I may have posted something similar to this long ago, but since YouTube has come along, I figured I’d reprise this, as there may have even been some changes. Anyway, this is a quick list of some of my all-time fave music videos for your viewing pleasure (videos not embedded this time, as it would make for one hellaciously obnoxious post, so just click the links).
1. Donald Fagen – “New Frontier” For my money, this remains the greatest music video ever. The stylization, animation, and general party in the fallout shelter groove perfectly encapsulate this Cold War ditty. Apparently this video was even shown at the time in some areas in movie theatres before the main feature. The Woody Allenesque nerd gets the gorgeous blonde. What more could you want? Plus it’s one of the best songs Fagen ever recorded from the best solo album he ever made, 1982’s The Nightfly.
2. Len – “Steal My Sunshine” I always seriously had the dream of having a music video with cool split screen images that slid in and out of the main frame. Len did this perfectly for their sole hit of a few years back. You Can’t Stop The Bum Rush is a terrific album through and through, and possibly one of the last great experiments in pop music that flawlessly shifted musical genres from song to song. They’ve had another release since then, but US labels apparently weren’t interested. Weird.
3. Billy Joel – “Allentown” To me, Billy Joel’s best videos came from his The Nylon Curtain and An Innocent Man albums. This one from the former is almost like a big Broadway production with its sparse props during the bar scene, and strange group of dancers near the end. It’s cinematic in quality and finds Joel strumming a guitar and sporting a Fedora that was all the rage at the time thanks to Indiana Jones. A classic through and through.
4. Elvis Costello and The Attractions – “Accidents Will Happen” Probably one of the first videos to incorporate a computer for its animation. The art style is similar to that of “New Frontier” and this clip still stands out as Costello’s most unique (in a wonderful cache of really unique videos). I always liked the little throbbing sombrero on the map during the button-pushing sequence.
5. Fiona Apple – “Paper Bag” Not at all how I would have ever envisioned a video for this song, but it’s one of my faves. For all the shit Fiona gets for her meltdowns, etc., she still makes great videos that are often filled with dark moments of humor. This one is just simply grand from start to finish. Much better than any video I had in my mind for the song, too. A great example of not shooting literal scenes corresponding to the lyrics for a song.
6. Camper Van Beethoven – “Take The Skinheads Bowling” With a shitty, grainy real film quality that is as cheap as the production of CVB’s best albums. Lots of good memories associated with this one, and truly a time capsule moment frozen in time for all of indie rock’s great history.
7. Presidents of the United States of America – “Some Postman” This video was created with cell phone cameras. What more could you want for innovation? OK, how about the next entry?
8. OK Go – “Here It Goes Again” Fuck you if you think I’m jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a fucking great video.
9. Ween – “Even If You Don’t” More of that groovy multi-split screen effects and directed by Trey parker and Matt Stone. From the underrated album White Pepper.
10. “Weird Al” Yankovic – “Dare To be Stupid” All right, I could go on, but we’ll close this list at 10 with one of Al’s best videos. It’s the title track for his thrid album, dare To be Stupid, a song that falls into the category of what he describes as a “style parody” which is a song he wrote himself not based on an actual hit, but rather the sounds of a certain artist or style. Devo gets sent up this time around, and honestly, I don’t think they ever created something this great. Even Mark Mothersbaugh stated in Al’s “Behind The Music” episode that he was impressed with the synth sound Al got in this song that Mothersbaugh could never get himself. Groove city.
