The Weeknd - “King Of The Fall” (Official Video)

The Weeknd shared one-off track “King Of The Fall” earlier this year to promote the announcement of a five-date tour with ScHoolboy Q and Jhené Aiko. Just a few weeks before that tour is set to begin, he’s shared a video for the song. It’s a typical Weeknd affair, featuring slick production values and pretty girls, all while Abel Tesafaye walks around in slo-mo and pretends to be an innocent observer even as his lyrics betray otherwise.

Krill - “Turd” (Official Video)

Last year, the Boston band Krill landed a spot on our list of the Best New Bands Of 2013 on the strength of their album Lucky Leaves. More recently the band explored the concept album in miniature with the EP Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears, which amplified Krill’s goofy humor and existential dread, best exemplified on the single “Turd.” That humor and anxiety gets channeled well in Jake Appet’s music video, which he described as “a journey into the mind of a frustrated Krill fan.” It follows a guy talking to coworkers and going on a pretty bad date where the most awkward moments get caught in an unpleasant jerking loop.

That humor and anxiety gets channeled well in Jake Appet’s music video, which he described as “a journey into the mind of a frustrated Krill fan.” It follows a guy talking to coworkers and going on a pretty bad date where the most awkward moments get caught in an unpleasant jerking loop.

No Devotion - “Eyeshadow” (Official Video)

The debut single from Richard Jamie Oliver, Stuart Richardson, Luke Johnson, Mike Lewis, Lee Gaze & Geoff Rickly.

As you probably don’t need to be told, Lostprophets had an… uh, unfortunate demise as a band. So when the members re-formed as a new band called No Devotion and needed a singer of a higher moral character, they recruited former Thursday vocalist and generally upstanding guy, Geoff Rickly.

Despite a new name, a new singer, and a new everything, many wondered how No Devotion would dissociate themselves from their storied past. Here to introduce you to the band’s new look, sound, and lineup is their video for “Eyeshadow.” The video’s live shots, cut from a few UK shows and rehearsals, feature purple lighting and smoke clouds which give the band’s stage presence an ethereal feel, punctuated by Rickly’s penchant for emotional theatrics. He brings his basement show energy to the big stage. Indeed, this is a totally new band.

The video wraps up with a move clearly made to deliberately divorce the band from its sordid past: As the audience’s claps ring out, Rickly ends the song by telling the crowd: “We’re a brand new band called No Devotion.”

Broken Bells - “Control” (Official Video)

Broken Bells like to add a dose of sci-fi levity to their music videos; consider, for example, the intergalactic adventures of their “Holding On For Life” clip. But the band’s new video for “Control” is the first time they’ve gone full-on Fox Mulder with it, patching together footage of crop circles and UFO encounters and editing the spacecraft from the cover of their After The Disco album into old film clips. There are also some images of James Mercer and Danger Mouse performing, if you care about that sort of thing.

Zola Jesus - "Dangerous Days" (Official Video)

Zola Jesus returns this fall with the new album Taiga, and its first single, “Dangerous Days,” is a sweeping and beautiful piece of starry-eyed synthpop that couldn’t possibly be further from the gothic scrape-noise that Nika Roza Danilova started out making. In the new “Dangerous Days” video, we see Danilova singing by mountain lakes, on rocky beaches, and in deep woods. It’s beautifully shot, and it looks like a back-to-nature deal, at least until the moment that Danilova turns into a pillar of digital salt. Run The Jewels collaborator Tim Saccenti directs.
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Saccenti also shared a statement about the video:

    The song is a pure emotional plea, a future primitive call to arms. To create a moment of light in these dark times was our hope. Eschewing a heavy narrative we let the images of the Earth, filmed in wide screen and mixed with a tense unnatural presence, wash over the viewer while Nika communicates her powerful message.

together PANGEA - “Badillac” (Official Video)

together PANGEA released their new LP, Badillac, at the very beginning of this year. Songs from that album have been paired with some pretty sweet music videos, such as “Cat Man” and “Offer.” Now, together PANGEA have given us a new clip for Badillac’s title track. Directed by Ryan Baxley (who gave us the Nick Offerman public-urination perfection of FIDLAR’s “Cocaine” video), this one plays with classic horror-movie tropes. There’s some good old-fashioned Frankenstein in there, with just a dash of the The Wolfman, but eventually it shifts gears with an homage to The Amazing Colossal Man … though that fighter plane swatting gives the thing a nice King Kong vibe, too. It’s a ton of fun.

Greylag - “Another” Live Video

Greylag recently released the excellent folk-rock single “Another,” and now, rather than pairing the song with a traditional music video, they give us this new live performance clip. The video is directed by Lymay Iwasaki, and if the single had us excited for the album, this video has us excited to see the band live.

Grimes - “Go” (Official Video)

Grimes’ “Go,” the Blood Diamonds collab that the two of them apparently wrote for Rihanna, may have started more fights than any other song this summer, at least until Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” came along. It’s a truly epic bit of pop weirdness, and now it has a video to match. Grimes and her brother Mac Boucher directed the video together, working under the name Roco-Prime, and their video is a dizzy pileup of images: Black lights! Iron masks! Billowing silks! Big-ass swords! Intense Vapo-Rub dance moves! Sand dunes! Hair flips! It’s a whole lot to process, but my first reaction is that it’s fucking awesome.

Here’s Grimes’ statement about it via press release:

“It’s our take on Dante’s inferno. The circles of hell reflect more contemporary issues though. We shot a bunch at the salton sea which is basically an apocalyptic wasteland filled with dead fish because of human carelessness, the bullet hole hallway a la korn freak on a leash etc etc. If you look closely you can find clues. Haha, but in the usual fashion it is also abstract enough to just be a trippy visual accompaniment to the song.”

X-Men/Watchmen screenwriter and Metal Gear Solid voice actor David Hayter appears, reading the opening lines of The Inferno.

The Both - “Volunteers Of America” (Official Video)

Earlier this year, alt-rock lifer buddies Aimee Mann and Ted Leo teamed up to form a new duo called the Both and to release a profoundly catchy self-titled power-pop debut. Both Mann and Leo had been funny in music videos before, and they’re just as funny together. Director Daniel Ralston, who previously did the band’s “Milwaukee” video, returns for their new “Volunteers Of America” clip, which takes place at a raucously drunken back-yard wedding. It gives us a rare opportunity to see Leo do the worm. The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Samhain’s London May, and the veteran character actor Russ Tamblyn all appear.

Leonard Cohen - "Almost Like the Blues" (Lyric Video)

Music video by Leonard Cohen performing Almost Like the Blues. (C) 2014 Sony Music Entertainment. All text, images and photographs (C) 2014 Old Ideas, LLC.

Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj - "Bang Bang" (Official Video)

Watch the #BangBang'n new video by the dream team that is Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj!

Usher - “She Came To Give It To You” (Feat. Nicki Minaj) Video

Usher begins the video for his new song “She Came To Give It To You” by walking through a gambling ring in the back of an empty electronics shop before ending up at the club, where everything isn’t as okay as it seems. Subtly creepy visuals invade the dance floor, stuff like eyes popping out of sockets and whole heads turning into skulls. When Nicki Minaj comes in to deliver her song-elevating guest verse, she has a tarantula crawling over her and is posted up in front of a row of television security monitors.

J Mascis - “Every Morning” Video (Feat. Fred Armisen)

You keep thinking Fred Armisen’s schedule is so busy that he’ll have to stop appearing in random indie rock music videos, but no, he never does. Yesterday, Armisen’s buddy J Mascis, the Dinosaur Jr. guitar hero, released a beautifully weary solo album called Tied To A Star. And now Armisen and Mascis are co-starring in director Danny Jelinek’s video for first single “Every Morning.” The clip tells the story of a mysteriously disappeared ’70s cult. Mascis is cannily cast as a shambling cult leader, and Armisen is the square trying to bring the cult down. I’m pretty sure I saw the Shins’ James Mercer in there as a cult member, too. The video debuted on Funny Or Die this morning, and you can check.

Pearls Negras - “Make It Last” (Official Video)

The three teenage lady-rappers of Brazil’s Pearls Negras are those kids you’re not cool enough to hang with, but really really would like to, or at least glean some fashion advice from. “Make It Last” is one of the six deliciously bouncy tracks on their debut mixtape, Biggie Apple, which was released earlier this year. Pearls Nigras seamlessly trade spitfire verses and badass sentiment; the video is old-school VHS quality, as visually colorful as the trio’s textured beats. Fans of Santigold and M.I.A. will find a home in this fun favela funk. Watch Pearls Negras ruin a perfectly somber funeral (and look great doing so). Director: Ian Pons Jewell

Babes - “ATMO (Always Turning Me On)” (Official Video)

“ATMO (Always Turning Me On)” is a pretty little ditty by L.A. band Babes, whose sexually charged M.O. includes a phone number in their Twitter bio that you can dial at your own discretion. The song, from Babes’ self-titled EP, bridges retro strains of girl-group pop and twee in a way that will resonate with Camera Obscura fans. It’s quite nice in and of itself, but the amazing video is what will really rope you in. Lourdes Hernandez AKA Russian Red stars as a phone sex operator who gets really, really into her job. There are more layers to it, of course, but you’ll have to parse them yourself. Hernandez gives a great performance here that plays up the inherent humor without tipping over too far into ridiculousness. Babes collaborated with director Drew Kordik on the clip, which more than accomplishes the goal of drawing attention to a worthy band. Watch it below. Note: Although nobody bears any skin, you might consider this one NSFW due to implied masturbation.

JJ - “Inner Light” (Official Video)

The Swedish duo JJ evidently never got the memo about how it’s offensive to appropriate Native American culture — or maybe they got it and they’re intentionally ignoring it. Either way, the duo’s new video for “Inner Light,” a pretty drug-reverie from their very good new album V, stars a kid in a thrift-store version of traditional Native American garb. We see the kid alone in the woods, dancing and swimming and walking along an abandoned road. It’s all very prettily filmed, and I have no idea what any of it means. The video follow’s the group’s cinematic “All White Everything” clip, and it really couldn’t be more different.

Bear In Heaven - “Autumn” (Official Video)

Bear In Heaven recently put out their fourth album, Time Is Over One Day Old, and it opens with “Autumn,” a drum-driven track that’s scattered with yips and squalls. The song now has it’s own trippy, headache-inducing video made up of pulsar images that recall the Unknown Pleasures album artwork. Pencil-lined animation gets pulled and pushed into a static-filled murkiness.

Esben And The Witch - “Dig Your Fingers In” (official video)

The British postpunk trio Esben And The Witch released a split with Thought Forms earlier this year, and they’ll follow it up next month with the new album A New Nature. This is the band’s first album since they parted ways with Matador, and they recorded it live to tape in Chicago with Steve Albini, which is really never a bad idea. First single “Dig Your Fingers In” is a sparse, eerie, gothic song that really drops the hammer near the end. Its new video, from director Sim Warren, is a single shot that charts the course of a hooded figure across an autumnal landscape. There’s a really nice moment toward the end when the song kicks in and the video finds a way to reflect it.

Bad News Boys (FKA The King Khan & BBQ Show) - “We Are The Champion”

After a long hiatus, the Canadian duo formerly known as the King Khan & BBQ Show, composed of King Khan and Mark Sultan (aka BBQ), have now reformed under the name Bad News Boys. They’ve got a new album slated for early 2015, and they’ve shared the scrappy garage-rock gem “We Are The Champion,” which comes with an endearingly low-budget video following a homeless guy who becomes a cigar-smoking big shot in a cold medicine-induced dream or something.

Charli XCX - “Break The Rules” (Official Video)

Charli XCX’s pre-show performance of “Boom Clap” was one of the best things about last night’s VMAs, and her new song “Break The Rules” was one of the best things about last week, and now she’s got a video for that song. The clip pretty much follows the lyrical narrative — Charli would rather break rules than go to school — but it’s still a great song.

Ashrae Fax - “Dreams Tied To Chairs” (Official Video)

It can’t be stressed enough that for every fantastic new artist Mexican Summer finds to work with (seriously, have you checked out Weyes Blood yet?) they will mine the past for other awesome artifacts. Ashrae Fax are one of the latter cases, but thankfully their debut Static Crash! was only a little over a decade ago, and the band has come back together to record a follow-up called Never Really Been Into It. We’ve already heard the floating dream pop of the advance singles “CHKN” and “Fits And Starts.” In those the band sounded so strong, not at all like they were coming back after 11 years, and now they look the part with their confident performance in the video for “Dreams Tied To Chairs.”

The 2014 MTV VMAs: The winners and nominees

The 2014 MTV Video Music Awards were handed out Sunday, August 24, 2014 at the Los Angeles Forum.  The show was host-less, but there were many big stars on hand to take home their moon men.

A complete list of all the nominees and winners from this year's show.

VIDEO OF THE YEAR:

Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX – "Fancy"

Beyonce ft. Jay Z - "Drunk in Love"

Pharrell Williams - "Happy"

Sia - "Chandelier"

Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball" - WINNER

BEST HIP HOP:

Eminem - "Bezerk"

Drake ft. Majid Jordan - "Hold On (We're Going Home)" - WINNER

Childish Gambino - "3005"

Kanye West - "Black Skinhead"

Wiz Khalifa - "We Dem Boyz”

BEST MALE:

Pharrell Williams - "Happy"

John Legend - "All of Me"

Ed Sheeran ft. Pharrell Williams - "Sing" - WINNER

Sam Smith - "Stay With Me"

Eminem ft. Rihanna - "The Monster"

BEST FEMALE:

Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - "Fancy"

Beyonce - "Partition" Lorde - "Royals"

Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea - "Problem"

Katy Perry ft. Juicy J - "Dark Horse" - WINNER

BEST POP:

Pharrell Williams - "Happy"

Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - "Fancy"

Jason Derulo ft. 2 Chainz - "Talk Dirty"

Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea - "Problem" - WINNER

Avicii ft. Aloe Blacc - "Wake Me Up”

BEST ROCK:

Imagine Dragons - "Demons"

Arctic Monkeys - "Do I Wanna Know"

The Black Keys - "Fever"

Lorde - “Royals” - WINNER

Linkin Park - "Until It's Gone"

MTV ARTIST TO WATCH:

Sam Smith - "Stay With Me"

5 Seconds of Summer -"She Looks So Perfect"

Charli XCX - "Boom Clap"

Schoolboy Q - "Man of the Year"

Fifth Harmony - "Miss Movin' On" - WINNER

BEST COLLABORATION:

Beyonce ft. Jay Z - "Drunk in Love" - WINNER

Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea - "Problem"

Pitbull ft. Ke$ha - "Timber"

Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne and Tyga - "Loyal"

Eminem ft. Rihanna - "The Monster"

Katy Perry ft. Juicy J - "Dark Horse”

MTV CLUBLAND AWARD:

DJ Snake & Lil Jon - "Turn Down for What"

Zedd ft. Hayley Williams - "Stay the Night" - WINNER

Calvin Harris - "Summer"

Martin Garrix - "Animals"

Disclosure - "Grab Her!"

BEST VIDEO WITH A SOCIAL MESSAGE:

Angel Haze ft. Sia - “Battle Cry“

Avicii - “Hey Brother”

Beyonce - “Pretty Hurts” - WINNER

J. Cole ft. TLC - “Crooked Smile”

Kelly Rowland - “Dirty Laundry”

David Guetta ft. Mikky Ekko - “One Voice”

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

30 Seconds to Mars - "City of Angels"

Beyonce - "Pretty Hurts" - WINNER

Arcade Fire - "Afterlife"

Gesaffelstein - "Hate or Glory"

Lana Del Rey - "West Coast”

BEST EDITING:

Eminem - "Rap God" - WINNER

MGMT - "Your Life is a Lie"

Zedd ft. Hayley Williams - "Stay the Night"

Beyonce - "Pretty Hurts"

Fitz and the Tantrums - "The Walker"

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY:

Sia - "Chandelier" - WINNER

Beyonce - "Partition"

Usher - “Good Kisser"

Michael Jackson ft. Justin Timberlake - "Love Never Felt So Good"

Jason Derulo ft. 2Chainz - "Talk Dirty" Kiesza - “Hideaway”

BEST DIRECTION:

DJ Snake & Lil Jon - "Turn Down for What" - WINNER

OK Go - "The Writing's On the Wall"

Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball"

Beyonce - "Pretty Hurts"

Eminem ft. Rihanna - "The Monster"

BEST ART DIRECTION:

DJ Snake & Lil Jon - "Turn Down for What"

Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - "Fancy"

Eminem - "Rap God"

Arcade Fire - "Reflektor" - WINNER

Tyler, The Creator - "Tamale"

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:

DJ Snake & Lil Jon - "Turn Down for What"

OK Go - "The Writing's On the Wall" - WINNER

Disclosure - "Grab Her!"

Eminem - "Rap God" Jack White - "Lazaretto"

Coldplay - “True Love” (Official Video)

Coldplay released their new album, Ghost Stories, earlier this year. The theme of that album was Chris Martin’s conscious uncoupling from wife Gwyneth Paltrow. Martin has apparently moved on: He’s now consciously coupled with It Girl Jennifer Lawrence. And Coldplay’s new video for Ghost Stories track “True Love” finds Martin in a notably playful mood — wearing an inflatable fat suit in which he skitches, dances with a mop, and eventually couples with another inflatable-fat-suit-wearing skinny person.

Jeezy - “No Tears” (Feat. Future) Video

Atlanta rap fixture Jeezy releases his new album “Seen It All” in a couple of days, and he’s already shared a bunch of its songs: “Me OK,” the title track, “Beautiful,” “Holy Ghost.” But when I went to a listening session for the album last month in New York, the song that Jeezy seemed most excited about was “No Tears,” a sunny, downbeat, inspirational synth-rap jam that Mike Will Made-It produced for him. The track has Future on the hook, and Jeezy couldn’t stop saying nice things about Future: “He sound like Bob Marley on that.” “No Tears” has a new, expensive-looking, beautifully-shot video that Jeezy and Future filmed in the Virgin Islands, with Jeezy bonding with locals in the slums and the two of them looking down on the water from the top of a mountain. It’s a cinematic piece of work.

MTV VMA Video Of The Year Winners From Worst To Best

MTV has been putting its MTV Video Music Awards on TV for 30 years now, even though the network has only really cared much about airing music videos for maybe half that time. And every year, the network hands out its big Video Of The Year trophy, picking a winner through some mysterious process. The criteria seem to change every year: actual merit, overwhelming popularity, moment-defining iconography, vague ideas of prestige, weird back-room deals, the desire to get the winning artist into the room to accept the award on camera, who the hell knows. This year, Iggy Azalea, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Sia, and Pharrell actually make for one of the strongest and most wide-open Video Of The Year fields in recent years, and they’ll all fight it out on Sunday. Over the past three decades, plenty of amazing videos have won the big award, but a handful of terrible videos have, too. Michael Jackson and Prince and Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses never won the award. Madonna and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake did win, but they were all past their peaks when they pulled it off. Eminem somehow won two, despite his videos being mostly godawful. Spike Jonze and Michael Gondry and Hype Williams may be the greatest music-video directors in history, but none of the videos they’ve directed has ever won. We’ve ranked the past 30 years of winners for you, and please note that the rankings judge the quality of the video only, not the songs or the artists.

30. R.E.M. – “Losing My Religion” (Dir. Tarsem Singh) (1991)

The story we’ve been taught is that Nirvana wiped the hair bands from the face of the earth and singlehandedly made it safe for alt-rock. If that’s true, though, then R.E.M. must’ve made the world safe for Nirvana, by selling a bajillion copies of Out Of Time before Nevermind landed. The “Losing My Religion” video marked the first time Michael Stipe agreed to lip-sync for a camera. But his efforts, and his terrible spazzy dancing, are wasted on this pretentious snooze of a video, with its high-art leanings and its near-motionless Caravaggio tableaux. C+C Music Factory and Deee-Lite must’ve canceled each other out in the voting that year.



29. Justin Timberlake – “Mirrors” (Dir. Floria Sigismondi) (2013)

Endless self-serious boringness that only misses the bottom spot because Timberlake is a better dancer than Michael Stipe. Not even the best video Timberlake released that year. An indefensible choice. (Notable loser that year: Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.”)



28. Green Day – “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” (Dir. Samuel Bayer) (2005)

This video has Green Day walking through the desert and then playing in a room full of holes. That’s it. That’s your video. And it’s not even a real desert; it’s a rear projection of a desert. Plenty of videos are this boring, but most videos this boring don’t win the Video Of The Year trophy. (Notable losers that year: Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks,” Snopp Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot.”)



27. Eminem – “The Real Slim Shady” (Dir. Phillip Atwell & Dr. Dre) (2000)

The scenes in the Eminem factory work as sly comments on the man’s blooming mega-fame, and we can credit Em with being game enough to dress up like Britney Spears or like a superhero with his plastic butt hanging out. But Kathy Griffin and Fred Durst cameos? The Burger King loogie scene? The color scheme that’s like Green Day’s “Basket Case” video but somehow uglier? Yee. And the face Em makes when he interrupts the gay wedding has aged worse than any other single thing on this list, Michael Stipe’s dancing included. (Notable losers that year: D’Angelo’s “Untitled [How Does It Feel?],” ’N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye.”)



26. Neil Young – “This Note’s For You” (Dir. Julien Temple) (1989)

A fascinating historical footnote: A video that MTV initially banned, going on to win its biggest annual award. Still, it’s pretty fucked up that Michael Jackson never won a Video Of The Year award but this video for this marginal Neil Young song, which mocks Jackson’s hair-burning accident, scored one. The way the clip mocks MTV icons and then-current commercials must’ve seemed deeply subversive in 1989, but these days, it plays like a work of intense boomer anxiety, and Young’s holier-than-thou schtick hasn’t aged as well as the people he was mocking at the time. (Notable losers that year: Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” Michael Jackson’s “Leave Me Alone.”)



25. Eminem – “Without Me” (Dir. Joseph Khan) (2002)

A slight improvement on the “Real Slim Shady” video, mostly because it’s fun to see Dr. Dre as Batman. (Hey, Dr. Dre is a muscled-up billionaire now! He could be Batman if he wanted to!) Still, the constant context-free pop culture references and the Z-grade celebrity cameos and the grossout jokes (Em licks a turd!) make this the music-video equivalent of one of those utterly half-assed Date Movie-style parody debacles. One of Em’s best singles deserved better. (Notable loser that year: the White Stripes’ “Fell In Love With A Girl.”)



24. Panic! At The Disco – “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” (Dir. Shane Drake) (2006)

How in the fuck is this video on this list? The MySpace Emo era deserves a better legacy than this one. Was 2006 really this bad? (Actually, yes. Yes it was.) The video at least has fun with its dumber-than-dirt mimes-invade-a-wedding conceit. But at the moment, this stands as the last time a rock band won the big trophy, which seems wrong on about every level. (Notable loser that year: Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” I guess? This was a bad year.)



23. Katy Perry – “Firework” (Dir. Dave Meyers) (2011)

Katy Perry comforts the sick and hopeless by shooting sparks out of her boobs. I still can’t believe this was ever a real thing. (Notable loser that year: Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers.”)



22. INXS – “Need You Tonight/Mediate” (Dir. Richard Lowenstein) (1988)

I might argue that “Need You Tonight” is the single best song that ever won one of these awards. Still, this is fairly rote and unremarkable performance video, with some light animation, which mostly just succeeds because 1988 Michael Hutchence was human sex in the flesh. This would rank a few spots higher if not for the “Mediate” section, which pointlessly recreates Bob Dylan’s iconic “Subterranean Homesick Blues” video for no apparent reason. It’s a bit funny that someone holds up a “sax solo” cue card before the sax solo, but it’s funnier still that the song had a sax solo in the first place.



21. Don Henley – “The Boys Of Summer” (Dir. Jean-Baptiste Mondino) (1985)

The image of Henley, hair blowing in the studio-fan breeze, staring into the middle distance, is an iconic one, and the video’s uses of French New Wave imagery and soft black-and-white were revelatory at the time. Watching it now, though, this is a very slow video, more a glossy magazine shoot than a kinetic moving image. Great song, though.



20. Britney Spears – “Piece Of Me” (Dir. Wayne Isham) (2008)

I’m pretty sure this video won just so that it could complete Spears’ redemption narrative. The previous year, MTV had thrown a clearly-not-ready-to-perform Spears onstage to lip-sync “Gimme More,” and this makeup move was just as cynical as the act of putting her out there in the first place. The video itself is nothing special — a facile tabloid-culture satire with no real points to make — and it was probably helped by the fact that none of the other nominees were that great. But Spears still carried the clip with an icy charisma that hadn’t really been depleted by the endless horrorshow saga of her public life. Her intensity is what keeps it from being a waste of time.



19. Pearl Jam – “Jeremy” (Dir. Mark Pellington) (1993)

My theory on the real reason Pearl Jam stopped making videos after “Jeremy”: The band realized what a drab, colorless slog their clip was and they didn’t understand why everyone made such a big deal about it. Social-issues videos almost never age well, and this one, with its Important Points About Bullying is especially self-serious and overbearing. Its one saving grace: Eddie Vedder’s fiery and possessed performance. That boy had the devil in him.



18. Rihanna – “Umbrella” (Feat. Jay-Z) (Dir. Chris Applebaum) (2007)

At the time, this mostly felt like a showcase for Rihanna’s new vaguely-goth haircut. In retrospect, though, this is the moment RiRi really learned to strut and preen like a star, and little moments like the silver-bodypaint scene really served to solidify her image. Still, this is a fairly generic pop video with a tremendous ascendant star at its center, and that really shouldn’t be enough to take home the award. (Notable losers that year: Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab,” Kanye West’s “Stronger,” Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.”)



17. Van Halen – “Right Now” (Dir. Mark Fenske) (1992)

It’s a crime that the David Lee Roth-era Van Halen never won Video Of The Year for any of their amazing clips, but this Van Hagar goof somehow scored one in a stacked year. But it’s some consolation that Hagar is still mad at this video not focusing on him enough. The video, with its pseudo-profundities flashing across the screen, works as a nice time capsule for all the well-meaning cultural clumsiness of the early ’90s, and if you have any memory of Crystal Pepsi being a thing, the stab of nostalgia it brings can be acutely painful. (Notable loser that year: Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”)



16. The Smashing Pumpkins – “Tonight, Tonight” (Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris) (1996)

A better Georges Melies pastiche than Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, but mostly just because it’s way shorter. This one worked by capturing the strange, whimsical glamor of the silent French films that inspired it and by offering some context for Billy Corgan’s freaky paleness. Still, part of me thinks that videos like this one exist just so film students can feel smart for getting the references.



15. TLC – “Waterfalls” (Dir. F. Gary Gray) (1995)

Incredibly, it took a full decade of VMAs for a black artist to win Video Of The Year, which tells you things you might not want to know about early MTV and the way it saw itself. But when they finally corrected that unforgivable fuckup, the network went with a pretty good one. The social-issues stuff in “Waterfalls” comes off terribly hokey now: Crime! AIDS! Oh no! But the image of the three TLC ladies as morphing water-goddesses hasn’t aged a bit, even if the CGI technology looks paleolithic now. (Notable loser that year: Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”)



14. Lauryn Hill – “Doo Wop (That Thing)” (Dir. Big TV) (1999)

If you ever doubt how dominant Lauryn Hill was in the late ’90s, consider the fact that she walked away with this award at the height of the TRL boy-band/rap-metal era. The video itself is a relatively unassuming trifle: A split-screen recreation of Washington Heights block parties in 1967 and 1998, one that points out the similarities between the two scenes more than the differences. But Hill made it work through the sheer force of her charisma, which is at least part of why she won every award that wasn’t nailed down that year.



13. The Cars – “You Might Think” (Dir. Jeff Stein, Alex Weil & Charli Levi) (1984)

Your first-ever Video Of The Year winner, this one inexplicably beat out “Thriller” and a bunch of other arguably more-deserving videos. (Actually, maybe it’s not so inexplicable. No black artist won Video Of The Year until TLC in 1995, and Michael Jackson never won the award.) This one used what passed for state-of-the-art CGI graphics in 1984 to make a live-action Looney Tunes video, and it moves quickly and piles on the visual gags. But there’s something genuinely creepy in seeing Cars frontman Ric Ocasek turning into a fly or King Kong to harass the model Susan Gallagher. No means no, Ric.



12. OutKast – “Hey Ya” (Dir. Bryan Barber) (2004)

A simple concept — a band full of Andre clones plays an Ed Sullivan-esque British TV show for an audience of screaming girls — executed well. Big Boi kills his saucy-manager cameo, and Andre does so well at investing his different clones with their own personalities that it’s still a shock his acting career peaked with Four Brothers and Semi-Pro. But did Barber have to keep the screaming sound effect running for the entire video? (Notable losers that year: Jay-Z’s “99 Problems,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”)



11. Christina Aguilera, Lil Kim, Mya & Pink – “Lady Marmalade” (Dir. Paul Hunter) (2001)

Moulin Rouge was an absolute piece-of-shit movie, but at least it gave us this delirious teenpop/R&B summit meeting and this hilariously glammed-out cheesecake video. The four women in the video all seem to be competing for who can wear the most absurd lingerie, and the resulting arms race leaves Aguilera looking like Dee Snider, but it’s hard to imagine a better monument to the excesses of the teenpop era. (Notable losers that year: Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On,” Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon Of Choice.”)



10. Aerosmith – “Cryin’” (Dir. Marty Callner) (1994)

If you weren’t there, you can’t possibly imagine what Alicia Silverstone did to the collective heart of young men around America when this video dropped. (Successive Aerosmith power-ballad videos, which would feature Silverstone and Liv Tyler, would only make things worse.) The goony story, about a young rebel girl on the run from asshole boyfriend Stephen Dorff, doesn’t make a lick of sense — what’s her endgame after the surprise bungee jump? — but thanks to Silverstone’s pre-Clueless charisma, it’s a lot of fun anyway. Features the first recorded evidence of Sawyer from Lost’s bad-boy con-man charm at work. (Notable loser that year: The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” Spike Jonze just could not win this thing.)



09. Dire Straits – “Money For Nothing” (Dir. Steve Barron) (1986)

Early MTV sure loved its primitive computer graphics. And this song, with its half-ironic lyrical MTV plug, was always going to win everything. But Barron did an artful job cutting between the crude, blocky cartoon characters and the half-rotoscoped Dire Straits live footage, and he managed to sneak in some light MTV satire, as well. And even though they were grumpy middle-aged men with a love-hate relationship with their era’s synth-rock and video trends, Dire Straits look like they would’ve been a hell of a fun live show in 1986. (Notable losers that year: a-ha’s “Take On Me,” Godley & Creme’s “Cry.”)



08. Madonna – “Ray Of Light” (Dir. Jonas Akerlund) (1998)

It took way too goddamn long for Madonna to win one of these things, but at least she has one, which is more than Michael Jackson or Prince can say. The whole fun-with-time-lapse gimmick was nothing new, but most directors use it to capture the overwhelming, impersonal churn of city life. For Madonna and Akerlund, it was something fun and joyous: Look at all these amazing things happening around the world! The closing segment somehow makes it vaguely plausible that Madonna could be in a nightclub with commoners, no mean feat.



07. Rihanna – “We Found Love” (Feat. Calvin Harris) (Dir. Melina Matsoukas) (2012)

As this video’s moment fades into history, it matters less that the guy in it looks a whole lot like Rihanna’s real-life ex, Chris Brown, and it matters more that it’s a giddy, tangible, specific invocation of out-of-control self-destructive young love. The early-’90s London setting lends a fine layer of Trainspotting-esque scuzz to the whole affair, and the moment where Rihanna pukes streamers is a note-perfect surreal touch in what’s otherwise a naturalistic piece of work. And Rihanna is great in this: wild-eyed and beautiful and out of her head. (Notable losers that year: M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls,” Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know.”)



06. Missy Elliott – “Work It” (Dir. Dave Meyers) (2003)

If he had to keep making those colorfully cartoony joke-a-minute rap videos, Eminem could’ve learned something by watching Missy Elliott, who honestly should’ve won this award more than once. The freewheeling tone isn’t far off from those Em videos, but the surreal imagery and the dizzy energy worm their way into your mind and get stuck there. The dancing little white girl! The part where she eats a Lamborghini! The saluting soldier lip-syncing “give you some-some-some-some of this Cinnabon”! It’s all just wonderful. (Notable losers that year: Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River.”)



05. Peter Gabriel – “Sledgehammer” (Dir. Stephen R. Johnson) (1987)

A surreal bug-out masterpiece that turned Gabriel’s face into a human Bill Plympton cartoon. Its constant inventive goofiness hasn’t aged in the slightest, something you can’t say about the other two partly animated ’80s videos on this list, and it shows what a hotbed of weirdo experimental creativity early MTV could be at its best. Fun fact: Nick Park animated the dancing-chicken bit years before he started making Wallace & Gromit shorts.



04. Jamiroquai – “Virtual Insanity” (Dir. Jonathan Glazer) (1997)

The hat hasn’t aged especially well, but everything else has. The whole thing is a masterwork in hypnotic simplicity and how’d-they-do-that special-effects ingenuity. The floor appears to move madly in every direction while everything else remains stationary, allowing Jay Kay so much opportunity to glide-strut his way though the void and narrowly avoid death-by-moving-couch. And Glazer, who went on to make Sexy Beast and Under The Skin, might be the most visionary director ever to win one of these things.



03. Lady Gaga – “Bad Romance” (Dir. Francis Lawrence) (2010)

It’s hard to imagine a single piece of art causing this many people to stare bug-eyed at their computer screens (or, theoretically, TVs) and ask, “What the fuck was that?” This thing apparently had some sort of narrative — something about Gaga being sold to the Russian mafia and then getting her revenge — but you’d never know it, and anyway it doesn’t matter. What matters is the glammed-out Giger-damaged gleaming absurdity of these images, which linger in your brain long after you’ve watched the video. For plenty of artists, the image of the bearskin sliding across the floor alone would’ve been enough to hang a whole video on; for Gaga, it was just a throwaway moment. That year, her only real competition was herself; she was also nominated for her “Telephone” video, and that’s the only thing that could’ve even conceivably beat “Bad Romance.”



02. Beyoncé – “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” (Dir. Jake Nava) (2009)

When Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at that year’s VMAs, his tact was nonexistent and his sincerity was misplaced, but he wasn’t wrong. “Single Ladies” really is one of the best videos of all time, and Taylor had no place beating Beyoncé in any category. (Also, does it make any sense that this would lose Female Video Of The Year and win the big one? No. No, it doesn’t.) Beyoncé’s video crossed over in ways that videos are not supposed to be able to cross over anymore, and it did it with the simplest of tricks: Lighting, editing, and one hell of a ferocious and iconic performance. That closing pant/ring-flash/smile will probably always be the single most enduring image of Bey, no matter how many elevator fights she decides not to break up.



01. Sinead O’Connor – “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Dir. John Maybury) (1990)

The video is stunning in its simplicity. The performance is stunning in its feverish emotional power. In her five minutes onscreen, Sinead O’Connor communicated things that the medium of music video wasn’t supposed to be able to convey, and the camera knew well enough to point itself at her face and not move. No image on this list is quite as iconic as that first tear that slides down O’Connor’s smooth, unlined face. And no music video would ever quite create this same impression — that there was someone inside your TV, reaching out to you, trying to talk to you.

Via: Stereogum.

Juicy J - “Low” (Feat. Nicki Minaj, Lil Bibby & Young Thug) Official Video

Juicy J’s new single “Low,” which has on-fire verses from Nicki Minaj and Lil Bibby and a lovably slurry Young Thug on the hook, is one of the most dizzily fun rap singles in recent memory. It deserved a video that reflects its energy, but that’s not what it got. Instead, director Benny Boom gave it a total boilerplate rap video, full of butts and colored smoke and four-wheelers popping wheelies and conspicuous product placement. It’s still worth watching, but only because the song is amazing.

Shabazz Palaces - “#CAKE” Video (NSFW)

Seattle art-rap darlings Shabazz Palaces just released Lese Majesty, their blunted and fractitious new album. It’s only right that “#CAKE,” the album’s single, sounds like it’s exploding and gluing itself back together at the same time. The track’s new video, from the consistently great director Hiro Murai, is similarly disorienting. It’s a dark and surreal fever-dream vision of giant bodies, of people on the run, and of bodies falling through space. Thanks to some nudity, it’s a bit NSFW. But the video is so hypnotic and absorbing that you might want to risk it rather than waiting until you get home to watch it.

Tom Vek - “Pushing Your Luck” (Official Video)

Fractured dance-punker Tom Vek released his third album, Luck, earlier this summer, and just shared a video for quasi-title track “Pushing Your Luck.” It plays like one of those viral Youtube videos in which you get to see a person playing every instrument in the song, except filtered through a technicolor slot machine of images. The clip is directed by PAXI, who also did Vek’s video for “Sherman (Animals In The Jungle).”

The Weeknd - “Often” Video (NSFW)

The Weeknd’s new video for “Often,” the loose track he released earlier this summer, is peak Weeknd. Abel Tesfaye spends the whole thing in a stylish hotel room, staring dispassionately at nothing and singing about nasty sex while ignoring the many beautiful and sometimes naked women who slide through the room. The camera dizzily whirls around Tesfaye throughout, seemingly jumping randomly through time. But Tesfaye never changes. He hasn’t really changed since we met him, has he?

You. - “Feral” (Official Video)

You. push synth-pop to the darkest, most depressive place possible while still sounding like something you could dance to. “Feral” is the excellent single from the band’s upcoming album, Sunchaser, and the song is now accompanied by a video. Directed by You. member Scott Kiernan (who also does the NYC public-access show E.S.P. TV), the video displays various images — a clock, a bird, the band members — but churns them through old technology, warping them. Watch it and read a statement from Kiernan about the video.

Pink Mountaintops - “Shakedown” (Feat. J Mascis) Official Video

“Shakedown” is a jangly, propulsive, New Wave-influenced highlight from Pink Mountaintops’ recent Get Back. Stephen McBean sings about Fascination Street in a voice that could have been Robert Smith’s if Smith was from the South, and J Mascis plays a characteristically ripping guitar solo. The song’s video stars Mandy Lyn Antoniou as a hallucinatory wanderer drifting through this world while more focused on the one within her headphones. There are also random Pac-Man sightings, and both Mascis and McBean show up, though not as often as Pac-Man. Simon Chan directs.

High Pop - “The Twist” (Official Video)

On their Bandcamp page, High Pop declares, “I think we found rock ’n roll,” which is a bold thing to say, but one listen and it’s pretty hard to argue with them. There’s something about “The Twist” that’s utterly intoxicating, the way it unfolds in wave after wave of distorted guitars that eventually tower over the song until it all dissolves into itself. The video, made by band member Ryan Schnackenberg, feels like a frenetic take on a sleazy arthouse theater, where the smoke from the patron’s cigarettes clouds the screen and someone’s getting a handjob a few rows behind you. It’s the only place where “Please enjoy a refreshment in the lounge” sounds more like a threat than an invitation. The band says the video and song “obsess in kitsch and camp along with 70′s rock’n'roll aesthetic in a light-hearted exploration of the different dimensions of oneself, idol worship, and love/lust.”

Barely Legal Pawn, feat. Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul go into business together and this time it's legal…barely. Find out what happens when Julia Louis-Dreyfus becomes a client, trying to offload television’s most coveted item, in this video starring three Emmy Award winners.

Watch the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards live Monday, August 25, 8pm EST/5pm PDT.

A PMK / Paulilu Production

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Written and Directed by: Paulilu (Paul W. Downs & Lucia Aniello)

Executive Producer: Joseph Assad, PMK•BNC

Producer: Jake Cassidy

DP: Chris Westlund

Zammuto - “IO” (Official Video)

Earlier this month, Zammuto released the new single “IO,” from his upcoming album Anchor. Now he’s got a video for the song, which shows us the construction of a massive catapult and then all of the things thrown from it. Those things include the camera at some points, which leads to some pretty cool — and dizzying — shots.

Trash Talk - "The Great Escape" (Official Video)

Sacramento hardcore band Trash Talk put out their uncompromising new album, No Peace, a few months ago. In the trippy, violent, animated new video for album cut “The Great Escape,” three cartoon delinquents who look kinda like Trash Talk swipe some psychedelic Satan-juice from a convenience store (naturally) and endure one hell of a bad trip. Jim Dirschberger — previously responsible for another ridiculous cartoon hallucination of a video for Trash Talk — directs.

Hooray For Earth - “Say Enough” (Official Video)

Earlier this year, Hooray For Earth released their new album, Racy, and we’ve already seen the video for album track “Keys,” which fetishized motorcycles with an intimacy and creepiness that blended Kanye’s “Bound 2” with that scene from Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child when that dude got turned into a motorcycle. Now they give us a video for the song “Say Enough,” which tells the very human story of a newly broken-up couple, following computer-animated characters drinking, having sex, and sadly remembering. It’s one of the only times I’ve seen the occasionally grotesque uncanny-valley effect of computer models used to increase emotional impact.

Nicki Minaj - “Anaconda” Video (Feat. Drake)

Nicki Minaj’s “Baby Got Back”-sampling new single “Anaconda” now has a provocative video to go with it. Alternating between a jungle and rave girl theme, Minaj makes it clear she’s queen of both realms. Featuring a healthy amount of twerking, some bananas spinning around on a turntable, and — in what’s becoming the norm for pop videos — some heavy Beats product placement, it’s a video you won’t forget anytime soon. Drake even shows up towards the end and Minaj shows him her moves.

The War On Drugs - “Under The Pressure” (Official Video)

The War On Drugs’ Lost In The Dream is one of the best albums that anyone has released in 2014, and the sprawling, gorgeous, nine-minute “Under The Pressure” might be its single greatest song. The new “Under The Pressure” video is a stark departure from the band’s last one, the knowingly goofy “Red Eyes” clip. This one is a somber zone-out that takes its time, with directour Houman alternating images of the band members playing alone in rooms with non-representational light-bending footage that seems to quote old experimental films.

Action Bronson - “Easy Rider” (Official Video)

“Easy Rider,” the badass Party Supplies-produced single from Action Bronson’s forthcoming album Mr. Wonderful, has Bronson going in over a fog of psych-rock samples. Given the acid-rock pedigree and the song’s title, it’s only right that the video has Bronson in a pastiche of the biker movies of the ’60s and ’70s. Bronson always came off something like a drug-gobbling Vietnam-vet drifter anyway. Tom Gould directed the fun, cartoonish video.

Alex Metric - “Heart Weighs A Ton” (Official Video)

Director:
Jack Wagner
Zach Shields
Producer:
Nav Singh
Cinematography:
The Endless Eye

Trans Am - “Insufficiently Breathless” (Official Video)

Old-school Maryland post-rockers Trans Am dropped a new album, Volume X, back in May, and today, they release a video for album track “Insufficiently Breathless,” which was written and directed by Andrew Paynter, and shot and edited by Wes Sumner. The video isn’t technically NSFW, but there’s some naked man-ass in there, in case you’re squeamish about such things. The song is a thing of gentle, immersive beauty, and the clip’s towering natural setting does a good job reflecting that beauty, as does the song’s title.

Watch Foo Fighters Spoof Carrie In Their Elaborate ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Video

The Foo Fighters have accepted Zac Brown Band’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and decided to go all out. In their video they recreate the climactic scene from Brian De Palma’s Carrie, with frontman Dave Grohl playing the part of the titular character in a lovely dress. It is shot and edited to mirror the film, and when the Foos aren’t on screen, the action cuts to actual footage from the original. It’s very funny, but two of the three people Grohl calls out to go next — Jack Black and Stephen King — actually already did it.

HAIM - “My Song 5″ (Feat. A$AP Ferg) Video (Feat. Vanessa Bayer, Ezra Koenig, Kesha, Grimes, Big Sean)

We warned you that it was coming, and now it’s here: HAIM’s ridiculous and cameo-packed video for the Days Are Gone highlight “My Song 5.” The video turns out to be for the remixed A$AP Ferg version of the song, and it takes place on the set of The Dallas Murphy Show a fictional and ridiculous daytime-TV talk show. SNL/Sound Advice star Vanessa Bayer plays the show’s host, and the video features a parade of high-profile cameos, many of them so quick and deep in the background that they’re hard to catch: Ezra Koenig! Kesha! Grimes! Big Sean! Superproducer Ariel Rechtshaid! Haim’s parents are in there too. Watch the Dugan O’Neal-directed video.

Ex Cops - "Black Soap" (Official Video)

Brooklyn duo Ex Cops are preparing to release Daggers, their latest set of sleek, shoegaze-inflected urbanite pop. Lead single “Black Soap” now has glamorous yet ominous visuals shot on 16mm film that look as much like a fashion shoot as a music video. It’s as appealing to the eyeballs as the song is to the eardrums, which is to say, very. Here’s what director Philippe Grenade had to say about it:

In a world where DSLR videos are a norm, it’s refreshing to return to the now archaic format of 16mm film, not only for its beautiful granular structure and ’70s cult cinema aesthetic, but also because there is no magic in instant gratification. Lacking the ability to playback a take and then sending off a can of undeveloped film to the lab without an inkling of an idea if what you’ve shot is absolute gold or absolute shit or if a light leak ruined all your fantastic images is the most excitingly anticipatory feeling as a filmmaker.

Taylor Swift - “Shake It Off” (Official Video)

Taylor Swift hosted a live webcast this afternoon from a studio at the top of the Empire State building, during which she announced three not-that-surprising surprises. The first was the debut of her new single, a haters-gonna-hate anthem called “Shake It Off” produced by Max Martin and Shellback; she danced with her studio audience while the minimalist dance-pop tune played. The second “surprise” was that her fifth album, 1989, which she described as “my very first documented official pop album,” will be out 10/27. She says it was inspired by the “bold” risk-taking of ’80s pop. The deluxe version will include three voice memos from Swift’s phone, and the album cover is the Polaroid picture above. There will also be a “Swiftstakes” that will dole out 1,989 prizes including 1,000 tickets and 500 meet-and-greets. Lastly, she debuted Mark Romanek’s video for “Shake It Off,” which finds Swift poking fun at her own much-maligned dancing skills in myriad costumes and contexts.

The New Basement Tapes - "Nothing To It" (Official Lyric Video)

Bob Dylan wrote over a hundred songs during the legendary Basement Tapes recording sessions, which took place in the summer and fall of 1967, eight years before the album itself was released. Those sessions would produce some of Dylan’s most enduring songs, including “I Shall Be Released,” “The Mighty Quinn,” and “This Wheel’s On Fire.” Recently, lyrics that Dylan wrote during that period were rediscovered and put to music by an all-star cast. Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes is a collaborative project featuring Elvis Costello, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Marcus Mumford, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, and Carolina Chocolate Drop’s Rhiannon Giddens and produced by T Bone Burnett. The group congregated for two weeks at Captiol Studios in Hollywood to record music for the lost lyrics. “What transpired during those two weeks was amazing for all of us,” Burnett said in a press release. “There was a deep well of generosity and support in the studio at all times, which reflected the tremendous trust and generosity shown by Bob in sharing these lyrics with us in the first place.” The group (which also features Johnny Depp on “Kansas City”) recorded 20 new songs put together from the lost Dylan lyrics. You can hear one of those new songs, “Nothing To It,” below, accompanied by a lyric video featuring Dylan’s actual handwritten lyrics.

Absolutely Free - “Beneath The Air” (Official Video)

Last month we premiered “Beneath The Air” by Absolutely Free. It was a bright and breezy psych-pop song that has now been given an animated video that fits the same description. The video is a constantly morphing series of simple painted images that grow and shrink with the endlessness of a fractal.

WIFE - “A Nature (Shards)” Video

The great industrial-tinged black metal band Altar Of Plagues broke up last year, and since then, former AOP frontman James Kelly has moved on to make atmospheric electronic music with his project WIFE. Now you can watch the video for “A Nature (Shards),” a track from WIFE’s Tri-Angle debut, What’s Between. The Fernando Vallejo-directed video is built of impressionistic shots of two women walking ominously through city streets at night, but its creepy Under The Skin vibes fit the song just right as it moves toward its mysterious conclusion.

The Wytches - “Burn Out The Bruise” (Official Video)

Brighton bruisers the Wytches will release their full-length debut album Annabel Dream Reader a week from today. They’ve got a new video this morning to get us all amped up for that, and to herald the trio’s arrival stateside later this fall. “Burn Out The Bruise,” a ragged blast of brutal psych-punk from the album’s center, is matched with some some grainy VHS and Super 8 tomfoolery involving cross dressing, pirates, the Last Supper and more. It seems like the best possible result of talented young rockers goofing off with their friends.

Radiator Hospital - “Bedtime Story” (Official Video)

Last month, Philadelphia’s Radiator Hospital released their fantastic and insanely charming new album Torch Song. They’ve shared a video for “Bedtime Story,” one of the best tracks that features great lines from Sam Cook-Parrott like, “Make me feel whole, or warm, or mildly amused/ I can’t recall ever feeling love so true” and “Your eyes exploding into me with every little line/ You think that you could be the one; you think that you could be mine.” The video, directed by Eddie Austin, is made up of grainy footage of Cook-Parrott and friends goofing around and having fun.

Kool A.D. - “The Front” (Feat. Toro Y Moi & Amaze 88) Video

Kool A.D. has released a lot of albums and mixtapes since he left Das Racist. (And if you’re wondering whether the old gang could get back together again, it doesn’t look good. The rapper told Grantland recently that he hasn’t “really talked” to Heems since he quit.) A.D.’s latest solo effort was Word O.K., which was arguably his strongest collection of tracks to date. The album features a track produced by Toro Y Moi and long-time collaborator Amaze 88 called “The Front.” That song now has a video that follows the three of them cruising around various Bay Area locales.

Vince Staples - “Blue Suede” (Official Video)

Earlier this year, the exciting young Long Beach, California rapper Vince Staples released his great Shyne Coldchain Vol. 1 mixtape, and now he’s getting his official Def Jam debut Hell Can Wait together. The first single is the impressively harsh, noisy “Blue Suede,” and he’s already made a video for it. The clip is pretty low-key — Staples and friends at house parties and barbecues, slice-of-life stuff with nothing more going on. It would be a better video if it didn’t do that obnoxious trick where it’s all in black-and-white but a few random objects are in color. Still, the song knocks.

Nicholas Krgovich - “Along The PCH On Oscar Night” (Official Video)

The Vancouver multi-instrumentalist and former No Kids member Nicholas Krgovich has a new solo album called On Sunset coming out next month, and we premiered the single, the slick and breezy “Along The PCH On Oscar Night.” The song’s new video relies heavily on Krgovich’s gawky charisma, and it features a ton of beautiful footage of Los Angeles at sunset and at night.

Francisco The Man - “Progress” (Official Video)

Francisco The Man — the LA band who will soon release their debut album, Loose Ends — gave us the supremely catchy single “Progress” last month, which has now received a music video with some extremely giddy editing. Though the subjects of the MacGregor Greenlee-directed video don’t do much more than walk, sit down, or dance, the constant speeding up, slowing down, playing backwards, and splicing together of shots makes something as simple as walking across a lawn completely surreal and exciting to watch.

Johnny Marr - “Easy Money” (Official Video)

The former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr is about to follow up last year’s The Messenger with Playland, only his second proper solo album. And today, he gives us the video for the revved-up first single “Easy Money.” The video has a great deal of fun with the idea of Marr and his black-clad cool-guy bandmates strutting through a run-down, nearly abandoned English seaside resort town. We see them in tiny casinos and empty pubs and convenience stores, always looking completely aloof, despite the shittiness of their surroundings. David Barnes directs.

Windhand - "Orchard" (Official Video)

Last year, the great Richmond, VA doom band Windhand released their outstanding sophomore LP, Soma, which opened with the crushing-yet-catchy single “Orchard,” probably the album’s best song. “Orchard” premiered on 8/21 last year, so the earth has almost completed a full orbit around the sun between the release of that track and its video, but the song has spent the past year aging well, it certainly deserves to be spun again today if you haven’t done so in a while, and the video — composed of old horror-movie clips, I guess? — is pretty awesome.

Woman’s Hour - “In Stillness We Remain” (Official Video)

London-based swoon-pop quartet Woman’s Hour credit their name to a popular BBC Radio 4 news and culture show geared toward women, which makes sense. Their music is distinctively pretty and gentle, but weighted with deep emotion. The video for “In Stillness We Remain,” from the band’s latest album, Conversations, is the first we’ve seen from the band that hasn’t been black-and-white (check out those for “Conversations” and “Her Ghost“), though I can’t say it’s too vibrant when it comes to color palette. The pastel filter works though, as the video features an endearingly choreographed middle-school dance session blending elements of ballet and cheerleading, performed by adorably stoic kids and scored by frontwoman Fiona Burgess’ sweetly lilting soprano. It’s chicken soup for the ears.

Celestial Shore - “Creation Myth” (Official Video)

Garage-psych-infused Brooklyn indie-rockers Celestial Shore. will hit the road with Brooklyn “nervous soul” combo Ava Luna for most of September in the lead-up to Enter Ghost, the follow-up to last year’s 10x. To grab your attention for the album and the tour, today they’ve unveiled Angela Stempel’s insane animated video for Enter Ghost single “Creation Myth.” The song sounds a bit like the Zombies after a half-dozen Red Bulls, and the visuals are pleasingly colorful in both form and content.

The Black Keys - “Weight Of Love” Video (NSFW)

The Black Keys’ video for their seven-minute Turn Blue power ballad “Weight Of Love” begins the same way their “Fever” video ended: With a grainy televised image of frontman Dan Auerbach as a sweaty evangelical preacher. And even though Auerbach is only barely in the new video, it seems to be about a cult of young women who serve as his acolytes. The clip follows these frequently-topless white-clad ladies — supermodel Lara Stone chief among them — as they indulge in culty activities like group exercises and prayer circles. In its own way, the video itself is as horny as anything that would’ve aired on BET Uncut back in the day, but it seems to aspire to deeper things. Rolling Stone family scion Theo Wenner directed the video, just as he did with “Fever.”

Arcade Fire - “You Already Know” (Official Video)

Arcade Fire’s new video for the Reflektor track “You Already Know” feels, in some ways, like an extension of the whole bobblehead-mask schtick of their recent live shows; it shows another way for the band to play with ideas of image and representation. The clip is made up entirely of home-video-style footage of the band playing in a big, luxurious beachside hotel room somewhere. But instead of seeing Win Butler sing, we see wall-mounted paintings with moving mouths, looking something like the live-via-satellite Bill Clinton bit on the old Conan O’Brien show. Butler does get in a cameo at the end. It’s definitely the least ambitious video the band has done in a while, but it still has things going on.

Michael Jackson - “A Place With No Name” (Official Video)

A video for Michael Jackson’s “A Place With No Name” from his posthumous album XSCAPE has been released by his estate and label, Epic Records. It premiered on Twitter tonight and was simultaneously broadcast in Times Square in New York. The video was previewed before its release on tonight’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance, which was Jackson-themed. It was directed by Samuel Bayer, who has directed videos for Nirvana and the Rolling Stones and serves as an homage to Jackson’s 1991 video for “In The Closet” and features outtakes and repurposed footage from that video.

It’s time! The first ever premiere of "A Place With No Name" right now on Twitter #MJXSCAPE https://t.co/rRA0KJEBpg
— Michael Jackson (@michaeljackson) agosto 14, 2014

Big Ups - “Justice” (Official Video9

Into the January wasteland, the New York punks Big Ups released Eighteen Seconds Of Static a bracing debut album that didn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserved. They’ve just made a video for the album track “Justice,” and it’s an intense piece of work. It’s a stylized, gruesome clip about a reporter attempting to investigate a corrupt businessman, and it has some unintended extra weight thanks to the fuck shit we’re seeing in the news today, the hamfisted attempts to silence journalists in Missouri. Stephen Tringali directed the video.

DEATH - “We’re Gonna Make It” (Official Video)

1970s Detroit protopunk trio DEATH went dark for a good long while — around three decades — but returned to prominence following their 2009 reunion and the release of forgotten ’70s demos via Drag City. DEATH didn’t garner too large a following in the ’70s, but are now seen as visionaries, thanks in part to the great 2012 documentary A Band Called Death, which traced the lives of the band’s founders — the Hackney brothers David, Bobby and Dannis — through their urban roots, eclectic music-making, and family-centric lives. “We’re Gonna Make It” is the last song David wrote with his brothers before he succumbed to lung cancer in 2000. The video is a montage of Hackney family photos and cuts from A Band Called Death, set to David’s gently sentimental remembrance. It was compiled by one of Bobby’s sons, who discovered the band’s old recordings in his family attic, and founded Rough Francis, a DEATH cover band, with his two brothers in 2008. Thus, the Hackney story comes full circle.

ARTYNEXTDOOR - “Recognize” (Feat. Drake) Video

OVO-affiliate PARTYNEXTDOOR has released a video for his Drake-assisted track “Recognize” from his EP that came out last month. The Liam MacRae-directed video follows PND up and down the Los Angeles coastline and in a dimly lit barcade, where Drake does his verse in front of a pool table. Watch below.

Joseph Arthur - “Robin (A Tribute To Robin Williams 1951-2014)”

Earlier this week, the screen comedy legend Robin Williams took his own life, shaking pretty much all of us to the core and sending even those of us who never considered ourselves fans of the guy back to that one Homicide episode where he absolutely annihilated in his guest-starring role. One of those shaken was the singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, who wrote and recorded “Robin (A Tribute To Robin Williams 1951-2014)” in the last couple of days. The song is full of references to Williams’ various roles, and the video that accompanies it is made up entirely of Williams clips.

Ariana Grande - "Break Free" ft. Zedd (Official Video)

Ariana Grande just shared the Chris Marrs Piliero-directed video for her Zedd-produced single "Break Free". In it, she's the hero of a campy sci-fi adventure wherein she frees a bunch of prisoners from their alien captors. So yeah, she definitely blasts an alien in the face with a laser and shoots rockets out of her chest to destroy a giant robot.

The whole thing ends with a dance party aboard a spaceship. Zedd, an adorable little alien, and the Beats Music app all make prominent appearances.

Chelsea Wolfe - “Lone” (Official Video)

The newest project from the dark-pop singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe is Lone, an hour-long film that she made with the director Mark Pellington, who made Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” video and the movie Arlington Road. We’ve already seen a couple of selections from it, “Feral Love” and “The Waves Have Come.” And now that the film is out digitally, Wolfe has shared the excerpt for the title track, an ominously wispy piece of music. In the piece of film, we see Wolfe, in full goth makeup and with tears in her eyes, wandering through an abandoned stretch of desolate land. 

18+ - “Crow” (Official Video)

Though they’ve been making music for several years, very little is known about the LA duo 18+. But their trilogy of mixtapes — which ended with last year’s incredible MIXTAP3 — speaks for itself, as it cycles through murky, lyrically disturbed R&B and hip-hop. 18+ recently released two of the best songs off that tape, “Horn” and “Crow,” as their first official single, and now the latter of those has been paired with a music video. Sliding through grainy footage, the clip is divided into three visual sections that switch in rhythm with the insistent, repetitive crow sample that helps to build the minimalist beat. Eventually flies crawl across the screen, adding to the pretty unease of the song. There is plenty of subtle weirdness thrown in, too, such as the random smiley face that pops up without explanation, or the fact that the first frame is a paused YouTube screen for the “Gangnam Style” video. It answers no questions, just weaves an extra layer into this musical mystery.

Coral Cross - “With A Lancet” (Official Video)

Coral Cross is the latest offering from New York/Miami artist Jorge Elbrecht, the mastermind behind conceptual pop creations Lansing-Dreiden and Violens. Coral Cross follows L-D’s synthy symphonies and Violens’ relatively more wholesome groove with something darker and drier, informed by Norwegian black metal and indie rock alike. “With A Lancet” is the B-side of Coral Cross’ debut two-song 7″ EP, 001, which also features the anthemic “The Coldest Steel Across Your Face Slides.” The song is accompanied by an artily inscrutable black-and-white bee-swarm of a video that wholly fits the frenetic pace of the track. I think a girl is burying something deep inside a scenic woodland vista, but how can one ever be sure?

Basement Jaxx - “Galactical” (Official Video)

British EDM duo Basement Jaxx are set to release their seventh album, Junto, this fall — it’s their first LP since 2009. “Galactical” is the thrumming first bonus track off Junto’s deluxe edition, and it’s great. The video features neon-striped extraterrestrials dancing across a deep-sea/deep-space backdrop. There are more than a few colors, and equally as many aural nuances to absorb. With its deep, amorphous bass, airy vocals, and tribal beats wedded to twinkly electronic accents, “Galactical” the song is as captivating as its video — an adventure to listen to, and quite an experience to behold. Watch (high-definition doesn’t disappoint).