch–like police show that never was — likely because it was too unbearably awesome to exist.
Weezer, 'Buddy Holly' (1994)
One of the most creative music videos of the '90s, Spike Jonze's take on Weezer's "Buddy Holly" transports Rivers Cuomo & co. onto an episode of the 1970s sitcom Happy Days. The band plays a show at (where else?) Arnold's for Richie, the Fonz and the rest of the gang. Jonze's seamless integration of scenes from the original show with stunt doubles (especially during Fonzie's dance at the end) as well as the video's snarky jokes (there's a "To Be Continued" fake commercial break in the middle of the song) made it one of the most popular videos of the decade. It also cemented Weezer as the era's geekiest, smartest band.
Jamiroquai, 'Virtual Insanity' (1997)
Full disclosure: This writer once made a documentary series about music-video directors, during which Jonathan Glazer said if he had a pound for every time he'd been asked how he did "Virtual Insanity," he'd be able to retire. The short answer is that the walls move, not the floor. Yet with all the visual trickery in the world, the video simply wouldn't work without lead singer Jay Kay's effortless dancing (which he cleverly tried to re-create at that year's MTV Music Video Awards). It's that combination of human creativity (on the parts of both Kay and Glazer) and technical flourishes that still make "Virtual Insanity" so compelling to watch.
Missy Elliott, 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)' (1997)
There are enough signifiers here to identify this as a turn-of-the-century hip-hop video: the Hummer, the Diddy, the booty dancing (O.K., fine, that last one is part of many hip-hop videos). But Hype Williams' clip for Missy Elliott's first solo single has an additional layer of off-kilter originality that permanently lodged itself into the mind of anyone who saw it upon its release. Watch it now and the effect is the same. From Williams' use of the fish-eye lens (which makes Missy's lips look like they were attacked by the biggest bee in existence) to the stutter-step choreography to Missy's unforgettable donning of a garbage-bag jumpsuit, "The Rain" countered its genre's excess with a bit of sorely needed weirdness.
Pulp, 'This Is Hardcore' (1998)
Pulp's 6½-min. pop dirge is a lament for blowing out your serotonin pathways with too much sex, drugs and idolatry. A literal-minded video might have riffed amusingly on Boogie Nights or revisited the soft-core anhedonia of Fiona Apple's "Criminal" promo. But director Doug Nichol goes a more metaphoric route, with a glittering daisy chain of set pieces: a noir interlude in a private investigator's office, luscious simulacra of midcentury Hollywood melodramas, a fistfight amid Danish modern furniture at a swank cocktail party, plus a trip to a Busby Berkeley afterlife. What makes the images cohere is their impeccable fakeness: this is life and art experienced from an icy distance at conspicuous expense, conjuring the song's ambience of hollow, corrupted glamour.
Blur, 'Coffee & TV' (1999)
How should we read "Coffee & TV"? As an indictment of the then problems of Blur, whose guitarist Graham Coxen, it has been said, couldn't take working with lead singer Damon Albarn? Or is it just a cool clip of an animated white-milk carton that falls in love with an animated strawberry-milk carton? Perhaps it's a bit of both. The video by Hammer & Tongs (the pseudonym of director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith) follows said carton on the search for Coxon (whose "missing" image is on the side). Happily for Milky (yes, he even had a name), he finds Coxon playing the track with his bandmates. Coxon leaves the band to return home, and only Albarn notices. (This is why we like theory No. 1.) As for this video, make sure you watch right to the very end; otherwise, you'll miss the happiest ending on this entire list. The blending of a genuinely engaging plot (the whole milk, if you will) with crafty and cute animation (the semiskimmed) makes "Coffee & TV" an undoubted triumph.
Björk, 'All Is Full of Love' (1999)
Robots have feelings too. We've heard their laments, from replicants who want more life to GM line-working drones who ponder suicide. Even R2-D2 had distinctly sad and happy beeps. But before WALL-E courted EVE, no robot had expressed the sensuality that director Chris Cunningham imbues in a Björk-bot in the video for the Icelandic enigma's achingly beautiful "All Is Full of Love." He overlays the cherubic face of Björk on a polished white mask. Her robot limbs, innards and nether parts are crafted before our eyes with factory precision, the final touches completed in a flourish — a backward rush of liquid. Today, making this kind of computer animation would be fairly routine, but for Cunningham and his team in 1999, it was a milestone. There's an uneasy thrill for the viewer when the robot kisses and caresses a lookalike. Cunningham called it "kama sutra meets industrial robotics." In addition to arms, legs and steel sinew, the lyrics promise that "you'll be given love, you'll be taken care of." Witnessing the embrace, you ache to touch and be touched: if only it were I, robot.
Chemical Brothers, 'Let Forever Be' (1999)
There are quite possibly more ideas contained within Michel Gondry's "Let Forever Be" video for the Chemical Brothers than you see in many movies (including some of Gondry's own). A lofty claim? Come back here in 3 min. 42 sec. Did you watch it? Pretty impressive, right? It puts you at the heart of a young lady's recurring nightmare (or is it really happening?), which starts as her alarm clock makes her late for work at a department store. The clip then alternates between an homage, via dancing women, to Busby Berkeley, and a homeless drummer, and it's shot on either beautiful film or a grainy handheld camera. (The Spike Jonze–directed "Praise You" for Fatboy Slim employed the inexpensive cameras too. Must have been a 1999 thing.) By the time the video has ended, you'll be hiding behind your sofa out of fear that the same thing might happen to you.
Fatboy Slim, 'Praise You' (1999)
The veteran British music-video director Nigel Dick can remember the shock he had when he watched Spike Jonze's "Praise You." Used to working with big budgets for the likes of Guns N' Roses, Dick felt that Jonze, by making low-budget videos such as this one, was ruining it for the rest of them. (He said this out of love, not bitterness.) But even though the cost of "Praise You" was reportedly under $1,000, its genius is priceless. The fictional Torrance Community Dance Group go to a California movie theater and rock out to the track in front of stunned onlookers standing in line. (Jonze, who also plays the leader of the group under the pseudonym of Richard Koufey, didn't ask permission from the theater.)
Not everyone gets the joke. One man actually turns off the record, at which point Jonze/Koufey instantly jumps up and hugs him in a manner that would have made the Marx Brothers proud. But the MTV Video Music Awards bestowed a Best Breakthrough Video and Direction award to the Torrance Community Dance Group, proving MTV got the gag. And even though it was nominated, "Praise You" didn't win for Best Dance Video. What's worse, the prize went to the now forgotten Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca."
D'Angelo, 'Untitled (How Does It Feel)' (2000)
I'm sorry, was there a song playing during this video? I was too transfixed by D'Angelo's glistening body to really pay attention. This 4-min. exploration of the R&B singer's delectable torso, directed by Paul Hunter, has D'Angelo trying to persuade the listener-viewer to have sex with him. "Won't you come closer to me, baby?" he pleads, as the camera pans down to his — hello! The man is not wearing any pants. O.K., you can't see D'Angelo's manhood in the video, but you can see his oblique muscles, which are so toned that they make his legs look disconnected from his body, like a life-size Ken doll. This provocative video caused quite a stir when it came out in 2000. We can't imagine why.
Fatboy Slim, 'Weapon of Choice' (2001)
When actor Christopher Walken trained as a music-theater dancer, he surely couldn't have imagined that he'd one day be putting his delicate skills to use at an L.A. hotel on behalf of a British DJ and musician. But that's exactly what went down, thanks to Spike Jonze, who rented out a Marriott and instructed Walken to dance and fly around the building. If you're wondering what Fatboy Slim, a.k.a. Norman Cook, looks like, his portrait adorns a wall 2 min. 24 sec. into the clip. What elevates the video above mere novelty are the small touches — Walken eyeing up some laundry, ringing a bell, slipping on the elevator. If they handed out Oscars for music-video performances, Walken would have been a dead cert. He could also claim an assist in the direction, as he helped choreograph the dance.
Johnny Cash, 'Hurt' (2003)
There may be no better backstory in the history of music videos than that for the Mark Romanek–directed clip of Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Filmed just seven months before the Man in Black's death, the video juxtaposes images of the then 71-year-old Cash with footage of him from his earlier years. Romanek doesn't romanticize the legendary country star: filming took place at the derelict House of Cash museum in Nashville, and the camera lingers over fruit and flowers in various states of decay ("That's when I got the idea that maybe we could be extremely candid about the state of Johnny's health, as candid as Johnny has always been in his songs," said Romanek). It won a slew of awards, remains many people's favorite video of all time and tugs at the heartstrings upon each and every watch. By the time it ends, with Cash closing a piano and brushing his hands over it, his epitaph has not so much been written as filmed.
The White Stripes, 'The Hardest Button to Button' (2005)
One of several videos Michel Gondry directed for the White Stripes (including "Fell in Love with a Girl," which rendered the Whites as computerized Lego figures), "The Hardest Button to Button" deploys a live-action form of stop-motion animation to transform the band's instruments into semiautonomous beings. Meg's drum kit clones and reclones itself as it marches across the platform of a New York City subway station; Jack's amp undergoes mitosis, and its replicants pile atop each other. (Also of note: Beck stops by.) The video's lo-fi, labor-intensive craftsmanship — its raw, lovingly handmade quality — is both classic Gondry and classic White Stripes, underlining why director and band made such a good marriage.
OK Go, 'Here It Goes Again' (2006)
In 2006, the state of the music video was bleak. MTV had all but abandoned the art form in favor of reality shows, and YouTube was still an Internet novelty. A year prior, dance-rock band OK Go had released a homemade video for its song "A Million Ways" that, thanks to a silly dance routine, quickly became a viral hit. For "Here It Goes Again," the band decided to produce another choreographed video — only this time, the dance would be on treadmills. The video was conceived and directed by front man Damian Kulash's sister. Shot in one continuous take, it took the band 17 tries to get the treadmill dance right. This was one of the first truly viral videos, racking up more than 50 million views and earning OK Go a Grammy along the way.
Fun fact: The dance routine OK Go's members perform in the video is actually a version of one they created for their 2002 song "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips."
Gnarls Barkley, 'Going On' (2008)
Director Wendy Morgan's video for this track from Gnarls Barkley's second album is a sucker punch of joy. Morgan (who also helmed the similarly energetic promo for Janelle Monáe's "Tightrope") takes Barkley's three-minute piece of percussive pop perfection and matches it to a story about a group of young men and women who discover a magical door to another dimension. Filmed in Jamaica and incorporating dancehall-inflected choreography, the video finds power in the movement of its Doc Martens–wearing local stars, who clap, sway, leap, slide and stomp across the screen with abandon. The push and pull between their synchronicity and wild free-for-all dancing (skip ahead to 1:25 for an example) make this clip dynamic in a way few others are.
Beyoncé, 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)' (2008)
There are two ways to shoot a dance-heavy video. You can build an elaborate set, design multiple costumes and hire a cavalcade of dancers to serve as backup bodies. Or you can just slap a leotard and high heels on Beyoncé Knowles and call it a day. That's exactly what director Jake Nava did in the video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." Beyoncé and her two choreographers, Frank Gatson and JaQuel Knight, came up with the dance routine by combining elements of an old Bob Fosse dance with something called J-setting (a call-and-response type of cheerleading dance that originated at Jackson State University in Mississippi). The three-minute video was shot in three separate takes, with the lighting and angles changed live as Beyonceé and two other dancers swished, bounced and popped in front of a blank backdrop. It has been watched more than 128 million times on YouTube and has inspired dozens of fan videos. Sometimes the best creations are also the simplest.
Lady Gaga, 'Bad Romance' (2009)
The video for "Bad Romance," the first single off Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, revealed a darker side of Gaga not seen before its release in November 2009. Sure, there had been glimpses — most notably in her video for "Paparazzi," from her previous album — but in "Bad Romance," she brought out her claws. Literally. Gaga's iconic claw gestures can be traced back to this video. "Bad Romance" also debuted her "Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah/ Roma-ro-ma-ma" monster dance routine that has become as integral to her image as the one-gloved crotch grab was to Michael Jackson's. "Bad Romance" is Gaga's version of a love song: her romance is "ugly" and a "disease," illustrated by the singed corpse of her former lover. The video's Alexander McQueen costumes have become synonymous with her aesthetic. And though Gaga's later videos would be even more elaborate, "Bad Romance" serves as the best example of what she does best: performance pop.
Kanye West, 'Runaway' (2010)
Now that music videos are primarily watched online, artists find themselves freed from the constraints of the traditional three-minute short. The past year has seen the debut of the personalized, interactive music video and the return of minimovies that are much longer than the songs they accompany. The best example of this is Kanye West's "Runaway," a 35-min. film written and directed by Kanye, set not just to one song from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy but to (almost) the entire album. The plot — Kanye falls in love with a supermodel phoenix and tries to assimilate her into the human world, only to learn that she can't stay with him because, well, she's a phoenix — is told through a series of visually stunning set pieces that in a more traditional world would probably serve as stand-alone videos for their accompanying songs. The scenes are connected by occasionally comedic interludes (in one scene, Kanye takes the phoenix to a dinner party and is asked by another guest, "Your girlfriend is very beautiful ... do you know she's a bird?"). In that sense, "Runaway" is a visual representation of Kanye West's music career: often artistic and beautiful, but sometimes incredibly silly.
Arcade Fire, 'We Used To Wait/The Wilderness Downtown' (2010)
Arcade Fire released an album, The Suburbs, that defined the directionless childhood of a generation. So it's fitting that the band created a music video that is as interactive as the world in which that generation now lives. Set to the song "We Used to Wait" and produced by Chris Milk, "The Wilderness Downtown", the first HTML5 music video (click on the link for the full experience), lets viewers set their own childhood neighborhood as the backdrop to a teenager as he runs through the streets and dodges virtual trees. Viewers can interact with flocks of black birds and even write sprawling, branching messages to their childhood selves. It's the first video that truly harnesses the digital age — and one of the most personal you'll ever watch.
