Very few "Best Videos of 2015" lists that we could locate offered much variety. ("Feeling Myself" is in pretty much all of them even though it's not really all that different from most of Beyonce's other videos from the past 3 years.) The majority of these lists (possibly all of them) properly included "Alright." We wanted to include "For Free" because it's a great video that didn't appear on ANY of these lists. And we really wanted Rihanna at #1. However, this leaves us with the unfortunate task of figuring out how to still ensure that "Alright" is not forgotten. Placing the video at "number zero" probably doesn't sound very impressive to most people. But rest assured, zero is the hero.
There's a lot to say about "Alright," and it's been reviewed so many times in the past 4 weeks that it's pointless to add much beyond these two notes:
#2 The cinematography in this is SO right on - the best in a hiphop video since "99 Problems" - but we haven't seen it praised elsewhere. (Perhaps it was so obvious that it wasn't worth mentioning.)
Videos like this make us long for the days when late-night MTV2 would air those "20 Most Controversial Videos" specials like the one hosted by Andrew WK way back in 2003 (the only instance when videos like "Closer," "Smack My Bitch Up" or "What It Feels Like For A Girl" were shown completely uncensored).
In modern day pop videos, the "NSFW" tag doesn't seem to matter nearly as much. Matt and Kim or The Flaming Lips can shoot a full-frontal video anytime they want. Whoopie. Those videos probably wouldn't have been eligible for MTV airplay anyway. What really makes an impression in 2015 is when a HUGE (big-business AND critically beloved) artist makes it abundantly certain that she gives a grand total of zero fucks.
We have to be honest for a second: After going to bat for Rihanna many times between 2005 and 2012, we were starting to give up on her. When a pop artist releases big albums with multiple radio hits three Novembers in a row (2010, 2011 and 2012), oversaturation might become inevitable. It started out as only mildly grating somewhere between "I Love the Way You Lie" and "Run This Town," but the annoyance probably reached its apex right around the 200th spin of "We Found Love." We never thought we'd be so happy that she disappeared out of nowhere.
2014 - her strategically planned year off - did her a WORLD of good.
She is now probably the coolest rock star to chainsmoke in a video since the days of Nirvana Unplugged. (Anyone seen Taylor Swift chainsmoking lately? Def not, because Taylor Swift is boring. #truth) But that's not all:
- She lets the puppy live.
- She somehow found one of the world's only remaining functioning payphones and proceeds to beat the shit out of it.
- Slow motion walk away from burning car.
- Vomit.
- Shoots fireworks gun from a kiddie pool.
- Smokes joints.
- Shoots a cellphone.
- Weed dance party in hotel room with the Bitch character tied to the bed and blindfolded.
- "Available Balance: $420"
- Celebrates having her money returned by smoking weed naked in the middle of a park covered in blood and dollar bills.
FUSE offered Peaches a reality show about her day to day existence - possibly titled Peaches and Cream. She brought a camera crew to her commune, although no one knows where it exists. Not even Peaches. She just somehow shows up there when she returns from tour. They shot 4 seasons of the show and condensed all the best parts into this 5-minute video.
Is this the future of LARPing? Back in the day, kids used to play capture the flag. Now they play Game Of Thrones on molly, incorporating drones, texting devices, tamagotchis and gooey Nickelodeon products like Floam and Gak. Princess AOL Start-Up Disc rules from her bed throne next to her OneDirection shrine. Seems like the backstory is intensely intricate and incomprehensible. What will happen to their universe once they go off to college? Will they reunite for ongoing adventures during Thanksgiving Breaks and Winter Sessions? Or will new young recruits carry their legacy?
Some of this video's publicity placed emphasis on the unexpectedly brilliant track selection, a rare instance of a skit receiving video treatment. (It's tough for us throw the tag "skit" onto a piece of work that's so musically and lyrically dense, but that's a discussion for a different blurb.) We usually prefer when videos present an unexpected reflection of a song's musical atmosphere without visually interpreting its lyrics. But here, everything is so strongly aligned: Lyrics, music, atmosphere and cinematic visuals interwoven into an insane 2.2 minute blast so intense that we wouldn't be surprised if it's already influenced a few dozen thesis projects.
MTV once created a simpler gateway for young filmmakers to generate name-recognition in a way that doesn't seem to be catching quite as easily in the Youtube/Vimeo era. The 2010s doesn't really have any big "pop video director" names like Jonas Akerlund, F. Gary Gray, Mark Romanek or Hype Williams. Although, if this decade had one of those names, it would be AG Rojas. For us, his video for "Earl" by Earl Sweatshirt was like the 2010s version of Sam Bayer's "Teen Spirit" video, hitting at just the perfect time when the world of music and pop videos desperately needed the excitement that Odd Future happily provided.
Just the same, the state of the world at the beginning of 2015 needed a strong reaction. And it had been a very long time since world events properly aligned with a cultural movement that didn't feel self-serving or grossly heavy-handed. For example, 9/11, the invasion of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina were expected to coincide with strong cultural movements that never really happened. Reactions to those moments throughout the world of music frequently appeared very self-serving. U2 was somehow present for all of them. Sam Bayer - 14 years after "Teen Spirit" - reacted to Iraq with possibly the worst video of the 2000-2009 decade, Green Day's "Wake Me When September Ends."
2015. We're finally experiencing a cultural movement that can produce a video like THIS, equally moving and appropriately poignant. We don't wanna blow our load too soon before Hot Mix, so we'll cool down our reaction to the world at large. But yea, "Close Your Eyes" is one of the strongest reactions to this era from any medium.
In the mid-2010s, it unexpectedly became very easy to pretend it's the '90s. We're all for it. Yo look, it's the B-Boys! With Nas! Being all wacky in a grocery store! It's like nothing ever changed. We wonder if MTV would have made this a Buzz Clip, like how they would occasionally slap the tag onto videos from bands that were already nationally established, ie "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Where It's At" and "El Scorcho."
Special thanks to our associates for recommending this one. As Youtube's Autoplay function suggests more Homeshake videos, they all appear warped by a specific strand of fogginess. "Slow" is fascinating enough, but their videography as a whole seems framed through a lens of robo-trip bleariness.
For example, the 2 videos for "Heat" very different. (Pretty sure one of them is way more official than the other.) And yet both seem similarly alien.
This video requires a bit of backstory: The band Trust Fund do this cool thing where they're always cracking up. And that's basically the entire backstory. They are the undisputed champions of contagious giddy roffles, surpassing probably any other band in rock music history (and we're probably not exaggerating). Also puppies!
I guess we'll go with this one for #10, even though we've seen videos like this one a few times before. The kid gets called a nerd, and then he overcomes the challenge to un-nerd himself. It's a feel good hit. (Also, we're bummed that we couldn't find room for this to place higher than #101 in Hot Mix 2014, so perhaps this will make up for our blunder.) Also for some reason, this made us miss 2002-era MTV2.
We kinda fucked up here. We just watched this again and realized that we don't actually want it to be #10, which is tricky because now we have to find another "Top 10 worthy" vid. No big whoop tho. We'll find it now.
Winner of our coveted "Best Choreography" award (referring mostly to the convulsions). In a year when various track premieres and album releases were treated like "events" thanks to overzealous publicity agents, the "Blackstar" premiere actually lived up to its event-ness. In the parallel universe where MTV still shows videos and labels them with tags like "Breakthrough Video" and "Buzz Clip," this vid might have received a red carpet premiere not unlike GNR's "Estranged."
Hey, our supercomputer with all the Hot Mix commentary just died! WOO!
Luckily for us, we had our "Vid Kids" list memorized. And no time like the present. 2014 was a better year for videos than 2015, but that's ok. Let's begin with our bonus choices:
Cyriak "Malfunction"
Set against the backdrop of 1950s Americana, a friendly mutant creature struggles to locate his home. His best friend is a thirty-something housewife. She is unable to see the creature until after ingestion of barbiturates.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats "Melody Lane"
Uncle Acid continues to establish themselves among the greats of found footage presentation. Our only complaint arrives in response to the video's ending when an album advertisement appears without warning. (Once upon a time, MTV would have simply presented the album title at the video's beginning and end.) This is also probably the band's first vid cameo. (We're assuming that's them.)
TASTE MY KIDS is a digital newsletter compiling recommendations for a happier and healthier existence, most often in the form of "best-of" lists, youtube posts, album or movie reviews, and various scribblings. We lived on Geocities starting in August 2000. In January 2009, times got tough and posts were on hiatus until a new host could be located. Geocities eventually died anyway, and now we live on blogspot. True story.
