Girlpool - “Before The World Was Big” (Official Video)

The first post I ever did for Stereogum was a Girlpool video — the “Chinatown” one back in January — so their wonderfully swift rise over the past few months always gives me a twinge of pride, like we’re in this together. Regardless, Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad are one the best things to happen to 2015, a gift from and to girls, capturing the infinite universe of friendship, nostalgia and rebellion that comprises the core of femininity. “Before The World Was Big” is the title track off their debut album, and I already wrote about how it’s a quietly powerful reflection on the loss of girlhood for 5 Best Songs of the Week. In the video to the track, they ventured to Coney Island, what might be the quintessential place to mourn the loss of innocence, as well as glory in the here-and-now. The video premiered on Rookie in a post by Allyssa Yohana, who also created the clip. Shot in the now-beloved vintage film style, it’s just close-ups of these two wandering around enjoying the day and being with each other. I see all my most important friendships reflected in the laughter and hand-holding of Harmony and Cleo, and that’s the point of this video. It’s a mirror and a beacon for girls worldwide, just like their album is. Two girls with guitars can change the world, and that’s exactly what Girlpool are going to do. If you don’t agree with me, I don’t even care because Willow Smith does.

Holychild - “Money All Around” (Official Video)

Holychild’s excellent debut album The Shape Of Brat Pop To Come will be out in June, and in the meantime they’re on tour with Passion Pit and releasing songs from the record in a slow trickle. My favorite song on the record is “Money All Around,” a sarcastic, strutting takedown of our shallow, capitalistic society that packs enough of a punch to be enjoyable as a glitter-crunch pop song even stripped of its agenda. The video, however, is not about to let anyone strip away that agenda, as it traces Liz Nistico and Louie Diller’s frantic crawl through the Dresden in Los Angeles. Throughout the clip, colorful little bubbles of information surface, Pop-Up Video-style, casually sharing tidbits about the state of the music industry, tackling ageism and eating disorders, and forcing the viewer to take in the full scope of the song’s purpose. It’s a bratty, brazen takedown of pop culture using absurdist imagery encased in a shiny, candy-coated shell, and if that’s not enough for you, toss in the fact that the duo directed it themselves. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and all that.

Black English - “Another Life” (Official Video)

Black English – “Another Life” (Dir. Zak Stoltz)

The idea of a music video-as-Infinite Jest samizdat, something so sad that it reduces much of society to uncontrollable tears, is plenty enough to carry a music video on its own. This one takes that and pushes it to some truly ridiculous places.

Popcaan - “Unruly Prayer” Official Video (Feat. Drake)

Bless Jamaican dancehall prodigy Popcaan for giving us this heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving in the midst of a particularly petty year. “Unruly Prayer” is a joyous, buoyant anthem of celebration and humility that rings out with particular grace, a dancehall hymn to usher in the summer. Mostly the video is clips of Popcaan and his crew hanging out in nature, waving flags and smoking blunts in peace. Look for a few cameos from everyone’s favorite co-signing superstar Drake; at one point he’s wearing a cape emblazoned with his possibly emoji-inspired prayer hands logo. That shot alone is something to be thankful for. The track was produced by Dinearo and floats by on amorphous synths and only a hint of a beat. More of an incantation than a song, “Unruly Prayer” reveals a subdued, tranquil side to Popcaan that’s very appealing. This song isn’t on his 2014 debut album Where We Come From, so he maybe he’s teasing a new project? I’ll be praying.

Run The Jewels - “Early” (Feat. Boots) Video

Killer Mike’s heartfelt, terrified opening verse from Run The Jewels’ police-brutality freakout “Early” might be the single greatest moment on last year’s RTJ2, and album full of great moments. Alongside hooksinger and Beyoncé collaborator Boots, the duo performed the song on Letterman shortly after the album’s release. And now the harsh, dystopic animated video for “Early” feels like it’s arriving right on time. The clip, from directors Bug & Sluzzy, recreates the narrative from that Mike verse, and it also shows stylized portraits of the anti-police brutality demonstrations that have been happening around the country for the past year. The lyrics flash on the screen, but this isn’t a lyric video; it’s something much more primal.

Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” Video Is Now A Video Game

If you were a kid when Jamiroquai dropped their classic Jonathan Glazer-directed “Virtual Insanity” video, you probably found yourself asking one question, over and over: How does that couch not totally just kill him? Just crush him up against the wall and end him? It seems like it’s about to happen again and again, but it never does. That video is now the basis for an appealingly crude video game that’s somehow not called Virtual Instanity. Instead, as the AV Club reports, it’s called Jamiroquai Game, and it involves moving a polygonal version of Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay around, dodging endless couches as they come out of the walls, as a midi version of “Virtual Insanity” plays. The “splat” sound effect when a couch finally hits him is priceless. Watch a gameplay video and the original still-great “Virtual Insanity” video below.

You can play or download the game here. I haven’t played it, mostly because I don’t want my whole day to get sucked into a time-wasting black hole, so I can’t vouch for how well it works.

Heartless Bastards - “Gates of Dawn” (Official Video)

This summer Austin’s Heartless Bastards are releasing Restless Ones, their fifth album of wide-open rock. The album was produced by John Congleton and showcases frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom’s gritty, bluesy voice more than ever. Today we’re premiering the video for “Gates Of Dawn,” which gives me DIY/home-video vibes and follows a teenager who is taunting, fleeing from and wrestling a devil of sorts. Shots of the band are mixed in, and they kaleidoscope out into a colorful, psychedelic mess at the end. Watch the Frank Weysos-directed clip.

Ryn Weaver - “Octahate” Video (Version 2)

As much as I love the Brontë sisters, the mansions of their Victorian-era moors aren’t a place that anyone would ever dream of escaping to. They’re haunted and glum, and if you’re a woman, totally oppressive. Whether or not it takes place in England, Ryn Weaver’s new video for her massive 2014 summer single “OctaHate” features the singer wreaking havoc on the likeness of one of these massive, seemingly abandoned homes. She rushes into the central ballroom with a friend in tow, before they dance atop the table of an exquisite banquet. Weaver’s forthcoming album is titled The Fool, which makes the closing scene’s absurdity and resemblance to Alice In Wonderland‘s Mad Tea Party all the more pertinent.

The Twilight Sad - “It Never Was The Same” (Official Video)

Melancholy Scottish rockers the Twilight Sad put out their fourth album, Nobody Wants To Be Here And Nobody Wants To Leave, last year, but today they’ve released a video for one of the album’s tracks, “It Never Was The Same.” With titles like that, you knew this shit was going to get dark, right? The video opens with a shot of two old men sitting in a bar, then quickly cuts to a woman in white dragging a man in all-black down the street. Eventually these two story lines intersect, but I won’t give away the dramatic conclusion. Watch the handheldcineclub-directed video .

Watch Miley Cyrus & Ariana Grande Cover Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”

Happy Hippie Presents: Backyard Sessions - "Don't Dream It's Over" featuring Ariana GrandeSoooooo thankful for Ariana Grande for being a part of the #backyardsessions!! You're the sweetest little #happyhippie bear-mouse ever! Loooooove you  The Happy Hippie Foundation #HappyHippiePresents #dontdreamitsover
Posted by Miley Cyrus on Jueves, 14 de mayo de 2015

The Australian band Crowded House originally recorded “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and it became one of those slow-rock, dreamy hits that characterized the late ’80s and early ’90s so well. Their version came out in 1986, which was before Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, or I was born, but maybe like me, the two pop stars heard Sixpence None The Richer’s excellent 2003 version. (I mean, it was on a Smallville compilation soundtrack, how could anyone miss that?) Cyrus recently launched a charity organization called the Happy Hippie Foundation that seeks to help marginalized LGBT homeless youth and has been posting backyard jam sessions to help get out the word — including an awesome collaboration with Laura Jane Grace on “True Trans Soul Rebel.” I was really into the one Cyrus did featuring Melanie Safka, “Look What They’ve Done To My Song Ma,” but her new duet with Ariana Grande tops that folk classic. The two sat on a neon blow-up couch and sang “Don’t Dream It’s Over” as a duet — even if you’ve decided you’re somehow above the pop music these two talented women make, this cover is worth hearing. It’s moody, romantic, and hopeful. Plus they sound fabulous together; Cyrus scratchy and low, and Grande with her velvet soprano.

Waterstrider - “Frayed” (Official Video)

Oakland psychedelic fuzzers Waterstrider blur the line between stillness and movement in their new video for “Frayed.” The clip plays out like one of those flip-books from your childhood, a collection of 40,000 photographs sequenced to look like a video. It features the Waterstrider vocalist Nate Salman and Kevn Tijerina. The seams between shots are visible and give the clip a stilted, puppeteered feel that contrasts nicely with the song’s funk-pop longing and elation.

Watch A Raunchy Miley Cyrus & The Flaming Lips Debut “Tiger Dreams” At Adult Swim Upfront

Miley Cyrus debuted one of her long-in-the-works collaborations with the Flaming Lips during her performance last night at the Adult Swim Upfront at Terminal 5 in New York City. Wayne Coyne joined the pop singer halfway through her set to do a song called “Tiger Dreams” from their forthcoming joint album. While introducing the song, Cyrus said: “As you can imagine, Wayne doesn’t listen much to Katy Perry, and I had to tell him that she already has a song called ‘Tiger’ and that we can’t do that. So this is ‘Tiger Dreams.'” Presumably, she’s referring to “Roar,” which goes “I’ve got the eye of the tiger…” Watch the video.

And that little aside doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Cyrus said during the performance. As Billboard reports, at one point the singer covered Khia’s classic “My Neck, My Back” and introduced it as such:

Bitches, you better sing the shit out of this song! Do you know how many times I turn on the radio and hear somebody ask me to suck his dick? This is the best song! Now suck my fucking pussy!

She also talked about her new charity The Happy Hippie Foundation, which she launched last week with videos starring Joan Jett and Laura Jane Grace:

I’m not one to slow down the party, but there’s some people here wearing some suits and ties and shit, so I’m guessing there are some people have money. But there’s some people who have money and don’t have clean shoes and underwear, and that’s what I’m doing with my foundation. We’re not changing — I gotta get used to saying this, because it’s real now — we are changing the world. And I’ll be here, because there’s a bar, if you guys wanna know how to get involved.

She also covered Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue,” Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” and Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” all of which she’s done live before. Here’s the full setlist for the night:
“#GETITRIGHT”
“SMS (Bangerz)”
“Do My Thang”
“A Boy Named Sue” (Johnny Cash cover)
“4×4″
“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” (Paul Simon cover)
“No Freedom” (Dido Cover)
“Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (Led Zeppelin cover)
“Drive”
“Tiger Dreams” (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“A Day In The Life” (The Beatles cover) (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“My Neck, My Back” (Khia cover)
“We Can’t Stop”
“Love Money Party”

Lianne La Havas - “Unstoppable” (Official Video)

Lianne La Havas is so mesmerizing that she can dance alone in a room for four minutes and still leave you feeling spellbound. So why not take advantage of that ability? That’s exactly what happened in the “Unstoppable” video — it’s just La Havas clad in several versions of a gorgeous, dark-blue bodysuit, twirling around in the sunlight of a vaulted room. She sings every line of this gorgeous love song with so much conviction that you’re drawn into her orbit just by listening. I’m going to watch this video before every important decision I make from now on — that’s how much confidence oozes out of it. Watch.

Hudson Mohawke - “Very First Breath” (Feat. Irfane) Video

Next month, the futurist producer and Kanye West collaborator Hudson Mohawke will drop his new album Lantern upon an unsuspecting world. And this morning, he’s unveiled his video for the single “Very First Breath,” a collaboration with singer Irfane. Director Sam De Jong‘s clip seems to tell the story of the beginning of a relationship and of its violent end. I say “seems to” because I’m not entirely sure what’s happening in the video. But even if the narrative is a bit muddy, the video has style to burn, telling its story with neon and glitter and red light bathing everything. For whatever reason, it also has Korean subtitles. (That’s Korean, right?) The video is a good one, and you can watch it below.

Watch A Trailer For Julian Casablancas + The Voidz’ “Human Sadness” Video

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz released their massive, disorderly record Tyranny last year, and “Human Sadness” was the first single. The song was teased in bits and pieces before they dropped the whopping 11-minute-long composition. The band has been hyping the video since November, when they did an interview with Revolt TV, and in March, a Twitter account dedicated to the short film surfaced. Now, there’s a brand-new trailer for the video, which will premiere next Wednesday 5/20 at the Cinefamily in NYC preceding a screening of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho.

Elisa Ambrogio - “Arkansas” (Official Video)

Magik Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio released her astounding debut solo album, The Immoralist, last summer on Drag City, an understated collection of personal songs that echo into infinity, slipping into empty spaces of unconsciousness and waking them. Much of The Immoralist centers on themes of the supernatural and the occult, so its fitting that Ambrogio enlisted Amy E. Scott to direct the video for “Arkansas.” Scott is the documentarian behind Once I Was: The Hal Ashby Story, a film about the director of Harold And Maude, and Scott’s obsession with cult-film directors infiltrated her collaboration with Ambrogio as well. The director of Back Door To Hell and Two Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman, stars opposite Ambrogio in the video for “Arkansas.” As the two play a game of chess in an idyllic California country house on the water, their actions are interspersed with dream-like imagery.

The Silver Lake Chorus - “Hold Up For” (Official Video)

City of Angels choral pop group the Silver Lake Chorus (TSLC) has been blessed with some skillful song writing by the Flaming Lips, Ben Gibbard, Sia, and Bon Iver. We’ve heard “Heavy Star Movin’” penned by Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips. Now, Tegan And Sara’s contribution is brought to the life in TSLC member Charlie Maas’ video for “Hold Up For.” The Brian Bress-inspired clip features a handful of TSLC’s 25 members, a power saw, and some good old colorful construction paper. The members playfully peek through shapes reminiscent of elementary school arts and crafts they’ve cut in the paper. It’s simple, but it’s probably the cutest thing you’ll see all week. Heart-eyed emoji times three.

Speedy Ortiz - “Raising The Skate” (Official Video)

In the video for “Raising The Skate,” the great single from their new album Foil Deer, the members of the whipsmart Massachusetts DIY band Speedy Ortiz spend the night in a haunted house, and things don’t go so well for most of them. Like the band’s clip for “The Graduates,” this one uses the cheapest, silliest ways possible to go over-the-top surreal. It’s less a horror movie and more a sly joke about horror movies, though frontwoman Sadie Dupuis does admittedly make a great Final Girl. Casey Herz directed the video.