This website granted a #0 one other time in 2015 for Kendrick Lamar's "Alright." It's a special award for videos deemed as culturally important that have already been discussed by literally every other web source in existence. Combining elaborately intricate camera movement and choreography with acutely bleak social commentary, "This Is America" rests at a crossroads of "Alright" and another video directed by Hiro Murai; Flying Lotus & Kendrick's "Never Stop Me" fit the same #0 criteria but felt dope enough to become our #1 video of 2014. "This Is America" is now by far Hiro Murai's most popular work to date and prompted Billboard magazine to (incorrectly) label 2018 the dawn of a new music video golden age.
Did you fall for the troll at 0:20? We sure did, but that's partially because we had actual IRL trouble with our modem signal dropping. Several phonecalls later, Xfinity cancelled our tech visit's 12PM-5PM arrival window claiming all service had been restored, only to leave us staring once again at Flasher frozen in mid-rockage. "Material" is like one of those tweets or Facebook posts where someone loudly complains about how much they hate the extremely free platform they're using to speak to everyone who is reading. We are guilty of this. Because all of them suck. But they're also amazing. Everyone in 1998 who said "the internet is evil" was right. Everyone in 2009 who said "Facebook is evil" was harrowingly on point. And the cycle continues...
Like Young Thug's video that placed #1 last year, here's a hiphop clip owing much of its dopeness to IRL circumstances. In a Fader Q&A from last summer, Sheck Wes casually mentions how he used to steal ankle braces from a Modell's in downtown Manhattan. Whether it was staged, the injury aspect might strike a personal chord for Wes. For others, it's 2018's equivalent of Andrew WK's wheelchair-bound performance at the 2003 Spike Videogame Awards crossed with the final explosive minute of the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. Most video directors would have left it at that and called it a day, but they upped the ante opting to fuse an additional narrative that kinda looked like Darren Aronofsky's Pi - similar dramatic lighting, shot in grainy black & white. All of this would be meaningless if "Mo Bamba" wasn't among the hottest jams of the year.
Since the turn of the decade, many have requested these exact proceedings during their own funeral ceremony. After recreating each specificity, Pig Destroyer threw in the extra bonus of launching the dearly departed toward the ascension of Tony Hawk Pro Skater Heaven. "Mt. Skull" is ultimately a very happy video, since Pro Skater is where all the good people go when they die despite achieving 0 out of 62 life goals.
Milwaukee legend Mark Borchardt's follow-up to his 1997 horror short Coven could still wrap anytime now. The delayed completion of Northwestern (in production since 2000) and Scare Me (in production since 2004) hopefully received some motivational juice circa-2014 after a few unexpected Borchardt-directed music promos crept onto YouTube (including videos for Big D and the Kids Table and Tapebenders). Around the same time about 80 miles west in Madison, Wisconsin, Tenement were adding the finishing touches to their double-LP Predatory Headlights. It's unclear whether the "Garden Of Secrecy" video was intended to premiere before the album dropped in June 2015, but Borchardt's charmingly classic perfectionism kept the video unfinished for over three years, finally premiering this past August. It was worth the wait.
The video directing collective CANADA peaked in 2010 with the explosive and groundbreaking clip for El Guincho's "Bombay" - probably still the best music video from this entire decade by anyone. Knowing the way blogs operate today, we're certain it won't appear as the CANADA pick in many "Best Videos of the Decade" lists throughout 2019 in favor of Rosalia's "Malamente" - their 2nd best video to date for yet another exhilarating Spanish-language song. Perhaps CANADA should consider a future exclusively aligning these types of songs with rapidly intricate imagery.
Spike Jonze did not direct "I Love It," but he did design the concept and has been credited as "Executive Producer," whatever that means. 2018 was a year that desperately needed this flavor of striking weirdness, but a true Spike-directed video might have felt a lot less incomplete, appropriately matching Kanye's half-finished song.
At 49, YG may be the eldest of any current prominent trap artist. 2 Chainz might be in 2nd place at age 41. When we first saw this video claiming that these were really the moms of the three rappers, we were skeptical at first. But the age range seems appropriate. We believe it.
In the UK, you can't walk 10 feet out of your house without running into Peppa Pig, usually in an ad on the back of the bus or something. Peppa made a special celebrity cameo for Ariana's "Breathin." She shakes like a little doggy in one part somewhere in the middle. Why isn't this #1?
Sometimes the dentist's chair can feel the way it's described in this video. We're guessing the human in the trunk of the car covered in money is a dentist. Their profession is in danger. Beware all dentists.
Murderous aesthetics. There's a story buried in here somewhere. Is it his house? Or does it belong to the lady in the shower with the butt? Maybe both? Maybe neither? So many questions...
Good costume design in this one. Music "performance" shows in the '70s often had people lipsynch while blankly staring into the camera, and we're surprised it's taken until now for this to show up in a modern video.
Lil B “YCFMB”
Not only does Lil B have both a sixpack and a belly at the same time, but he includes an entire extra minute of bonus footage after the song ends. And it's not because the video editor misjudged the song length. No, not at all.
Little Big “Skibidi”
We Googled "weird 2018 music videos" and several blogs wrote about this, possibly because a press release described the video that way. We did lol twice though so that's something. A similar video from 2006 has been posted below it.
Sting & Shaggy “Gotta Get Back My Baby”
For people like us, the Sting & Shaggy album was on our mind constantly. But most people probably didn't know this album or video existed or that either artist released music in 2018. This is an exceptional video of the highest quality.
Music video quality didn't necessarily drop in 2018; rap videos were as good as ever, but true milestones were tough to find.
In 2018, the creators of this blog posted 6 more editions of MTVZ, our approximately bi-monthly magazine collecting as many compellingly strange YouTube clips and (mostly new) music videos as we can find. We like to pass it off and consume it as its own separate cable channel, since there are currently no quality music video resources as good as the MTV of 1981-1999 or the MTV2 of 1996-2002.
The curation presents a unique challenge to create a playlist that feels like old MTV. What were the Buzz Clips of 2018? What older videos should be included? How many weird cartoons can we find to throw in between?
Old MTV typically labelled the best videos of any given year as Breakthrough Videos, which are the types of videos we tried to locate for Wiz Vids 2018.
Before we get into those, check these out:
DJ Burn "He's My President"
Punk as fuck.
Candy “Good To Feel”
You know what Jesus's big mistake was? He didn't offer up a sacrifice in his stead. The cruciform is a constant reminder of that.
Three Knee Deep (Full Set) at FYA Fest 2018
Did watch many times this year.
Peste Noire "Aristocrasse"
We would not normally include lyric videos but--
Melody’s Echo Chamber “Breathe In, Breathe Out”
Happened to us this morning, so we had to include here.
Connan Mockasin "Charlotte's Thong"
Alejandro Taruth's best since a few years ago.
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.
