True to form, Scissor Sisters deliver another high-concept visual for “Baby Come Home” following the imaginative clips for “Shady Love” and “Only The Horses.” This one’s more of a graphic design wonder, a fluorescent, shifting tapestry of characters. Lorenzo Fonda directed.
British cock-rock revivalists have come up with a pretty good way to insure that people will actually watch their new lyric video for the song “Every Inch Of You”: For the whole first verse, they don’t actually flash any lyrics onscreen. Instead, they just let a stripper dance to their song. (It’s still more or less SFW, though.)
Directed by Fleur & Manu, it continues the storyline from the video for "Midnight City" as a group of glowing-eyed, paranormal children go to battle. (See if you can spot the Adam Yauch tribute, too.)
The Walkmen’s masterful new album Heaven is finally out, and the brand-new video for the title track uses photo collages and archival footage to show the band’s evolution over the years. It turns out they weren’t always quite as suave as they are now. In the video, we see old photos of the band members clutching instruments as kids and, I’m pretty sure, a quick glimpse of the lamented pre-Walkmen band Jonathan Fire*Eater. Alex Southam directs.
The Cribs new reference-heavy video for “Glitters Like Gold” may indeed exhibit VHS-like production qualities on the surface, but what’s kind of novel about the video is that the Pop-Up Video insets that they co-opt link out to other clips. The pop-up graphic about Ryan liking bowling links out to a video of someone (presumably Ryan) bowling for two hours. The one about Ross liking sandwiches without crusts links out to a video of Ross making a sandwich and cutting off the crust. And, so forth. Andy Knowles and Stephen Agnew direct.
Music video by Jay-Z & Kanye West performing No Church In The Wild feat. Frank Ocean & The-Dream.
Young revolutionaries pack the streets of Prague in the video for Watch The Throne opener “No Church In The Wild,” a clip is pretty much the opposite of the “Otis” video. It features a mob taking on the authorities with Molotov cocktails, fireworks, lasers, and, randomly, an elephant. Gotta say: Kanye's "you will not control the threesome"/"never fuck nobody without telling me" verse seems pretty out of place when you're watching a cop get set on fire. Romain Gavras directs.
THE SIXTH SINGLE FROM "KILL FOR LOVE."
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SPECIAL THANKS TO AUTO FANTASY FOR USE OF THE MERCEDES AMG ROADSTER.
Here's an exclusive preview from Neil Young & Crazy Horse's new album Americana. No not The Sex Pistol's song but the British national anthem and the de facto national anthem of the United States before the official adoption of The Star Spangled Banner in 1931.
The French singer SoKo has already made utterly charming videos for “I Thought I Was An Alien” and “First Love Never Die,” two songs from her album I Thought I Was An Alien.
Today, she gives us another self-directed one: A beautifully romantic
and grainy montage of her and one Meghan Edwards together. NSFW for
boobage.
Bruce Springsteen doesn’t show up in his video for “Rocky Ground,” the gospel-tinged underclass lament from his new album Wrecking Ball. Instead, the clip superimposes scrawls of the song’s lyrics over images of urban desolation. It’s a blunt but effective way to make sure the song’s message gets across.
Video directed by Yoann Lemoine / Iconoclast
Post production by onemore production
If you loved Iron, check out Run Boy Run, a new song from Yoann Lemoine aka Woodkid. Lemoine also directed this music video. What seems to be a chase scene has an optimistic twist.
"Many animals were harmed during the making of this video. Regrettably, none of them made the final edit." P. Serafinowicz
The first music video that British comedian Peter Serafinowicz ever directed was the amazing, hallucinatory one for Hot Chip’s “I Feel Better.” And now the director and band have teamed up once again, making a similarly batshit clip for Hot Chip’s new single “Night And Day.” It would be an act of rank spoilerization if I described anything that happened in the video, but it does star legendarily badass British actor Terrence Stamp, beatboxing comic Reggie Watts, supermodel Lara Stone, a roomful of dancing monks, and two weirdly complementary spaceships.
Tenacious D are throwing everything they’ve got into the videos promoting their latest opus, Rize of the Fenix. First they shot Val Kilmer and recruited Dave Grohl to be their personal rock-n-roll trainer, then they took to the desert for a special effects extravaganza, and most recently hired Danny McBride as their roadie.
In the clip for their tribute to easy women, “Low Hangin’ Fruit”, the
greatest rock band alive puts on their pimpin’ best and has a
green-screened innuendo-palooza. So how many ways can you sexualize
fruit?
A week out from the proper release of Rize of the Fenix, Tenacious D returns with yet another video, thanks to the fine folks over at Funny or Die. This time around, JB and KG are ready to be the best and they’ve moved away from the desert, and instead are looking for a roadie. With his faux baseball career behind him,
what better man than Danny McBride? Clad in a black cowboy hat and his
Johnny Cash-best, McBride plays a roadie named Sebastian, who’s worked
with everyone from Van Halen to Ice Capades and even has connections to
guys with lasers. He’s a choice addition to the D crew and as a result
they’ve written an ode to him.
Sleigh Bells offer a dark and dizzy live performance clip to accompany their Reign of Terror cut "Demons". The band's Derek Miller co-directs, with Gregory Kohn.
According to Pitchfork, the clip was inspired by “classic Pantera videos” and features footage from concerts in Omaha, Oklahoma City, Dallas, and Houston.
In order to announce their Friday-headlining spot at this years edition of the UK’s Bestival, Florence And The Machine dressed up in animal costumes — a penguin, a bunny, a dog and a fox, respectively — and covered Talking Heads’ “Wild Wild Life.” Sort of reminds me of the time that Justin Timberlake played bass for the Flaming Lips in a dolphin suit, back when interior design up-and-comer Justin Timberlake was doing stuff that was, at least tangentially, related to music-making. Watch fox Flo and Co.
On Monday, May 21st, we celebrate seven years since we first shared YouTube with the world. To commemorate this occasion, here's an updated video with some of the crazy statistics and incredible things you've been a part of in that time. Thanks for the amazing things you watch, create, and share!
Pop. 1280 – “Bodies In The Dunes” (Dir. Jacqueline Castel)
As a song, “Bodies In The Dudes” is almost over-the-top in the way it
suggests churning, creeping dread. And in the video, Castel gives all
that dread a (bandaged) face, as well as a bunch of beautifully composed
images of carnage. There is more than a little Dario Argento in this
clip, and god knows that the music videos of the world could always some
more Argento.
It’s great when smart, simple ideas work out. Here we have Feist and
Mountain Man singing a pretty, sparse song while street-dancing dudes
bust interpretive moves around them and the crowd of onlookers manages
not to make any noise. Somehow, the dancers and the musicians both
manage to give off the impression that everyone respects what everyone
else is doing and that this is an actual piece of performance art, not a
conceptual stunt. The slightest hint of smirkiness could’ve sunk this
thing, but instead it’s pure good vibes all around.
Quite fitting that Lemonade would opt for a shower scene with its latest video for “Neptune”; the steamy synths and syrupy vocals just squeal for white tiles and Pantene Pro-V! Directed by House Plants and Weird Days,
this quasi-NSFW video splices clips of a lone girl showering, smoking,
and lounging out with shots of the band performing in what appears to be
a black hole.
Here’s the new clip from Darkside — Nicolas Jaar’s band — for Darkside EP cut “A1,” a Pomp&Clout-directed, high-concept visual featuring some Jawa-like figures scouring a desert. Watch it below.
It’s good to know that if we ever find ourselves in the midst of a
zombie apocalypse we’ll still be able to order out for pizza and a
video!
The team behind Apocalypse Pizza Video are hoping to turn
their project into a feature film, and by the look of this trailer it
could be a lot of fun to watch! (NSFWish due to coarse language and
humor)
Florence and The Machine return with a new video for “Breath of Life”, their contribution to the upcoming summer blockbuster fantasy film, Snow White and the Huntsman. It’s a thudding epic sweep of a track only bolstered through sparkling visuals from the film – especially a dazzling clip of Charlize Theron sinking into a bath of milk.
Directed by Hiro Murai, the clip lives up to its name with scenes of a brainwashed media, an evil guy in a suit, and a robot with a camera for its head.
Here’s the clip for Modeselektor’s Thom Yorke collaboration “This,” a choppy visual that follows a lone puppeteer and her creepy-as-hell marionette’s dance. Future Deluxe directs.
“She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain” is one of the first songs every American kid learns. But in its original form, the song was a black spiritual about the welcome end of the world, and it didn’t have that line about how she’ll have to sleep with grandma when she comes. (Later, the song was repurposed to herald the arrival of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, who worked to form labor unions in early 20th century Appalachian coal mining camps. Wikipedia!)
Neil Young recently reassembled his old fuzz-rock band Crazy Horse for the album Americana, which features them reworking old American folk-song standards. One of the songs they take on is the old ominous version, which they’ve retitled “Jesus’ Chariot.” And for the video, they’ve repurposed some footage from D.W. Griffith’s epic racist-as-fuck silent film Birth Of A Nation, which seems thematically appropriate considering the song’s history. Watch it below.
Explosions In The Sky – “Postcard From 1952″ (Dir. Peter Simonite & Annie Gunn)
There’s a simple concept to this one: A bunch of ancient archival photos recreated and turned into moving images. But with Simonite, Terrence Mallick’s cinematographer for The Tree Of Life, co-directing, it plays like a dizzily beautiful slow-motion seven-minute statement about the magic of life itself. I don’t know if I would’ve felt this way before becoming a father, but I can’t really watch those shots of the kid taking his first few tentative steps without wanting to cry.
Father John Misty – “This Is Sally Hatchet” (Dir. Grant James)
In which J. Tillman successfully continues his post-Fleet Foxes reinvention as a Godard-film badass. In this one, he’s inexplicably wrapping a mutilated hand up in a rag while firing off a shotgun in a dilapidated basement as blaxploitation-heroine chicks dance around him. None of it makes the tiniest bit of sense (that pizza cut into a pentagram?), and all of it looks awesome. That shot, near the end, of an aviator-sunglasses-clad Tillman getting his cigarette lit for him, is an absolute all-timer.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “I See A Darkness” (Dir. Ben Berman)
In the video for this weirdly sprightly re-recording of what’s probably his best-loved song, Will Oldham chicken-struts around some nameless European city (I want to say Prague, but I really have no idea), while the pupils of his eyeballs digitally fly off in different directions and Ben Berman films everything in classicist high-contrast black-and-white. The thing looks great, and the eyeball trick is funny and disorienting. But the real selling point is grandpa-dancing Oldham himself, displaying an utterly peerless weirdo charisma that’s just as hard to describe as it is to deny.
The first video from Grimes’ breakout album Visions was “Oblivion,” a seriously unforgettable piece of work that stands as, perhaps, 2012′s best music video to date. She’s now followed it up with a new clip for “Nightmusic.” The new video isn’t going to grab your brain quite so hard, but Claire Boucher still has a ton of presence. In this one, director John Londono films her witching her way across a gloomy wasteland. There are a couple of naked people in there, too, so consider this one NSFW
Here’s the sunny clip for Canyons’ “When I See You Again,” a video that marries colorful found footage with band footage. Keep an eye out for a bearded Kevin Parker (Tame Impala). Fleur & Manu direct. Slightly NSFW for some slices of nudity.
Music video for 'Lowlands', a song by Belgian band 'Roscoe'.
A strange and harsh coming-of-age story, in which a son falls victim to his father's wish of earning big money with illegal street-fights. The boy becomes a victorious fighter, until faith strikes upon him.
This story, set against the atmospherical backdrop of Bucharest's suburbs, talks about the expectations a father puts into his son.
Director: Norman Bates.
Jack Black must have a nice little break between Kung Fu Panda sequel voice-sessions, because his band Tenacious D are back with a new album. We’ve already seen the more-skit-than-anything “To Be The Best” video, and today they’ve debuted a similarly ridiculous clip, for the Rize Of The Fenix title track. This one plays both sides of the fence, including a ton of special effects while, at the same time, making fun of those special effects.
Music video by Soundgarden performing Live to Rise (Avengers).
“Live To Rise” is the first new Soundgarden studio song in a decade and a half, and it shows up on the soundtrack to The Avengers. So you’d hope that the video would feature Kim Thayil fighting Loki or whatever. Alas, the clip goes the time-honored route of showing the band playing in an airplane hanger, interspersed with footage from the movie that you’ve already seen in the trailers. There is a moment where some sort of glowing wormhole opens up behind the band, but not much comes of it.
Kanye West / Ruth Hogben - Lost in the World
Filmmaker Ruth Hogben collaborates with award-winning musician Kanye West to create a film for his single Lost in the World. The song, which features Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, is taken from West's fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Hogben's piece breaks the mould of popular rap aesthetics while still celebrating the extraordinary talent that has made West a modern icon.
In Dr. Dog’s new video for “Lonesome,” the band members play vagrants who are kidnapped and forced into black hostage hoods, and then somebody throws food at them. It’s weird.
In the video for Lower Dens’ expansive new jam “Propagation,” we see the members of the dreamy Baltimore band, painted white and wearing glowing beekeeper outfits while traipsing through a forest and engaging in some sort of magical alien ritual involving other things that glow. It’s weird. Sebastian Mlynarski directs.
You can always count on Xiu Xiu to make your stomach do funny things. The video for “Honeysuckle,” a dark twinkle of a synthpop song from their recent album Always, focuses on group member Angela Seo as she goes about the mundane business of her day. But somehow, the video finds room for about 20 different disturbing, gut-twisting images — some of which just come from a close-up on the exact wrong thing, some of which seem to exist in Seo’s fantastical brain. Amir Shoucri directs.
The scenes of Mike Hadreas and his mom together are real-talk touching and heartwarming, but then there are all these disappearing masked people hanging out in the background, lending an air of Lynchian creepiness to the entire project. And so the video turns out to be both deeply confusing and compelling. We never learn exactly what’s going on, and everyone involved deserves credit for letting things stay this ambiguous.
That’s right: Another K-pop video! The people of South Korea are currently doing pop-music videos the way Russell Mulcahy and Wayne Isham originally intended, turning them into massive, glittery pop-culture events. In this one, the members of the girl-group Sistar show a whole lot of leg and visit the Circus Circus casino in Vegas, thus giving me happy flashbacks to various Mase and Monster Magnet videos. Fun fact: When I was 10, my family stayed for a little while in the Circus Circus trailer park, and the casino had a video arcade the size of an airplane hanger. It was so beautiful that I wanted to cry. This seems somehow relevant to the video in question. Also, the song sounds vaguely like Phoenix.
The Lord of Terror has begun his demonic crusade to shackle YouTube viewers into unholy slavery. Watch it now, and prepare for the end of days to begin on 05.15.12.
The Dark Knight Rises has a new trailer out. It’s kind of a big deal. This time we see a lot more Catwoman and John Blake (Gordon Joseph-Levitt).
While it’s fantastic that there’s another Christopher Nolan Batman and I have no doubt it’ll be a great movie, I gotta be honest I was much more excited at this stage of The Dark Knight‘s promotional campaign. There I couldn’t wait to see how they were going to realise Two-Face, and how the Joker was going to be portrayed. Here Catwoman and Bane don’t have that mystery about them, and are much less exciting by comparison. Also there’s really no imagery here that we didn’t see in the previous film, I think the cinematography in The Dark Knight trailer was more exciting. The Bat-plane seems too silly to me. And the longer Christian Bale’s career goes on, the less exciting he is as an actor.
Just saying. Now tell me I’m wrong in the comments.
Sophia is a lovely 21-year-old girl with “a rare and very dangerous
condition.” She’s a monster. It’s an accident of birth, and the
condition restricts her life in many ways. In this “documentary” by
Francisco Calabrese, you will eventually see how her condition manifests
itself. NSFW language. -via The Daily What