Some Music Videos I'm Thinking About, part 1
Music videos are an incredible cultural index. Free from the traditional narrative and structural requirements of cinema, generally constrained to mere minutes, their only responsibility is to accompany music and this affords incredible formal breadth. They can be experimental, cheap, narrative, derivative, expensive, commercials, vanity projects: and with the proliferation of cheap tools for recording and editing, the only thing required to create is the impulse and follow-through to do so.
Here are five music videos that I've been thinking about and (re)watching lately. Note that some of these contain provocative imagery and lyrics.
'89 the Brainchild - Get A Bag
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDgYOg159Cg
A true contemporary cyberpunk anthem. If you presented a space alien with this music video, I think they could work backwards and derive everything about humanity and society from it. Get a bag.
Julia Cry - YOSE
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5CgOvP2lrE
Choreographed dance is profoundly interesting to me. It requires a complete subjugation of the subjective experience in an effort to make the body-as-object evoke meaning, empathy, awe(, etc.) in its observers. It doesn't matter how it feels to perform as long as it invokes feelings in the audience (even if those feelings are directly counter to the way the performer feels!). Let alone the mental and physical demands that it takes to simply perform! In some meaningful ways, it is an artform that cannot be made manifest without multiple people (distinct performer(s) and viewer(s)), as the medium itself is embodied ephemeral performance. Also: a good dance routine well-performed is just simply entertaining to watch without thinking about all that.
Which is all to say: I am a sucker for this particular choreographed dance routine. Just two dancers in a single take, with a few fun little in-camera tricks. What's better than this? (For extra credit, (re)watch the video and pay attention to how much effort must have gone into the lack of accidental mirror reflections.)
Infinity Song - Hater's Anthem
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9y51akm3N4
It's just so fun and catchy! What more do you want from me! We love some playful irony. It also really powerfully gives off "church energy", and I don't really know what to do with that so I just acknowledge it and move on.
AMORE - Querió
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nzSUGyC8-8
The reveal of this video's core gimmick a few seconds in is such a delight that I refuse to mention it by name. I am a huge fan of the unbroken 40-second shot that I imagine was really annoying to shoot and reshoot. A really strong use of low-budget turn-of-the-millennium aesthetics with an ironic edge that makes it feel distinctly contemporary.
Isabella Lovestory - Telenovela
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uixabGpkyVI
In my heart of hearts: this is an all-timer music video. Not since Videodrome has a piece of visual media understood the contemporary new flesh so well. I'm going to grad school to write my Master's thesis on these 191 seconds of video. You should be able to log this on Letterboxd as a film.