Ten Great Music Videos
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The Music Video - essential PR tool for any serious chancer of a band. However in this MTV era of information and visual overload the music video has become a shadow of its former self. However once in a while a few gems reveal themselves. What follows are 10 examples of some of the finer music videos, as nominated by various visitors to the CLUAS website. Read on and spot the videos you know, the ones you don't know and - most importantly - the ones whose presence in this list you disagree with. Rants and raves can be posted to the CLUAS discussion board! |
Radiohead 'Just' |
Yes 'Owner of a lonely heart' |
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 Taken
from the band's 1995 offering, The Bends, it's fair to say that this video did as
much as the music in bringing Radiohead's new blends to the masses. As the band
watch the street below a man walking by decides to lie on the path - for reasons
unbeknown to anyone else. Despite pleas by passers-by for him to rise - all of this
dialogue between the people in the video is subtitled - the man stays where he
is. After consistent pressure the man agrees to tell the crowd that has by now assembled
around him, why it is that he's lying on the pavement. At this point the subtitles
end while the man explains his reason, and as he finishes the picture blackens.
A few seconds later it returns with the whole crowd lying on the pavement alongside
him. When questioned about what the man says, Thom Yorke said it possibly has something
to do with a number, but that the exact words would never be known to the general
public. Shame, really - I was about to brush the dust off my walking shoes... (submitted
by Gav Reilly) |
 This
video is so entertaining. You have your Everyman hero, battling against the impersonal
forces of Conformity, The Corporate State, Modern Existence, etc. He is shown being
alienated from his fellow man, gets kidnapped and taken to a Hades-like basement,
is attacked by goons, beats up a big troglodyte, and flees. At the end, he is inexplicably
menaced by the band members themselves (who are THEY supposed to symbolize, evil
musicians?) They freak him out so much he leaps off the roof of a skyscraper, and
he turns into a bird and flies away (or else he plummets to his death as the camera
pans away to a bird - I've never been sure which). The band members all seem to
turn into animals too. This video, for me, recalls the era when video budgets were
starting to get bigger and videos were becoming mini-movies, but at this point (1984)
things hadn't yet gotten nearly as absurd as "November Rain." (Submitted by
Chris Houlihan) |
Nik Kershaw 'Wouldn't it be good' |
Frames 'Revelate' |
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 Hang
on, hang on..... Just remember that this was done when most of us were still playing
"Pong" and dreaming of computers with up to 32K of memory. Suddenly, here was a
guy in a suit that is actually showed bits of the video on it. Amazing! I know the
hair was a bit dodgy, but still the technology....the dream of the future.... the
guy was coolness in a shiny suit, let's face it. (Submitted by Ray Heffernan) |
 An
obvious choice for any top-ten, this amazingly simple music video was once nominated
for an MTV Europe award. Costing about a fiver to make, it was shot in black and
white on a Post Office security camera of all things. It eventually became something
of a cult hit after being shown on the Beat Box (anyone remember that?) and it just
goes to show that big-budget professionally produced videos ain't everything. (Submitted
by Richie Murray) |
Bjork 'Bachelorette' |
Aphex Twin 'Come to Daddy' |
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 It
is hard to pick a favourite Bjork clip, but Bachelorette gets it by a whisker for
me (just ahead of 'all is full of love' if your interested...). One of Michel Gondrys
amazing series of Bjork filmclips, this one is just stunning. Beautiful look, superb
pace, and a uniquely cyclical story that is just perfect for the song. The ending
is a bit strange, but so is everything else that I've seen from Gondry... (Submitted
by Troy Merritt) |
 Quite
possibly the most horrible and vilest thing to be viewed this side of most Prodigy
videos. Filmed in a derelict South London council estate it combines the stark horror
of a dozen cloned Richard James's children running in unison to a nasty brittle
soundtrack. It also has a mutant alien type creature thing screaming at a pensioner...
Deemed too upsetting, this classic song seldom makes it on either the daytime radio
or music video playlist but you can almost guarantee that it sometimes makes it
onto MTV's watershed videos late at night. Catch it. (submitted by Darren) |
Air 'All I need' |
Sabrina 'Boys Boys Boys' |
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 Wonderfully
blissful song and video. The video features an American skateboarding couple, and
is interspersed with snippets of conversation of them talking about their relationship,
how they met, etc. The rest of the video is footage of the couple doing stuff, skateboarding,
hanging in the car, all set in a Californian summer, with beautiful sunsets setting
the backdrop. The song and video go together amazingly well - Both are simple enough
in theme, almost corny in their simplicity. What they both do well is their genuine
feeling and perfect mood settings... The blissed out noodlings of Air and a perfect
female voice perfectly suit the sunkissed blissed out footage in the video. (Submitted
by Brian Scanlan) |
 Time
and time again we hear the moans of generation Xers: "History forgets us...", "We
had no role models growing up.." blah blah blah. Well I was born in 1974 and there's
a damn good reason I'm thankful for it: my confused, teenage ideas about life and
love were forever changed by a pop star in a swimming pool, in, in ... ah I don't
know, Spain? Greece? Florida? Did I care then? Do I care now? Don't want to, ahem,
go into too much detail, but there's not a lot needed. The simple melodious lyrics
said it all: "Boys, boys, boys / I wanna have a good time". What more did
you need? Ah, kids today. Too serious by far. Maybe a Sabrina return on DVD would
cheer them up. (Submitted by Ian Stalvies) |
REM 'Talk about the Passion' |
Deus 'Instant Street' |
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 REM
have always broken new ground when it comes to making pop videos and this is their
finest example of courageous, thought-provoking and truly emotional video material.
In stark black and white, harrowing yet humane images of poverty-stricken urban
forgottens play infectiously over the heart-wrenching music. A young boy in tattered
dress somersaults gracefully, while you know he hasn't had a carefree moment in
his young life. A homeless elderly man rests on a bench in a bay, where lurking
behind is a warship which fundamentally exists for the same reasons he has to lay
cold without hope. The truth is laid bare in a work of genuinely artistic achievement.
Moving, unforgettable, honest and pure - not words you associate with most bands.
(Submitted by Ollie O'Leary) |
 'Instant
Street' is a lush, country-tinged angular ballad, quite traditional in its way,
while its video anachronistically takes place in Antwerp's Cafe d'Anvers, one of
Belgium's premier all-nighter clubs. This contrast lends a plaintive, desperate
air to the first few minutes, where the band members shoulder their way wearily
through the crowds, looking old, dishevelled, ill at ease, not a little hippyish.
They're looking for the exit, it seems, or maybe kindred spirits. Maybe they don't
know themselves what they're looking for. Abruptly, they stumble bleary-eyed onto
the street, and stagger to a halt against a wall of riot cops. The music drops to
a drumbeat. The pigs slap their batons against their palms and stare. Tension and
hostility grow... and then a gloriously scorching guitar solo kicks in, the colourful
clubbers slap their ankles, arch their backs, twist sideways and dance off down
the footpath. It's a sublime moment. The escalating riff takes us through two final
minutes of absurdist posturing as the dozen-odd nightpeople dance their home through
the astonished waking city, cops left far behind, speechless, powerless, invalidated.
(submitted by Hugh Tynan) |
Also make sure you check out the other ten lists:
ten
great debut albums
ten
great one-hit wonders
ten great
hidden album tracks
ten
great b-sides
ten great
rock & pop instrumentals
ten
great naff songs of the eighties
ten great
cover versions
ten great
album openers
ten great
film soundtracks
ten great
Irish singles that time forgot
