"crystal necklace"

badass video from late-2010...

Youtube removes "Earl"

Some twitter posts from @fucktyler seemed to suggest that Odd Future's breakthrough video "Earl" may have been removed from Youtube due to "inappropriate" something or other... We just checked ourselves, and sure enough, it's been yanked with no real explanation, which can only mean that some dumb white suburban moms caught their 12-year-olds watching and complained.

(EDIT 11/18/11: As of this afternoon, "Earl" was placed back on Youtube. This absolutely was a result of dumb moms.)

We always associated this video far more with Vimeo, but we're still sad to see it go from the Youtubes. "Earl" came in 2nd place in our "Hey, Nice Vids! 2010" list (best videos of last year) and along with El Guincho's "Bombay" it seemed to be setting some new standards on what to expect from music videos.

In about three months, Earl will be turning 18... Our (admittedly completely unrealistic) expectations are that he will take over the world of hiphop within the next year.

HEY, NICE VIDS (HM): Travis Porter "Make It Rain"

Narrowly missed the deadline for official entry.. This prolly would've beat out Kanye & Badu.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #1 El Guincho "Bombay"

One of the first things that got posted on the "blog" version of this website was the long overdue 20 Best Promo Videos Ever feature which had Jay-Z's "99 Problems" in at #1. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison just yet, but I've been starting to wonder if there is possibly a new #1 video of all time, and if "Bombay" is that video. I still may need some time to sort out the whole thing, but this just might be the most strikingly beautiful, exciting, and evocative promotional video ever made for a song. I'm pretty sure it's better than the whole of Holy Mountain. The director's pitch for the bonus of all bonuses: "Hey El Guincho, I have a tremendously great idea for your new video. Let's not only compile an insane shitload of cinematically gorgeous shots, but let's also fill up a good 50-60% of the video with beautiful topless women. Does this possibly sound like something you might be interested in?"

The directors eliminate any risk of this turning into a distasteful mess, objectifying all those poor young girls. And things might have gone downhill for El Guincho very quickly. But it's entirely artful and in good taste, with bonus points for band performance, of course. And even the shots of the band are awesome! Everyone looks like they had a blast making this thing. Contagious and inspirational.

So once you get past the initial rush of "wow wtf amazing," we're left with many questions: Why is El Guincho always so concerned with audio recordings? Why is he in the middle of the woods when 2 babes force him out of hiding with guns? And generally speaking, what's up with all the guns? Aside from the boobies, it's the most prominent recurring image in this video. Why does that dude want to shoot the poor stuffed panda bear? Did panda make it out of there okay? What became of the girl who was chloroformed? Or vacuum dude? Or baghead pianist? There's so much happening that we can't help inventing our own narrative. So many questions...

El Guincho - Bombay from CANADA on Vimeo.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #2 Earl Sweatshirt "Earl"

"Let's all fucking kill ourselves." Probably the best youtube comment of alltime.

Tyler The Creator gets some props for his performance in this, when he experiences convulsions, falls backwards and foams at the mouth. For 3 or 4 weeks, I thought this video was real.

"EARL" /// Music Video. from AG Rojas on Vimeo.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #3 The Arcade Fire "The Suburbs"

Rock bands made some shitty ass videos in 2010. However, Spike Jonze's "The Suburbs" would be a huge exception, featuring shots from the short unreleased film Scenes From The Suburbs. I normally subtract points from videos that don't include some form of musical performance or lipsynching, because that's what separates true "music videos" from "concurrent song and images." "The Suburbs" seems to be the latter, even though it's one of those cases where there's too much going on here to be ignored. It brings to mind images from Gummo, Children Of Men, Paranoid Park, and probably some Linklater stuff as well. It's always a bummer year for videos when there's no Gondry or Cunningham or Romanek floating around. So thank you to Spike Jonze for continuing with the killer clips.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #4 Hot Chip "I Feel Better"

Part of me really wants to dislike this video, since making fun of boybands is a tired cliche that goes back probably prior to Blink 182's "All The Small Things," but I'm having trouble thinking of anything earlier. However, during the last minute or "I Feel Better," it all starts to make sense.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #5 Oneohtrix Point Never "Russian Mind"

Liquid brains, here we come...

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #6 Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce "Telephone"

I just noticed that at some point over the last 24 hours, Youtube started using a different embed code, and the frame looks kinda different now. I tried to change the frame color, but it's not really working for me. Speaking of money, Lady Gaga clips remind me of the type of videos which used to be made by Michael Jackson, Guns N' Roses and Puff Daddy. It's good to know we have a modern equivalent in her, apparently willing to spend thousands of dollars on whatever extravagantly wasteful present she had mailed to Beyonce on her birthday (which might have been an undergarment coated with some type of expensive metal or rocks.. Google it.. I don't feel like remembering.) We need videos like "Telephone." Without excessive rock stars, the world is that much more depressing.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #7 Kanye West "Power"

While failing to understand what really makes My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy interesting to listen to more than once, there's no denying such a visually stunning clip as this one...

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #8 Jonna Lee "iamamiwhoami"

The unfortunate truth: People wanted these videos to be of someone a lot more famous than Jonna Lee. When it wasn't, people stopped caring. The process toward unveiling who it was also got drawn out way too long. But on the bright side, the music and visuals are both very cool.

Here's the one where the tree cums...



And the hot ass beat one...

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #9 Erykah Badu feat. Lil Wayne "Jump Up In The Air And Stay There"

More drugs. This was already posted once several months ago. As the intro explains, it's "A Story By Erykah Badu," and what a storyteller that Badu, lemme tell you what... I forget whether it's supposed to be people who are too smart or too dumb who can't be hypnotized. Just use caution when watching this.

HEY, NICE VIDS 2010: #10 Eric Copeland "Fun Dink Death"

Since the mid-90's, and leading up to the advent of Youtube, video compilation and TV clip compilation steadily grew in (underground) popularity. I made a 6-hour "video mixtape" myself back in the Spring of 2006 of which I'm quite proud. Since Youtube, the 2 most adept TV clip compilers that I've seen have to be the guys who put together Everything Is Terrible and TV Carnage. Black Dice videos are put together the same way, and the inanity of their clip findings normally end up nicely matching the music. So when Black Dice member Eric Copeland's summer banger was unleashed, we all knew it was time for trippin' balls at the TV beach.

HEY, NICE VIDS (HM): M.I.A. "Born Free"

Rember this one? M.I.A. got all racist against gingers. Fuck em up good, Maya!

P.S. The kid didn't really die. (That's technically not a spoiler since you should have seen this video already.)

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

HEY, NICE VIDS (HM): The Drums "Me And The Moon"

To be honest, this isn't really that great of a video, but when it's on TV (as opposed to on youtube) it looks more authentically like 80's MTV than anything that's been aired in about 20 years. The lead singer dude actually dances worse than Natalie Imbruglia in the "Torn" video (which by the way means that he REALLY fucking sucks at dancing). Perhaps they were going for charm. Bonus points have been granted for purposely out of synch guitar strumming, and for the gadgets held by that one band-member with the hair. And also there's some good sweaters. However, those high school team jackets are hipster-trendy as shit these days.

HEY, NICE VIDS (HM): Caribou "Sun"

Obviously "HM" means "honorable mention." Did you think I was referring to H&M because of their tasteful selection of handbags? Not a chance. Grow up.

THE REAL DEAL: "Sun" looks like some old people with a lot of weed decided to throw a fuckin' rager. Much like the Chappelle's Show sketch with John Mayer, it effectively displays the major differences between white-people-dancing and black-people-dancing. It's also the type of video that used to play around 2:45AM on MTV's AMP circa-1999 between DJ Shadow's "High Noon" and Space Raiders' "Disko Doctor." It's good to know videos like this still get made. Also, the dudes who do the running-man halfway through this are the dance-contest winners IMO.

HEY, NICE VIDS (2010)

Time for the best promo videos of 2010. I really hope this doesn't take long.

2010 was a good year for music video directors to trip the fuck out on some hallucinogens (probably shrooms) since that's what 80-90% of the best promo videos of the year looked like. (I would say probably not salvia due to its intensity, which by the way is probably going to finally be outlawed in 2011 since CNN has started reporting on it, thank you very much Miley Cyrus. You ruined the fun for everybody because you just HAD to trip balls, didn't you?)