I don’t know if entertaining music videos are even a thing these days, but I was thinking about how back in the day, the video to a song was often a big driver in the sales of the song.
It got me thinking about memorable videos - and how sometimes the videos are more memorable than the song itself. Some videos were ahead of their time, some funny, some just plain entertaining - even when the song they were attached to was not very good at all!
So please post any music videos that you remember that you found interesting/funny/revolutionary or whatever...
I’ll start with a few...
First up, possibly the most famous music video of all time:
https://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA
Comments
😂😳
Not much has really changed, there is still a huge variety of music videos from just the artist/band performing the song, something totally unrelated to the music or using the video and song together to create a story/message. The only main change is how music videos are consumed, mostly through Youtube and social media, instead of getting airtime on TV.
One music video that I find very memorable from recent years, is Childish Gambino's 'This Is America', a very powerful piece of using the music video as an art form to make a statement and reflection on his feelings on the current state of America (as per the song title).
That Childish Gambino video is interesting. I can see why you find it memorable.
The coastal scenes were filmed at Pett Level, East Sussex, in May 1980. The video featured several 'faces' from the Blitz nightclub in Covent Garden.
the difference now is that thousands of videos and clips “go viral” every day. But that was one of the early examples.
Madness - Baggy Trousers (airborne saxophonist)
Madness - House Of Fun (Monty Python-esque "women" dance routine)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Two Tribes
A-Ha - Take On Me (combining animation and live action)
Michael Jackson - Thriller
Moving into the 90s and 2000s I'm struggling to think of too many ...
Tool - wonderfully weird, surreal, arty videos, often animated/stop-go animation e.g. Prison Sex; Sober; Schism
Queens Of The Stone Age - No One Knows
Wild Boys - Duran Duran
Hour Glass - Squeeze
We'd be together tonight - Sting
Big ‘Mad Max’ vibes going on?
This is over 60 years old, but is still one of my top 10 records ever.