Antville Poll: all-time best music video ever?
please nominate one (and only one) video for the title of all-time best (= personal favourite = most awesome = most memorable; let's avoid terminological hair-splittery). as always, some sort of link would be appreciated.
easy: Daft Punk - Around the World, dir. Michel Gondry. (i've watched it a million times, could watch it a million more.)
same easy, same guy, different clip: bjork's <a href=www.bjork.com> bachelorette . the only video that gives me the same reality-ceding frissons that the best borges stories do.
Radiohead - "Just", dir. Jamie Thraves. www.factoryfilms.net The final shot of everyone lying on the pavement still gets me, even to this day.
D A Pennebaker's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' for Bob Dylan.
Simplicity itself, it's the first one-taker, the perfect mix of concept, personality and (non)performance. A portrait of Dylan and his cascade of throwaway words.
What's more, it goes wrong halfway through and it's got Allen Ginsberg wandering about in the background.
I've made my bed: Sledgehammer - nods to Michel & Chris, but this is it. I guess it's gonna be poll time again? (you sent me scrambling to update my Daft page, Progosk ;) )
Metallica: The Unforgiven (Long version)
Directed by Matt Mahurin. It was / is / will be the ultimate music video ever, at least for me.
Star Guitar. Worth buying the Chemical Brothers singles dvd just to see Gondry planning it out graph paper and then in a car park with oranges, shoes, and forks.
I'm for Star Guitar too. It's simple and complex at the same time, it's fit the music... it's not only a promotionnal video, it's a piece of art...
I know everyone has favourite videos for various reasons, but I still haven't seen a video that tops Thriller with it's cinematic flare. I do think that Hurt is a pretty close second.
Kinda lame, but REM's Losing My Religion. It is when music videos "grew up".
I am gonna have to say Around The World vs. Thriller vs. Sabotage
beastie boys- "watchya want" might be my favorite. it just works in every way
It was hard to think of just one, since I love so much videos, but I'm gonna go with "One" - U2 (Mark Pellington version). It's the most under rated of the three versions, and not a popular video at all, but I still think it captures something really special. When I watched it, my life truly changed.
Here's a clip (not complete): MOV
Aphex Twin-Windowlicker
Goooooo Gondry! I would have to say the foo fighter's Everlong-- Maybe my dreams are cliche but I've never witnessed anything so intouch with my personal subconcious. And it's hilarious too.
Michael Jackson THRILLER.....duh!
or AH HA "Take On ME".....double duh!
Björk "all is full of love" Dir.: Chris Cunningham Antville-comments here
Way better than Sledgehammer.
Peter gabriel's digging in the dirt Dir. John Downer
Oh and Kate Bush: cloudbusting Dir. Julian Doyle
I can never find a link, if anyone knows a link or even torrent, please let me know.
@progosk: the enduring 'All Around the World' mystery: I'm a total sucker for a good bit of choreography, I like daft outfits and I love a bit of Gondry....and don't get me wrong, I like All Around the World, but given the above and how much many people love this video, I can't work out why I don't even rate it amongst Gondry's better ones. Please tell me...what am I missing?
Re:"Around the World" I have no clue who directed the video for "Mr. Roboto" by Styx, but those of you who think the Daft Punk video rules, try to seek this out. The strong influence of the Styx video should inform all opinions about the Gondry work.
Mr. Robot was directed by Brian Gibson (via mvdbase)
Lest we forget: Johnny Cash, Hurt by Mark Romanek This was broadcasted in full length on the evening news down here the day Cash died, and the TV-presenter almost cried, well almost everybody did, I guess. Update: Use this link to download. (avi, 45 MB - sound might not work in QT browser plugin, works in QuickTime Player though) Via divxcrawler.com/music.htm
Sledgehammer was obviously important for the genre as such, but did it move me? Nope …
dude..i can't believe what some people write here..
well to me there's a tie between these 2 videos.
Sigur Ros - Vidrar vel til loftransa Apehex Twin - Windowlicker
y sigur ros/? gotta have really BIG balls to make a video as controversial as that one. The icons within the video are amazing. The photography is superb. And to shoot in slow motion is not an easy thing.
y aphex twin? If u understand ghetto african american culture, you understand why the intro is SOOO funny. And overall making such a bizarre version of "singing in the rain" mixed with IDM turn the video on a number 1
Squarepusher - Come On My Selector
99 Problems by Marc Romanek. And Hurt. And Chemical Brothers, Believe.
As I really like one take vids...
Smooth Criminal had me paralyzed when they did the lean. Almost all jackson promos had a similar affect on me. Absolutely adore Billy Jean.
Other big ones include: AHA - Take on me. CHEMICAL BROS - Elektrobank NIN - Closer BJORK - All is full of love DAFT PUNK - Around the world
benr: as if i knew. is it the maths, its almost fractal self-referentiality? is it cause it's one of the rare gondry vids that's really intimately integrated with the music? or, is it just that killer track (nah)? fact is, i just never get tired of watching it.
i really dont't know how to make up my mind here. on the one hand: gondry. (almost) anything by gondry. then again, how dare one NOT choose subterranean? this is bob dylan, man. or must it be johnny cash, cause it touches me more than all the others? (but i'd have to go for most innovative, shouldn't i?) sigh this is WAY too complicated. i was never one for answering the big questions.
Aha - take on me
funtoo: Make it easy on yourself and just say Gondry! Gondry! GONDRY!
AH HA HA HAAA!!!
I can't believe you all put up all those Gondry videos and forgot to put up the absolute best one: "Let Forever Be"
In my mind it's the culmination of Gondry's work - choreography, low tech in camera efffects, dreamy psychadelia. i think it's perfect, and i love that it was shot on DV.
definitely my favorite of all time. i always answer the same whenever anyone asks me.
Shynola´s/Shrigley´s
'Good Song'
for Blur.
come on kev, i can't believe it, you didn't even vote for michel ... tsss.
(great pics!)
How the heck can you choose which Michel vid is greatest? That's impossible! I can agree with Ruben on "Let Forever Be" being the prototypical Michel vid though. Totally awesome.
Ultimately I say Sledgehammer because it also had impact: on both the mv industry and to an extent the culture at large. Michel's done #1 to a larger degree, but hasn't quite hit #2 yet. He's got a long way to go in his career, I hope. He's only 41.
the funny thing is: i immediately thought u were chosing sledgehammer because of it being a kind of precursor to michel's work ;-)
(i had completely forgotten about the miniature train going around gabriel's head! dusted memories.)
Wow, actually that's a good point, isn't it? Wow I'll be thinking about that for a while.
Okay, time's up. I think the reason I dig Sledgehammer, Take On Me, Michel, more than the others is because they have the same philosophy about the purpose of music video I do.
I could compare Sledgehammer to all these other greats, but that would require a lot more space than this puny column.
I know what you mean by Hurt though. That video was an event.
(I'll be simmering on the Sledge/Michel thing for a while. That was a really good conxn.)
so … if you want to take these remarks (by kev, by luk, etc) further down the road, you could say that a music video, by definition & by limitation of the genre, is there to surprise, maybe to throw up a question, but not more. therefore, michel's playfulness (or, at times, childishness) is a perfect example of the genre. you would not expect to be (in Roland Barthes' terms) pierced by a music video - still it might happen every now & then, as in the case of Hurt. mhm … …
apropos gondry, i saw some scenes from michel's upcoming feature "the science of sleep" on tv last night (he's showing it at the berlin festival) - wow! that looks promising. and the cast is great (gael garcia bernal, charlotte gainsbourg!)
gondry also has the new dave chappelle "concert film" block party, chappellesblockparty.com coming down the pipe. looks like a lot of fun.
Is there anybody who has a link to a trailer from science of sleep?
spreech, there should be one up here within the next couple days, i guess ...
funtoosh, looks good, thx for the link.
i had a chance to see science of sleep (twice!) in berlin recently and its really fantastic. Its so tactile and the effects that are done with green screens etc are so cheesily/basically done that they still have this amazing hands on quality to them that make them work so well. the whole thing is just amazing in the way that you feel these human hands behind every single peice of it - totally magical
