Merchandise - “Little Killer” (Official Video)

Earlier this year, Floridian postpunks Merchandise released USA ’13, a split LP with fellow warehouse-show mainstays Milk Music and Destruction Unit. That record may have been the band’s goodbye to the DIY universe that spawned them, as they’ve now signed to 4AD and announced the release of their new album After The End, produced by Gareth Jones, who’s recorded new wave classics for Depeche Mode and Tuxedomoon. First single “Little Killer” is a morose twinkle, and frontman Carson Cox directed its video himself, wearing a ton of makeup and using sloppy greenscreens to turn his band into human kaleidoscopes.

Celebration - “Tomorrow’s Here Today” (Official Video)

Earlier this month we heard from Mt. Royal, a Baltimore supergroup featuring Celebration singer Katrina Ford. Now Ford’s main gig is kicking back into action too. Celebration is releasing a new LP called Albumin this summer, their first since jumping from 4AD to Bella Union. Ford’s typically rich, commanding vocals shepherd lead single “Tomorrow’s Here Today” through its evolution from a shimmering digital haze to a swaggering new wave romp. And the video, directed by Matt Riggieri of Digital Cave Media, segues from a space-age color spectrum into some wild dancers engaging in paint-covered performance art. The word “celebrate” features prominently on the chorus, so does that make “Tomorrow’s Here Today” Celebration’s new signature song? Decide for yourself.

Tori Amos - “Trouble’s Lament” (Official Video)

A couple of weeks ago, Tori Amos came back to release a new album called Unrepentant Geraldines and to show us that she is still the most Tori Amos person in the entire universe. The single “Trouble’s Lament” is maybe a bit more smooth and cinematic than the stuff she was recording 20 years ago, but it plays around with the same themes. And so, in a way, does the new video, in which Amos presides over a New York diner where all sorts of illicit actions are taking place just under the surface.

Watch on: Entertainment Weekly.

CYMBALS - “The End” (Official Video)

In terms of popular ’80s throwback artists of today, CYMBALS splits the difference between M83′s widescreen euphoria and Cut Copy’s retro-futuristic club music. “The End,” a standout from the UK band’s recent The Age Of Fracture, demonstrates quite well where they reside on that nostalgia spectrum. Hear all seven pleasurable minutes of the song in director Matthew Reed’s video, which matches live concert footage with lots of bustling urban imagery.

Watch The Decemberists Debut “Lake Song” & “Philomena” At Boston Calling

This past weekend, at the Boston Calling festival, the Decemberists played their first show in nearly three years. After all that time away, it would be a fair bet that they’ve got new music in the works, and indeed, it looks like they might. During their set, the band debuted a couple of new songs: A slower folky, strummy number that might be called “Lake Song” and a jaunty jangle that might be called “Philomena.” Below, check out shaky fan-made video of both songs.

Anna Calvi & David Byrne - “Strange Weather” (Official Video)

When we found out that Anna Calvi would release Strange Weather, an EP of cover songs ranging from Suicide to fka Twigs (the latter of which you can already listen to), one of the most exciting details was that it contained a pair of duets with David Byrne. Now Alan Del Rio Ortiz has directed a video for the EP’s title track, the duo’s extremely tense cover of singer-songwriter Keren Ann’s 2011 song. The original already contained a great deal of drama, and Calvi and Byrne only feed into that further. The song swells to a dissonant climax near the end, making it just the right soundtrack to the video’s impressionistic tale of an upset woman wandering through the early morning streets of New York City.

Led Zeppelin - "Whole Lotta Love (Rough Mix With Vocal)" (Official Music Video)

From Led Zeppelin II (Deluxe Edition) - Led Zeppelin's remastered second album will include additional companion audio with unreleased studio outtakes To be released on multiple CD, vinyl, and digital formats as well as a Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box. Details on all formats are here: http://www.ledzeppelin.com.

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The official music video for Led Zeppelin - "Whole Lotta Love (Rough Mix With Vocal)"

Conor Oberst - “Zigzagging Toward The Light” (Official Video)

Conor Oberst’s new album Upside Down Mountain is his first in a few years, and part of the reason he’s taken so long between records is that he was working on a sci-fi screenplay for his Monsters Of Folk project. Oberst doesn’t think that anything will ever happen with the movie, but it seems possible that some of its ideas crept into Oberst’s new video for the Upside Down Mountain song “Zigzagging Toward The Light,” the same song Oberst performed on The Tonight Show last week. The video is set in New York 10 years into the future, and it looks outwardly the same, but Oberst spends much of the video talking to an automated, omnipresent female voice. The black-and-white clip takes an unexpected turn toward the end, and apparently its story will continue later. David Altobelli directs.

Kool A.D. - “Word” (Official Video) (NSFW)

Before today, the former Das Racist rapper Kool A.D. had released three videos from his strong Word O.K. mixtape — for “Open Letter,” “Tight,” and “I’m On A Plane,” and all of them were pretty good. All of them have to bow down, though to the majestic and deeply NSFW new “Word” video. In the clip, Kool A.D. imagines himself as a stoner cartoon dog who hallucinates his way to hell after rapping, fucking, watching TV, and engaging in a high-speed chase and shootout with a skeleton policeman. Kool A.D. himself co-directs with Teddy O’Connor. It’s all hysterically perverse in that Fritz The Cat sort of way.

Mykki Blanco - “She Gutta” (Official Video)

Mykki Blanco only ever makes awesome videos. And after being arrested in Portugal “for being gay,” the confrontational New York-based has made a video for the recent single “She Gutta” that’s politically charged but messy; you’re never entirely sure what’s going on. The video takes place in a gang-ravaged, drone-plagued near-future Los Angeles, and it starts out with jangled and chaotic mock news footage before following a crew of players in this brave new world through hookups and rumbles. Jude MC directs.

Lower - “Soft Option” (Official Video)

Danish post-punk quartet Lower are part of the scene that also birthed the excellent Iceage, and while the two bands have many similarities, Lower’s music is more melodic, less abrasive, than that of their counterparts — though it’s equally great. “Soft Option” is the third single to be released from Lower’s forthcoming Matador debut, Seek Warmer Climes, and it’s paired here with a video. Directed by Kristian Emdal, the clip captures the four band members in a tense meeting: AA? Plotting a bank job? Trying to agree on a T-shirt design? In any case, it’s soundtracked by fantastic song.

Greys - “Use Your Delusion” (Official Video)

In the video for “Guy Picciotto,” the first single from their album If Anything, the members of the furious Toronto post-hardcore Band To Watch Greys threw a speaker cabinet from the roof of a building. In their video for “Use Your Delusion,” the album’s steamrolling second single, they use a speaker cabinet, transgressively enough, to make music. Director Amanda Fotes films the band playing in a bare room, and though she speeds up and slows down the film dramatically, she mostly stays out of their way. Also, there’s a scene where they all play with yo-yos.

Trash Talk - “The Hole” (Official Video)

Today, berserk hardcore road warriors Trash Talk released No Peace, their furious new album, and we named it our Album Of The Week. Around the same time we were posting that, the band shared their new video for “The Hole,” a two-minute blast of rage from the album. Directed by Focus Creeps, the video is a quick-cutting, digitally distorted blur of unrelated imagery that somehow sums up this band’s entire ethos: Skateboards, axes, weed smoke, four-wheelers, pitbull puppies, sweaty live-show footage, one guy who’s on fire. It is urgent.

Fear Of Men - “Descent” (Official Video)

Fear Of Men’s gorgeous new album, Loom, covers a lot of emotional ground, and on tracks like “Waterfall” and “Luna,” it’s almost easy to be distracted from the lyrical intensity just because it all just sounds so good. Their new video for “Descent” features subtitles of the lyrics to pair with the story of a couple that lives in surreal, exaggerated co-dependancy. The visuals seem abstract at first, but with the lyrics playing out on screen as they do, the story grows into something much more relatable.

Dinowalrus - “Tropical Depression” (Official Video)

We’ve already heard some really good music from Dinowalrus’ upcoming Jorge Elbrecht-produced album, Complexion, a record that has been a while in the works. We first heard the spaced-out “Grounded” nearly two years ago, and more recently, the dazzling “Psychic Pharmacy.” The band also released the guitar-driven “Tropical Depression,” and now frontman Peter Feigenbaum has directed a video for the track, which finds the band playing through tons of trippy filters.

Mac DeMarco - “Passing Out Pieces” (Official Video) (NSFW-ish)

“Passing Out Pieces,” the first single from Mac DeMarco’s new album Salad Days, is a pretty, vaporous thing, so of course the video is a nonsensical hardcore bloodfest. Pierce McGarry, the bassist in DeMarco’s band, directed the exceedingly low-budget video, which captures DeMarco running around and gorily murdering people for the slightest of reasons. It’s the Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer of goofy indie rock videos. Also, there’s a scene where DeMarco gives birth.

2NE1 - “Gotta Be You” (Official Video)

2NE1 – “Gotta Be You” (Dir. Han Samin)

Those colors! That gold! The suits that look like Madballs! I am helpless before certain things, and suits that look like Madballs are among those things.

People Get Ready - “Physiques” (Official Video)

“Physiques,” a tricky song from the experimental pop group People Get Ready, is the title track for the band’s new album, which Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier produced. In the song’s brand-new video, frontman Steven Reker stages modern dance performances in a succession of unlikely venues: A farm, a raquetball court, a soccer field. Reker has done choreography for Miranda July, and he dances like a guy who has done choreography for Miranda July. It’s a very prettily shot video with some neat pieces of visual symmetry, and it’s more fun to watch than videos involving modern dance usually are.

Sam Smith - “Leave Your Lover” (Official Video)

Sam Smith made his name singing smooth, gliding dance-pop songs, but the British soul singer seems to be changing course before his debut album In The Lonely Hour is even out, moving into slick but emotive blue-eyed soul territory. His new single “Leave Your Lover,” like “Stay With Me” before it, is a soft-focus piano-soul ballad. Smith spends the video carousing through London with a pair of friends, and there’s clearly some sort of love-triangle dynamic going on, but it takes a while to figure out who’s into whom.

Alexis Taylor - “Without A Crutch (2)” (Official Video)

When Hot Chip singer Alexis Taylor announced his solo album Await Barbarians, we learned it would more of a low-key chill sesh than one of Hot Chip’s trademark quirky synthpop excursions. Lead single “Elvis Has Left The Building” certainly swung that way. Now Taylor has unveiled a second song from the project, “Without A Crutch (2).” It’s a gentle lullaby of a ballad carried along by crisp drums and warm organic sounds like banjo and piano, topped off by Taylor’s angelic tenor as per usual. The video is not much to speak of, but it allows you to hear the song.

Major Lazer – “Come On To Me” (Feat. Sean Paul) Video

At this point, after “Scare Me,” “Bubble Butt,” and so many more, we can count on Major Lazer to put together a very entertaining music video. In the clip for the Apocalypse Soon EP’s Sean Paul collab “Come On To Me,” director Ruben Fleischer (probably best known for M.I.A.’s “Galang” video) incorporates kabuki actors and taiko drums. It’s fun to watch and compared to Avril Lavigne’s recent choices it’s pretty tame on the whole Japanese-cultural-appropriation scale.

Kiesza - "What Is Love" (Official Video)

We last saw Kiesza evoking the ’90s with her street dancing in the “Hideaway” video. Now she’s giving the full Sinead treatment to Haddaway’s “What Is Love,” best known as the Night At The Roxbury song. Can’t really bob your head to Kiesza’s version, though.

Tiësto - "Wasted" (Lyric Video) ft. Matthew Koma

With “Wasted,” Tiësto is openly vying for “song of the summer” status. Really puts a cheery spin on paralyzing emptiness, huh?

Lorde - "Tennis Court" (Flume Remix) Video

Official audio for the Flume Remix of Lorde 'Tennis Court'.

Katy Perry - “Birthday” (Official Video)

Official video for Katy Perry's "Birthday" directed by Marc Klasfeld and Danny Lockwood, produced by Dawn Rose.

Avril Lavigne - "Hello Kitty" (Official Video)

Oh boi. Just last week we were celebrating young Avril’s role in blurring the lines between punk and teen pop. Now your motherfucking princess has gone and made this monstrosity of a video, following in the wake of her spiritual forebear Gwen Stefani by turning the Japanese into accessories, in doing so bidding “See ya later, boy” to what remains of the goodwill she built up with her excellent run of early singles. Why’d she have to go and make things so complicated? So much for her happy ending, et al.

Basement Jaxx - “Unicorn” (Official Video)

The great ADD dance duo Basement Jaxx are coming back later this summer with Junto, their first album in five years, and they’ve just made a frantic, bizarre video for “Unicorn,” its euphoric first single. The clip comes from the animator Tomek Ducki, and it stars a dancing cartoon unicorn, who anchors a cast of freaky-looking colorful geometric figurines. It might not replace the “Where’s Your Head At?” video in your heart, but it’s still a hallucinatory way to spend four minutes.

Young & Sick - “Heartache Fetish” (Official Video)

“Heartache Fetish” is one of many fine specimens from Young & Sick’s self-titled debut. Now the silicon soul track has a video set in Southeast Asia that bathes vast nature scenes and intimate closeups alike in a faint reddish hue. It’s as pretty as the song.

Riff Raff - “How To Be The Man” (Official Video)

Texas rap absurdist Riff Raff has been talking up Neon Icon, his for-real debut album, for what feels like years, and the album finally has a firm release date. It’s out next month, and it’ll have appearances from people like Amber Coffman, Childish Gambino, Mac Miller, Slim Thug, and Paul Wall. To celebrate, Riff just shared the brand-new video for “How To Be The Man,” the DJ Mustard-produced single that he dropped last year. The clip plays like a higher-budget version of Riff’s usual ball-out YouTube videos, and it finds Riff spending quality time with a quartet of models and a classroom full of adorable kids.

Young Iranians Arrested For Dancing To Pharrell’s “Happy”

In certain circumstances, even profoundly goofy pop music can have serious human stakes. Around the world, people are uploading videos of themselves dancing to Pharrell’s “Happy,” about as inoffensive a pop song as you can possibly imagine. But when a group of young Iranians uploaded a video of themselves dancing — not particularly salaciously — and called it “Happy We Are From Tehran,” Tehran police arrested and interrogated all of them. As the Huffington Post points out, Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia, who arrested seven or eight of the dancers in the video, calls the video “a vulgar clip which hurt public chastity” and adds that “Our dear youths should try to avoid these kinds of people. Like actors, singers, and these kinds of problems. Try to avoid it.” Below, watch the offending video and the news report about the young people being interrogated.

The Knife – “Without You My Life Would Be Boring (Shaken-Up Version)” Video

The Knife have altered many of their songs for the wildly theatrical stage show they’ve been touring through North America, and now those reworkings will be available on record. A mini-album called Shaken-Up Versions compiles new versions of songs from throughout the group’s discography. To kick things off, director Bitte Anderson has contributed a wonderful video for the “shaken-up version” of Shaking The Habitual track “Without You My Life Would Be Boring.” It features red-clad musicians and dancers tossing around a ball of energy that inspires everyone in a hospital waiting room to joyously cut loose.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat - “Laughing” (Official Music Video)

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat just finished tearing it up as Future Islands’ opener, and today they put out Party Jail, the follow up to their incendiary debut, Jazz Mind, after a series of great singles including “Pantomime Jack,” “Televan,” and “Pink Moons.” To mark that release the band enlisted Dylan Going to make a video for album cut “Laughing.” It follows a man in a bondage mask (whose casual manner reminds me of Jon Glaser’s perpetually ski-mask-wearing hero from Delocated) as he tries out online dating.

Starting just days after the release of Hypnotic Eye, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (with special guest Steve Winwood!) will trek across North America and back. Based on Petty’s set at Hangout last year, this is one classic rock legacy tour worth pouring your paycheck into. To announce this jaunt, the band released a promo video featuring Petty goofing off around an old-fashioned stereo that seems to be playing snippets of music from the new album. The preview at least partially confirms the notion that Hypnotic Eye is a return to the Heartbreakers’ ’70s sound.

Schoolboy Q - “Hoover Street” (Official Video)

Schoolboy Q has already made a pile of videos for songs from his 2014 breakout album Oxymoron, and the latest is for the growing-up-in-gangland reminisce “Hoover Street.” The song is maybe the most poignant on the album, and it’s all about a young Q his childhood encounters with crime and with gang life. In the video, directed by Yellow Nguyen and Moosa, a couple of child actors portray the rapper as a kid. It’s a fairly obvious video treatment, but it’s done effectively, and the song is just great.

Hamilton Leithauser - “I Retired” (Feat. Rostam Batmanglij) Lyric Video

Hamilton Leithauser, the once and perhaps future Walkmen frontman, is a couple of weeks away from releasing Black Hours, his elegantly beaten-down solo debut. Leithauser worked with a host of new collaborators on the LP, including Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, who produced the lead single “Alexandra.” Batmanglij also produced the album track “I Retired,” a loping tune that shows trace elements of old-school country and doo-wop. Leithauser sang and played acoustic guitar on the song, while Batmanglij contributed piano, bass, harpsichord, and backing vocals. Leithauser stars in a new lyric video for the song, spending most of it on the ground after getting knocked on his ass.

Mirel Wagner - “Oak Tree” (Official Video)

Mirel Wagner return with her second album, When The Cellar Children See The Light Of Day. Rather than self-recording, it surprisingly finds Wagner working with dance producer Vladislav Delay, better known by his moniker Luomo, who crafted the 2000 house classic Vocalcity. That pairing might seem strange, but it’s actually a stroke of brilliance. Vocalcity’s greatest achievement was its truly genius sound design especially in regard to the human voice, and that’s exactly what Delay brings to Wagner’s stark, funereal sound. The first single, “Oak Tree,” is absolutely cavernous, as Wagner intones her dark tale, singing from the perspective of a buried corpse as multi-tracked vocals gently moan in the distance. It’s a devastating piece of music that nearly demands a listen on headphones. In addition to Delay, the album features contributions from Oscar winning composer Craig Armstrong. Watch the unsettling video (directed by Wagner and Aki Roukala).

Die Antwoord - “Pitbull Terrier” Official Video (NSFW-ish)

Hands up: Who guessed that Die Antwoord would make it to album number three? The mind-boggling South African rave-rappers are still finding new ways to fuck with our collective brain, and their new album Donker Mag lands next month. “Cookie Thumper,” which already has a video, is the only track on the album we’ve heard before today. (Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs contributes to one track, which should be interesting.) Group member Ninja directed the video for lead single “Pitbull Terrier,” and the clip finds him scampering around in a rubber dog mask, murdering indiscriminately and pulling off some pretty impressive stunt work. Among the dead: Someone doing an impression of the rapper Pitbull. Die Antwoord have, over the years, set a remarkably high bar for “entertainingly disturbing music videos,” and this one clears that bar. Below, watch it and check out the Donker Mag tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Dont Fuk Me”
02 “Ugly Boy”
03 “Happy Go Sucky Fucky”
04 “Zars”
05 “Raging Zef Boner”
06 “Pompie”
07 “Cookie Thumper!”
08 “Girl I Want 2 Eat U”
09 “Pitbull Terrier”
10 “Strunk”
11 “Do Not Fuk Wif Da Kid”
12 “Rat Trap 666″ (Feat. DJ Muggs)
13 “I Dont Dwank”
14 “Sex”
15 “Moon Love”
16 “Donker Mag”

DJ Dodger Stadium - “Love Songs” (Official Video)

DJ Dodger Stadium is the techno partnership between Jerome LOL and Samo Sound Boy, the Los-Angeles-based founders of the Body High imprint. They’ve been a going concern since 2011, and they’re about to drop their full-length debut, entitled Friend Of Mine. Lead single “Love Songs” is an absolute physical and emotional crusher, a rising tidal wave of mechanical noises and melancholy sentiments. “Lately I’ve been singing love songs by myself” goes the sample, which, fuck. The music is said to an aerial view of LA by director Daniel Pappas (apparently filmed by drone cameras) that just perfectly fits with the feelings the song evokes. “It was the first track we wrote for our album and [it] ended up setting the tone for the whole thing,” Samo tells The Fader. “It’s about heartbreak and the hypnotic loneliness of Los Angeles.” It’s gorgeous; listen below.

Lee Ranaldo And The Dust - “Blackt Out” (Official Video)

Since the end of Sonic Youth, guitarist Lee Ranaldo put together his new band the Dust (which features Alan Licht and SY drummer Steve Shelley) and released their album Last Night On Earth. That LP closed with “Blackt Out,” an epic 12-minute guitar workout for which Fred Riedel has now directed a video. In addition to some concert footage, it features the band playing in Sonic Youth’s Hoboken, NJ studio and is shot in a style that pays homage to Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. When describing that influence, Ranaldo told Nowness: “When Warhol was here young people could live very cheaply, but it’s still a place where different creative disciplines bump up against each other. That’s been part of its character since the 1920s and that’s not going to change.”

Sia - "Chandelier" (Official Video) and Watch Sia & Maddie Ziegler Recreate The “Chandelier” Video On Ellen

The official director's cut for "Chandelier" directed by Sia and Daniel Askill, featuring Maddie Ziegler of Dance Moms. Download "Chandelier" on iTuneshttp://smarturl.it/SiaChandelier New album "1000 Forms of Fear" out July 8th.

Watch Sia & Maddie Ziegler Recreate The “Chandelier” Video On Ellen

When Sia’s “Chandelier” hit the internet back in March, staggeringly triumphant ascendance to the heavens that it is. Since then the song’s official music video, starring 11-year-old Maddie Ziegler of Dance Moms doing a wild modern dance routine, has racked up more than 10 million views. Sia and Ziegler went on Ellen today to recreate the video live. Sia stood at the rear of the stage with her back to the audience (her album is called 1000 Forms Of Fear, after all), which maybe goes to show she’s not ready to step out from behind the curtain? Her voice suggests otherwise, of course. Watch it all happen below.

Watch The Sad, Animated Video PETA Made For Morrissey

Morrissey has never been shy about any of his views, but he’s been an especially vocal advocate of animal rights over the past 30 years. The latest manifestation of this crusade is a PETA-produced animated video. As explained on YouTube, “The video takes viewers on a harrowing journey as they witness — through the eyes of one terrified bird — the typical experience of chickens raised for meat. Will our young chick survive what 8 billion chickens each year cannot?” In a clever bit of repurposing, the action comes soundtracked by Your Arsenal jam “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday.”

Mutual Benefit - “Let’s Play/Statue Of A Man” (Official Video)

Mutual Benefit, Jordan Lee’s impressionistic Ohio chamber-folk Mutual Benefit have a new video for “Let’s Play/Statue Of A Man,” a song from their much-loved 2013 debut album Love’s Crushing Diamond. Lee and director Stefan Grabowski shot the video over the course of six months, using 16mm cameras and experimental techniques and capturing Lee up close with nature. The result has the look of a shaggy, low-budget ’70s road movie, and it has some of the refracted prettiness of the song itself.

M.I.A. - “Double Bubble Trouble” (Official Video)

Last week, M.I.A. gave a fascinatingly berserk performance of “Double Bubble Trouble,” a song from her 2013 album Matangi, on Late Night With Seth Meyers. She surrounded herself with neon drone cameras, uzi-clutching attendants, an amazing dirtbag dancer, and various other right-this-minute cultural artifacts, and now she’s put them all into the raw, frantic “Double Bubble Trouble” video, which she directed herself. The video doesn’t have any real plotline, but it fixates on weed-smoke bubbles, dance crews, and guns made with 3D printers. There is a very good chance it will hurt your eyes. Check it out below.

Line & Circle - "Mine Is Mine" (Official Video)

Line & Circle’s “Mine Is Mine” already sounded plenty melancholy when we first heard it this winter, and their new video for the song provides just the right visual accompaniment now that it’s spring. Director Jordan Satmary follows the silent female protagonist as she walks around an alienating city. There’s a longing and loneliness throughout; even when she wakes up next to someone (whose face we never see) the distance is always present. Gradually the video becomes uplifting as she begins to walk and observe nature in a park, moments repeat with new feeling (laying on a hotel room floor vs. laying in the grass) and what was once cold becomes warm.

Boris - “Vanilla” (Official Video)

On their upcoming Noise Boris revisit the riff-happy psych-metal of older releases like Pink and Akuma No Uta. That return to heaviness was apparent as soon as you hit play on the seven minute single “Quicksilver,” but even though “Vanilla” is a shorter song, it delivers even more with this video. The clip shows the band playing through clouds of smoke and flashing lights, letting you savor every sweet double-neck guitar solo, cymbal crash, and bad-ass stare into the camera. It’s a blast.

Arcade Fire - “We Exist” Official Video (Feat. Andrew Garfield)

Arcade Fire’s “We Exist” is the Reflektor song about a son telling his father that he’s gay, and a few weeks ago, the band posted a teaser for its music video. That teaser featured Andrew Garfield, currently playing Spider-Man in every multiplex in America, dressed in drag during Arcade Fire’s Coachella set. As it turns out, that Coachella scene is the glammed-out climax of the video, which starts out with Garfield trying to find ways to change gender identity in a repressive redneck town. Things go from hate-crime seriousness to fantastical hallucination really quickly, and Garfield absolutely commits to the role, taking it to holy-shit levels. The video is an effective piece of work.

Paul McCartney - “Appreciate” (Official Video)

In Paul McCartney’s video for NEW single “Appreciate” — presented by Microsoft, incidentally — Macca is busted out of the human museum by his new buddy Newman the robot. Is it goofy? Of course! Endearing? Certainly. Here’s the concept as explained in a press release:

The video sees Newman on patrol in a museum of humans. Newman is drawn to one exhibition in particular. In a dimly lit sound studio he sees Paul McCartney sitting on a stool holding his iconic hofner bass guitar. Paul twitches making a sound on the guitar and to Newman’s astonishment he starts to come to life as the song “Appreciate” starts up. Paul comes closer to Newman staring at him through a force field that encloses him. Newman reaches through the force field and pulls Paul out of his exhibition. As the two of them move around the museum all the exhibitions start coming to life too.

And a little more from the mouth of McCartney himself:

I woke up one morning with an image in my head of me standing with a large robot. I thought it might be something that could be used for the cover of my album NEW but instead the idea turned out to be for my music video for “Appreciate.” Together with the people who had done the puppetry for the worldwide hit War Horse we developed the robot who became Newman.

There you have it. The song is good, the video is fun, and if we were living in the prime MTV/VH1 era we’d be seeing this thing all day every day. Andre Chocron directed, and Mervyn Millar and Ed Dimbleby designed Newman for Significant Object Ltd. Say “Hello, Newman”.

Morrissey - “The Bullfighter Dies” & “Instanbul” Spoken Word Videos

Morrissey - "The Bullfighter Dies" promo video
Directed by: Natalie Johns

UPDATE: And there’s one for “Instanbul” at Rolling Stone.


℗ 2014 Morrissey, Under Exclusive License To Harvest Records
Courtesy of Universal Music Group

Bars Of Gold - “Blue Lightning” (Official Video)

We named soulful Michigan post-punk powerhouse Bars Of Gold a Band To Watch last year, and now you can finally watch them for real. “Blue Lightning” was our first taste of the quintet’s striking sophomore effort Wheels, and now it’s become the album’s first video too. Watch the band members’ faces get morphed and molested in the clip.

Röyksopp & Robyn - “Sayit” (Official Video)

Robyn recently got together with the Norwegian production team Röyksopp to put together Do It Again, a collaborative EP that’ll be out next week. Today, we get the H&M-produced video for “Sayit,” a pulsing electro track that feels more like a Röyksopp affair than a Robyn one. Sandberg & Timonen directed the glitchy black-and-white clip, which comes with a ton of digital distortion. Robyn co-stars with two masked future-thugs and a talking dog with a Speak & Spell voice. It’s a weird one.

Michael Jackson - "Slave To The Rhythm" (Billboard Music Awards 2014) Watch Hologram Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson - Slave To The Rhythm
Optimum Productions & Pulse Evolution

The Roots - "Understand" (Official Music Video)

The Roots recently released their new album …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin and now have a new stop-motion video for the track “Understand.” Stop-motion is so entertaining that the medium usually just sells itself, but creator Joe Baughman adds some thought-provoking imagery by emphasizing money and religious materials (collection plates, bibles, and communion wine) throughout.

Pictureplane - “Self Control” (Official Music Video)

It’s been about three years since the Denver producer Pictureplane broke us off with his great Thee Physical album, and while he’s not ready to let us know about any new LPs he has in the work, he’s just made an immersive, stylish-as-hell video for a pulsing new track called “Self Control.” Pictureplane has moved to New York since he released Thee Physical, and that’s the setting of the new video. But really, it takes place in 1993′s image of the future: virtual reality headsets, concrete-bunker raves, fingerless gloves, nose chains. Pictureplane himself co-directed it with Shomi Patwary. And it’s awesome.

Le1f - “Sup” (Official Video)

Back in March, the New York club-rapper Le1f released his Hey EP, which brought everything good he’d done on his mixtapes together into one short burst of creativity. Today, he gives us the video for his dancehall-leaning track “Sup,” maybe the most futuristic-sounding track on a very futuristic EP. In director Jesse Miller-Gordon’s clip, Le1f is the only person onscreen, and he wanders through a deserted wooded landscape that looks vaguely post-apocalyptic. The video takes a turn toward straight-up sci-fi just as it ends, but the whole thing feels like a good comic book.

Deleted Scenes - “Landfall” (Official Video)

Deleted Scenes’ video for Lithium Burn indie rock ballad “Landfall” involves Dan Scheuerman loading a body out of his trunk, into a boat, and into the bottom of a lake. Who’s in the bag? Watch and learn below while Deleted Scenes splits the difference between Radiohead and Ben Folds Five (in a good way). Ben Usie directs.

Tycho - “See” (Official Video)

Earlier this year downtempo guru Tycho released Awake (which included the hypnotic “Spectre“) and now Bradley G. Munkowitz has directed an exquisitely shot video to go along with the track “See.” In it a young woman wakes up in the forest surrounded by a series of mysterious tools, each of which she needs on a sort of psychedelic journey. It’s not immediately clear what any of it is really about, but it provides an incredible visual to Tycho’s stargazing sounds.

White Lung - “Face Down” (Official Video)

The forthcoming third album from Vancouver’s White Lung, Deep Fantasy, is one of the best things I’ve heard this year — it’s a frenzied, passionate, articulate punk record that recalls a bunch of riot grrrl (and riot grrrl-adjacent) acts, but updates that sound by being altogether faster, more agile, heavier, and catchier than any of its ancestors individually. Every song thus far released from Deep Fantasy has expanded on what the listener can expect from the whole: first the punishing “Drown With The Monster,” then hooked-out “Snake Jaw,” and now “Face Down,” which comes with a grainy home video of the group fucking around in the car, on the beach, being cooler and having more fun than everyone else in the world without even trying to do either.

Hockeysmith - "Hesitate" (Official Video)

Here is the new video from Cornish sisters Annie and Georgie Hockeysmith, who spent most of the last year living and making music in a caravan on a farm in Falmouth. The track "Hesitate" follows on from their last single "But Blood" and features on their upcoming EP of the same name, out May 26th.

HOCKEYSMITH VIDEO CREDITS

Director Laura Coulson
Producer Suze Olbrich
Director of Photography Arthur Mulhern
Camera Assistant Charlie Creed
Styling Bertie Brandes
Hair and Make Up Laura Joan Pearson
Editor Lucy Berry @ Final Cut
Colour Holly Greig @ Finish

Cam’ron & A-Trak - “Dipshits” (Feat. Juelz Santana) Video

If you were a certain type of rap fan in the early-to-mid-’00s, get ready to feel a wave of nostalgia blow you completely over. Cam’ron has lately been working on Federal Reserve, a new collaborative EP with A-Trak, and first single “Humphrey” captured some of that old Dipset magic. The new video for “Dipshits” has a whole lot more of it. A-Trak co-produced the song with Oliver and with Just Blaze, the latter of whom is partially responsible for some of Cam’s greatest tracks. (Just hearing him yell “Just Blaaaaze” on an intro is enough to send knives of longing through my gut.) Cam raps his ass off on the track, and it’s got Juelz Santana on the hook. Old friends Jim Jones and Dame Dash show up in the video, all of which takes place on grimy Harlem street corners and basketball courts and stairwells. It’s not all revival; the video offers the curious spectacle of a Cat Power cameo in a Cam’ron video. But mostly, it’s very much a retro move, and an effective one. Ricky Saiz directed the video.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "As Always" (Official Video)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's new album Only Run is out June 3, and today, they've shared a video from the album. The clip for "As Always", directed by David M. Helman, finds a man (played by Wil Daniels) engaging in a night of debauchery, ending in an explosive twist ending.

Michael Jackson & Justin Timberlake - “Love Never Felt So Good” (Official Video)

The posthumous Michael Jackson album Xscape is out this week. So is the video for the Justin Timberlake duet “Love Never Felt So Good,” which matches archival clips of the late MJ with new footage of JT and lots of enthusiastic dancers and lip-syncers. Like Xscape itself, the video is a lot more fun than you might think.

Damon Albarn - “Mr. Tembo” (Official Video)

I think I missed my chance to write at length about Damon Albarn’s solo debut, Everyday Robots, which I regret, because it’s a record deserving of meditation, and frankly, I have a lot to say about it! Oh well. For what it’s worth, my favorite track on the LP (or one of my two favorites, anyway) is “Mr. Tembo,” an unusually bright and cheerful song Albarn wrote for a baby elephant he met while visiting Tanzania. I’m not always partial to Albarn’s jauntier musical moments — I greatly prefer “The Universal” to “Country House,” for instance — but Everyday Robots is otherwise such a dour, introspective album that such a bright spot is not only welcome but pretty remarkable. Plus, I love elephants. (Who doesn’t?) Anyway, some grainy footage of the real-life Mr. Tembo is featured in Albarn’s video for the song — the small elephant certainly appears to be a worthy subject, and Albarn’s unusual, joyous ode captures the essence of his muse.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - “Until The Sun Explodes” (Official Video)

Days Of Abandon, the latest batch of gorgeously gleaming indie-pop from the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, is out this week. To mark the occasion, the band has released a video for “Until The Sun Explodes,” which depicts them as members of Jem And The Holograms. The song is straight fire, and the visuals provide an equally satisfying sugar rush.

Lower - “Bastard Tactics” (Official Video)

Fearsome Copenhagen experimental punks Lower are gearing up for their Matador debut, Seek Warmer Climes, and today they unveil a live performance of one of its tracks. The song is called “Bastard Tactics,” which should probably be enough to grab your attention right there, but Lower has also issued this statement about it:

The song is concerned with the pursuit of company in night life, and the realization that the way we have come to praise this is not always in vogue with what it really does to people. Losing your true self and awkwardly resorting to bastard tactics to bring in game, is a universal feeling. Human music, Copenhagen 2014.

clipping. - “Work Work (Feat. Cocc Pistol Cree)” Official Video

As if rap group clipping.’s “Work Work” wasn’t already intense enough, now the group has teamed with director Carlos Lopez Estrada to up the ante. Daveed Diggs raps the entire track while biting a curb as a shoe presses down on his head. In the best moment, the camera pans up to reveal the shoe belongs to guest rapper Cocc Pistol Cree just as she delivers her verse, a reminder that her memorable track, “LadyKilla,” on DJ Mustard’s Ketchup, was not a fluke.

The Underachievers - “Chrysalis” (Official Video)

After releasing a pair of strong mixtapes, Indigoism and The Lords Of Flatbush, deeply promising Brooklyn rap duo the Underachievers are at work on The Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium, their proper debut album. The hazy lead single “Chrysalis” now has a trippy, stylish video, one that uses all sorts of murky filters and woozy cinematography tricks to make Issa Dash and Ak look like demons wandering the edges of your consciousness. And for some reason, when you’re actually watching them, it becomes even more obvious that these two can just flat-out rap.

Sharon Van Etten - “Every Time The Sun Comes Up” (Official Video)

Sharon Van Etten’s new album Are We There ends with “Every Time The Sun Comes Up,” a gorgeous soft-focus ballad that may be one of the best songs she’s ever written. The song’s brand-new video, from director David Scott Kessler, focuses on an old-school horror-movie TV host, one of the theatrical ghouls who used to hold down the UHF channels late at night. (Think Svengoolie in Chicago, one of the last of his breed to still be doing it.) We see the host contemplate his aging and his mortality while, at the same time, fulfilling the important work of scaring kids and waving around wiggly tarantulas. Van Etten appears as a stagehand.

Fucked Up - “Sun Glass” (Official Video)

Fucked Up’s excellent new album Glass Boys is out in a few short weeks, and you should be excited. We’ve posted the early songs “Paper The House” and “Led By Hand,” and now they’ve got a video for another one, the prettily roiling “Sun Glass.” There’s no grand narrative concept to this video. It’s just the band looking cool in a few different scenarios — playing a show for a fervid crowd, walking through a cemetery while eating ice cream cones, blowing smoke at cameras. Fucked Up co-leader Mike Haliechuk co-directed the video with Vice’s Andy Capper.

First Aid Kit - “My Silver Lining” (Official Video)

The folk-harmonizing Swedish sisters in First Aid Kit sing backup all over Conor Oberst’s new album Upside Down Mountain, and they’re also about to release their own new LP Stay Gold, which they recorded in Omaha with Oberst buddy Mike Mogis. We’ve already posted their early single “Cedar Lane,” but that was actually the second single from the album, and now they’ve made a video for “My Silver Lining,” the first. The clip stars the two sisters as spooky types doing spooky things: Riding in a car with an invisible driver, shooting lightning from their fingertips, hanging out with owls. Elliott Sellers directed the visually lush video.

Morrissey - “World Peace Is None Of Your Business” (Official Video)

Morrissey is finally set to release his new album World Peace Is None Of Your Business this summer, and he debuted the title track onstage in San Jose last week. Today, he’s got a new video, but it’s not quite a music video and not quite a teaser. In the clip, he wears a tuxedo and sits at a tuxedo, reciting the lyrics to “World Peace Is None Of Your Business,” a song about the masses’ political impotence, over some tinkly hotel-lounge jazz piano. Nancy Sinatra brings him a briefcase full of flowers. There are levels of archness and irony going on here, and it’s a fun thing to puzzle out. Natalie Johns directed.

Vic Mensa - “Down On My Luck” (Official Video)

The young Chicago rapper and Chance The Rapper buddy Vic Mensa established himself as a sharp up-and-comer on last year’s Innanetape mixtape, and the one-offs he’s released since then have been strong, too. His latest, “Down On My Luck” is a graceful Chicago house glide with precious little actual rapping, and its video, from director Ben Dickinson, has a fun nightclub-Groundhog Day premise. At the club, Mensa learns, though trial and error, how to avoid everything that’s going to fuck up his night.

Young Thug - “Stoner” (Official Video)

Atlanta rap weirdo Young Thug has risen from cult favorite to underground stardom this year, and it’s mostly been on the strength of two songs, “Stoner” and “Danny Glover.” Director Be El Be just made a video for the former, and while it’s more low-budget than you might expect, it’s full of delightfully oblique little touches: Willie Nelson posters, strobe lights, Birdman handrubs, blindingly red fur hats, hallucinating-idiot comedy sketches.

Eugene McGuinness - “Godiva” (Official Video)

Eugene McGuinness is a Londoner whose strutting, self-assured postpunk has a sort of graphic-design precision to it. McGuinness just announced the impending release of his new album Chroma, which he calls “a direct, stripped-back guitar album” and which features “Fairlight,” the single he released last year. The ThirtyTwo-directed video for “Godiva,” the lean and efficient album opener, works as a “guitar face portraiture project,” a series of images of the grimaces that dudes will inevitably make while shredding.

You Blew It! - “Award Of The Year Award” Interactive 3D Video

Quite possibly the best song on You Blew It!’s old-school emo blast Keep Doing What You’re Doing is “Award Of The Year Award,” the fist-pumper with the urgent tempo and the memorable lyric “You can always consider me a friend/ Just strictly in the past tense.” Now the song has an interactive 3D performance video by director Jeremy Silveira. Spin the band and their costumed buddies around below, where you can also watch a standard YouTube version.

Mogwai - “Simon Ferocious” (Official Video)

Post-rock royalty Mogwai have always been skilled at hitting those big awe-inspiring moments in their music, so it’s almost a surprise they hadn’t jumped on this video concept before. The Antony Crook-directed clip for “Simon Ferocious” (off their recently released Rave Tapes) lays the song out under gorgeously shot footage of a pair of skydivers doing a jump. It’s exactly the sort of thing you’d picture when listening to the band.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy - “Bad Man” Video

Last year Will Oldham released a self-titled album as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, which is a bit surprising since he’s been using the moniker for nearly 15 years at this point. Now Dutch director Claudia Crobatia has shared a video for the song “Bad Man” which features Oldham singing directly to the camera in the center of the screen, along with footage of a dog with a human mask strolling around Amsterdam.

Eminem - “Headlights” Official Video (Dir. Spike Lee)

Spike Lee has only dabbled in music videos over the years, but he still has a handful of iconic clips on his resume: Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel’s “White Lines (Don’t Do It),” E.U.’s “Da Butt,” Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power,” Naughty By Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray.” And perhaps because he didn’t have any Knicks playoff games to attend this year, he found the time to direct another one, for Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP 2 track “Headlights.” The song, a collaboration with fun. singer Nate Ruess, is about Eminem’s strained relationship with his mother Debbie, and the video, shot entirely in P.O.V., imagines Debbie’s life after losing touch completely with her son. It’s an empathetic piece of work, and it makes me like the song more, which, after all, is what videos are supposed to do. Spike Lee: Pretty good director!

Ben Khan - “Youth” (Official Video)

Ben Khan is a London based artist whose Soundcloud has been straight up exploding. His slick, funk-infused grooves are all too tasty, and his mystique all too alluring and he’s got a new video for “Youth,” a cut off his album 1992. Directed by BRTHR, the video begins with an eerie, wet-knife-in-the-shower scene before being interrupted by the buoyancy of an uncontainable bass line — seriously, you may find yourself dancing at your desk. The video explodes into a series of quickly cycling images, some that make narrative sense, some that don’t — but they all communicate the drama of youth.

Kool A.D. - “I’m On A Plane” (Official Video)

Back in March, the former Das Racist rapper Kool A.D. released Word O.K., perhaps the strongest of the many solo mixtapes he’s released since the demise of his old group. We’ve seen his videos for “Open Letter” and “Tight,” and now he’s got one for the blissfully hazy Nirvana-interpolating zone-out “I’m On A Plane.” The visuals mirror the music: Kool A.D., looking both more hippieish and healthier than we’ve ever seen him, wandering through a sunny landscape while in-camera effects warp him into different shapes. CoolReve directs.

T.I. - “Turn It” (Official Video)

Jeezy’s new banger “Me OK” is not this morning’s only example of a longtime Atlanta rap star going on attack mode. T.I. has a new single called “Turn It,” which sounds like an 808 being used as a jackhammer. He also has a new video for said single, which features Tip arriving via helicopter on an Atlanta rooftop and rapping in a hallway full of fireballs. There is nothing revolutionary about the song or the video, but if you’re the type of person predisposed to enjoy T.I. at his most feral, you will probably enjoy it as much as I do.

Oscar - “Sometimes” (Official Video)

Last month we premiered “Sometimes,” a delightfully Parklife-influenced indie-pop ditty from Oscar’s 146b EP. Now the song has a striking video by Jesse John Jenkins that involves images of Oscar muching on various foodstuffs in a bathtub spliced with women crying their eyes out in the same tub.

Deltron 3030 - “Do You Remember” ft. Jamie Cullum (Official Video)

Deltron 3030 — aka Del The Funky Homosapien, Dan The Automator, and Kid Koala — have released a video for single “Do You Remember,” from the 2013 LP Event II. The video juxtaposes the nostalgic memories of a “simpler time” spoken of by Del (“Not to get too nostalgic but some of those things had value”) and the dark reality of the present. Set in a desolate, almost post-apocalyptic world, the video is beautiful and sad.

Flying Lotus (feat. Laura Darlington) - "Phantasm" (Official Video)

Flying Lotus has shared a video for "Phantasm" off last year's great Until the Quiet Comes. Shot in New Zealand, by Markus Hofko, it's a surreal desert scene focused on two peculiar creatures, including one who transforms throughout the shot. As Hofko writes at Vimeo, "Nice and simple. And complicated." The song itself features vocals from Laura Darlington of the Long Lost.

How To Dress Well - “Repeat Pleasure” (Official Video)

Last month, the insular R&B auteur Tom Krell, better known as How To Dress Well, shared the sharp and lovely “Repeat Pleasure,” the first single from his eagerly awaited new album What Is This Heart?. (He’s also shared another one called “Words I Don’t Remember,” and that’s a good one, too.) “Repeat Pleasure” now has a video, and it’s the first part in a trilogy from creative director Luke Gilford. Johannes Greve Muskat directed this one, and it tells the story of two young people attempting to deal with the illness of a loved one. (It would probably qualify as mumblecore if we could hear them talking.) Krell himself plays a couple of small roles.

2 Chainz - “Trap Back” (Official Video)

“Trap Back” is the first song on Freebase, the ridiculously enjoyable EP-length mixtape that 2 Chainz released on Monday, and its new video, from director Alex Nazari, is a relatively minimal exercise in cartoonish coolness. 2 Chainz spends most of the black-and-white video piloting a low-rider bicycle through Compton, California. He also spends some time rapping outside a car in what appears to be a bathrobe. He appears utterly blissfully unaware that he looks ridiculous, and that right there is a workable definition of cool.

Pearls Negras - “Guerreira” (Official Video)

Pearls Negras are three badass teenage Brazilian rappers, and they earned a Mixtape Of The Week earlier this year for their giddy, bouncy-as-hell Biggie Apple tape. They just came out with a new video for their track “Geurreira,” which isn’t on the tape but which has the same all-out energy as the songs that are. Directors David Alexander, Samuele Apperti, and Riccardo Cellottini film the group riding a military truck through Rio De Janeiro streets and strutting along beaches and through jungles, looking cooler than anyone you know.

Black Bananas – “Physical Emotions” (Official Video)

Just judging from the single art along with the actual music, if someone was going to make a music video out of Black Bananas’ new song “Physical Emotions,” it would need to be pretty ridiculous. Director M. Wartella definitely delivers with this visually loud clip that features Jennifer Herrema playing a magical boom box which then spawns a man not unlike some sort of funk genie. It’s a good time and you can watch.

Big K.R.I.T. - “MT. Olympus” (Official Video)

Big K.R.I.T.’s incensed, fiery Southern-rap fuck-you “MT. Olympus” was one of our favorite songs of last week. The new video is a good one, too, even though K.R.I.T. himself is the only person who appears onscreen the entire time and even though director KRSP’s camera and editing tricks are a bit cheesy. This is the rare rap video that gets over on performance alone — and, even more than that, on the look in the rapper’s eye.

Paloma Faith - "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" (NSFW)(Official Video)

Music video by Paloma Faith performing Only Love Can Hurt Like This. Directed by Denna Cartamkhoob @ SomeSuch & Co

Courtney Love - “You Know My Name” (Official Video)

Directed by Maximilla Lukacs, the clip features a heavily made-up C-Lo trashing a hotel room in decidedly grand fashion — it looks and feels a bit like Sofia Coppola’s ravishing, dreamlike Marie Antoinette.

Hey Dolls! This is the world premiere of my music video, You Know My Name. I'm so excited to be getting back to my rocker roots and doing what I love. I had so much fun making it and I hope you all enjoy it! Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive videos right here: http://bit.ly/CourtneyFan
XX Courtney

Lana Del Rey - “West Coast” (Official Video)

UPDATE: Looks like the video has been pulled, and a new version will be released tomorrow.

For my money, Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast” is one of the best songs of the year, and I say this as someone who’s not historically a fan of Lana Del Rey and totally ambivalent about the music made by the song’s producer, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. This is just a haunting, hypnotic piece of music that sends chills up and down my entire skeleton, especially when the tempo shifts downward on the chorus. Anyway, the new song has a new video, a black-and-white clip of LDR narcotically flitting around some Pacific Ocean shorefront. I don’t think it enhances the song’s power in any particular way, but it’s (wisely) understated enough not to detract from the music. And you can watch it here.

Savages - “Fuckers” (Official Video)

Savages just released a new 12″ single, “Fuckers” b/w “Dream Baby,” and today, the A-side is joined by a video directed by Giorgio Testi. The clip features the band in concert, normally not the most exciting format, but Savages are one of the best live bands on the planet, and I really think hearing them without seeing them is an incomplete experience. Plus, it’s beautifully shot and absolutely captures Savages’ intense live magic over the course of the song’s nine climactic and chaotic minutes. Watch.

Metronomy - "Reservoir" (Official Video)

In support of their new album Love Letters, Metronomy have put out some great music videos, including the Michel Gondry-directed clip for the LP’s title track. Their latest one for the song “Reservoir” is a whimsical, free-flowing cartoon directed by Daniel Brereton and animated by Matt Lloyd.

Mt. Royal - “More” (Official Video)

Mt. Royal brings together members of Baltimore indie-rock greats Celebration, Lake Trout, and touring members of current cause célèbre Future Islands in service of brisk, brawny, bass-driven post-punk. “More,” from the group’s Dave-Fridmann-produced self-titled EP, is a fine example of that sound in which singer Katrina Ford’s breathy exultations unfurl over a slowly intensifying rhythmic churn. Director Derrick Belcham’s video sets the song to visuals of a kid in overalls having a delightful romp through nature involving a beloved stuffed fox. Things take an unexpectedly touching turn at the end.

Usher - “Good Kisser” (Official Video)

The slick video mostly works as a reminder that Usher is a better dancer than you.

Garbage - “Girls Talk” (Feat. Brody Dalle) (Official Video)

Garbage released two songs for Record Store Day this year: “Girls Talk” with Distillers frontwoman Brody Dalle and “Time Will Destroy Everything.” The former now has a video to go along with it, which sees Shirley Manson and Dalle ferociously singing in-studio while the song aggressively builds to a climax where even the camera is shaking around.

Rick Ross - “Thug Cry” (Feat. Lil Wayne) Video

Rick Ross’s “Thug Cry” is a mellow, meditative song from Ross’s not-great new album Mastermind, and its new video, from longtime Ross associate DRE Films, intercuts footage of Ross and Wayne rapping with a larger story. Wood Harris, best known as Avon Barksdale on The Wire, plays a convict just getting out of prison, and the video goes on to show a couple of possible futures for him.

The Head And The Heart - “Summertime” (Official Video)

In addition to animating his own videos, Calgary creative genius Chad VanGaalen sometimes does visuals for his Sub Pop labelmates. We’ve seen him produce rad clips for J Mascis and METZ, and now he’s made some unnervingly beautiful nature scenes for the Head And The Heart’s “Summertime.” The song, for an excellent synth-inflected pop tune from 2013′s Let’s Be Still, marks violinist and backup singer Charity Rose Thielen’s first go-round on lead vocals with the band. Her influence is a big reason why “Summertime” became such a refreshing departure for a band that typically trades in roots-rock. Even without VanGaalen’s wild animations, it would hit like a flash of color.

Chief Keef - “How It Go” (Official Video)

We’ve been hearing for a while that Chief Keef is on the comeback trail. After a couple of disappointing mixtapes, he’s been to rehab, quit drinking lean, and understood how bullshit his recent music has been. And while his new track “How It Go” doesn’t exactly announce a new readiness to dominate the rap landscape, it’s an effective bit of Future-esque Auto-Tuned wheeze-rap. In the barebones new video from director Northstar, a stone Keef stands up tall against the Chicago skyline.

Spanish Gold - “Out On The Street” (Official Video)

Spanish Gold is a new rock band featuring Patrick Hallahan (My Morning Jacket), guitarist Adrian Quesada (formerly of Grupo Fantasma) and guitarist and lead vocalist Dante Schwebel (City and Colour, formerly of Hacienda). They view their music as a product of early MTV, back when the network’s focus was music and a bunch of genres coexisted semi-peacefully on the airwaves. “Out In The Street” captures that spirit of porous genre boundaries, but like Hallahan’s other band MMJ or Schwebel’s buddies the Black Keys, Spanish Gold’s songs are more likely to remind you of a time before MTV even existed. This one is a smooth-riding classic rock track with a rollicking video to match.

Watch A Teaser For Arcade Fire’s “We Exist” Video Starring Andrew Garfield

During Coachella’s second weekend, Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man) appeared in a dress and wig during Arcade Fire’s performance of “We Exist,” the forthcoming Reflektor single about a son explaining to his father that he’s gay. (Before playing the song Win Butler told the crowd, “The right to marry anyone you want is a human rights issue.”) Now it looks like Garfield and the band were actually filming a music video; Arcade Fire just uploaded this teaser for it to YouTube.

Beyoncé - "Pretty Hurts" (Official Video)

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Music video by Beyoncé performing Pretty Hurts. (C) 2013 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment

Beyoncé - Pretty Hurts - Behind The Scene

Doe Paoro - “Walking Backwards” Video

“Walking Backwards,” the excellent single from Doe Paoro’s S. Carey-produced Ink On The Walls EP, now has a video by director Braden Lee. Doe has always been one for elaborate costumed videos, and this one delivers on that front with a crew of ominous-looking robed dancers that might be Sith Lords, ninjas or grim reapers. Notice that Doe’s own robe changes from white to black over the course of the video; try to make out the significance of that as you watch below.

Trash Talk x Flatbush Zombies - “97.92″ (Official Video)

Trash Talk x Flatbush Zombies – “97.92″ (Dir. APLUSFilmz)

Once upon a time, music videos would spring forth from advances in filmmaking technology, and those advances would fuel the ideas behind the video. (Think of the morphing in “Black Or White,” or the live-action/animation rotoscoping happening in “Take On Me.”) This video exists because someone figured out that, if you put a 360-degree camera on a remote-controlled drone, you could take the fisheye-lens visual-distortion principle to freaky, hallucinatory new levels. It just looks awesome.

Porches. - “Leather” Video

Aaron Maine’s experimental pop project Porches. (the period is part of the band’s name) recently released a new split cassette with Mdou Moctar that included the sad and dreamy track “Leather.” Now that song gets a fitting video treatment, which follows Maine around the streets of New York, captured on a grainy lo-fi video.

Tara Jane O’Neil - “Wordless In Woods” Video

Earlier this year Tara Jane O’Neil released a new solo album Where Shines New Light which included the vaporous “Wordless In Woods.” Deeply meditative and tranquil, it has now gotten a video from frequent Jim O’Rourke collaborator Makino Takashi, which wraps footage of trees with a gauzy, summer drenched haze. Visually and aurally it’s a very impressionistic experience.

Arcade Fire - "Normal Person" (with Aaron Paul intro)

The live performance recorded at The Roxy in Los Angeles, CA - April 21, 2014. Air date: May 1, 2014. Aaron Paul being a huge Arcade Fire fan introduces the band.

Riff Raff - “Instagram” (Official Video)

Things have been relatively quiet on the Riff Raff front ever since the mercurial rapper dropped his DJ Mustard-produced single “How To Be The Man” and his Action Bronson collab “I Shoulda Won A Grammy” a couple of months ago. But Riff Raff’s album Neon Icon is supposedly still forthcoming, and now he’s got a short new songs called “Instagram,” a tribute to the girls who take pictures of themselves and then let everyone see those pictures. We, as a society, have now lived long enough that we get to hear a song that uses a Trinidad James sample as a hook. And the video features a lot of girls taking pictures of themselves.

Peter Matthew Bauer - “Philadelphia Raga” (Official Video)

Peter Matthew Bauer continues to make the most of life after the Walkmen. He’s released two songs from his solo debut Liberation!: “Latin American Ficciones” and “Philadelphia Raga.” Now comes the official video for “Philadelphia Raga,” a piece of modern Americana in which Bauer cruises through Philly in the back of a pickup and then crams himself and his backing band into a bar for an intimate performance.

Young Thug & Metro Boomin - “The Blanguage” Video

On their great collaborative track “The Blanguage,” the unstable Atlanta rap molecule Young Thug and the excellent producer Metro Boomin turned Drake’s “The Language” into a hallucinatory, unhinged Auto-Tune smear, a deeply weird rap banger that somehow grows more intoxicating every time I hear it. The song’s new video, from director Cam Kirk, is a deeply halfassed low-budget affair, the kind of thing that unwittingly shows non non-glamorous rap-star life can be (that empty kitchen!). But with its hazy filters and weird lighting, and with the strange image of Thug wearing Ugg boots — it ends up fitting the song nicely anyway.

Maria Minerva - “Galaxy” Video

Maria Minerva recently put out a new album of her signature lo-fi but still glitzy pop music, and now she shares a video for the track “Galaxy.” The Marko Krunic-directed clip drenches a city street in a creepy miasma as the camera shifts in and out of focus. It’s a dreamy, slightly unsettling clip that’s nonetheless oddly glamorous, just like the song.

Sisyphus - “Take Me” Official Video (NSFW)

Sisyphus is Sufjan Stevens’s new art-pop trio with kinda-unlikely collaborators Son Lux and Serengeti, and Stevens seems to be using it as a way to cut loose. Consider, if you will, the “Booty Call” video, a strange piece of party-rap pastiche that threw Sufjan and Serengeti into a room full of girls making out. The new video for the mellow and seductive “Take Me” isn’t as silly as that, but it does have Sufjan singing amidst dancing, mostly-naked bodies, something we might not have imagined that guy doing a few years ago. Ryan Dickie directed the prettily-shot video, full of slants of light and artful editing.

The Black Keys - “Fever” (Official Video)

Unstoppable arena-rock monsters the Black Keys are about to unleash their latest Danger Mouse-produced album Turn Blue upon us, and they shared the tense and new-wavey single “Fever” a few weeks ago. The new video for “Fever” casts Dan Auerbach as a sweaty, pomaded, exceedingly low-rent TV preacher, and it doesn’t do much more than alternate shots of a testifying Auerbach with stock footage of Pentecostal church crowds. For a song that’s already all over rock radio, this is not much of a video. Theo Wenner, the song of Rolling Stone founder Jann, directed it. The cynic in me believes that Wenner probably wasn’t the best available director but that the band secured like five Rolling Stone covers for themselves in hiring him. On the other hand, the Black Keys are Harmony Korine collaborators, and there’s definitely something Korine-esque happening here.

Hercules & Love Affair - “I Try To Talk To You” (Feat. John Grant) Official Video

Next month, Andy Butler’s exultant disco-house project Hercules & Love Affair, will give us the new album The Feast Of The Broken Heart, and we’ve already heard first single “Do You Feel The Same?,” as well as a couple of B-sides. The album’s only well-known guest vocalist is the former Czars frontman John Grant, whose 2013 solo album Pale Green Ghosts explored similar leftfield-dance-music textures. Grant sings on “I Try To Talk To You,” the anthemic feelings-jacked second single. And the song’s moodily lit black-and-white new video, from director David Wilson, captures two dudes in an acrobatic, sensual interpretive dance. It’s part of an ongoing biweekly music-video series from the online fashion retailer SSENSE.

Wye Oak "Glory" (Official Music Video)

The Baltimore duo Wye Oak released their synth-dominated new album Shriek a few days ago, and now they’ve made a video for the grandly fidgety single “Glory.” It’s a weird one. Michael Patrick O’Leary and Ashley North Compton directed the video, which is full of oblique imagery: Blank-faced young blonde women, ice cream cones, cigarettes, flowerpots, gold beads, tricky editing. Here’s what Compton has to say about it: “The video explores an internal and external power struggle and a fear of loss of control — through the lens of youth, anxiety, ease, and tension. The narrative follows youth-oriented themes, colors, styles and struggles with jarring and uncomfortable characters and movements. The editing and format allow for notions and items to be broken and reformed, given and taken back. Feelings of impulsivity and unsettledness are evoked.” I’m still not really sure what it’s about, but you can watch it below.