The Music Video Mini-List

[domino harvey]

I’m a little late to the party but Redman: Slap Da Shit Outcha is gleefully tasteless art, a tongue in cheek earworm with a silly and scrappy video to match. This is so far out of step with current mores that it’s rather impressive. Of course, the song and video are also so far out beyond the realms of propriety that it’s hard to imagine anyone actually getting offended or taking it seriously

[domino harvey]

To that end: “The Rain” may be the ultimate Hype Williams video, but I find Busta Rhymes’ “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check” as undeniable as five minutes of mugging into a fish-eye lens can be.

I was wondering when Busta Rhymes' videos would get a mention. His image as the weirdo-in-the-room fits really well with the Hype Williams style, and the videos for Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See and Gimme Some More have always been iconic, kinetic late 90s day-glo masterpieces to me. One of those will be on my list, but I'm still mulling over which if anyone wants to form a Busta pact!

I regret not revisiting the first few Busta Rhymes videos back when compiling, because I rewatched them all last night and thought their manic silliness held up remarkably well, especially in Gimme Some More, where Hype Williams pushes Busta Rhymes into a chaotic Looney Tunes universe, which is of course a natural fit for his playful costuming and outlandish presence. But though it lacks the endless catalog of wild images that Williams gives us in Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See, I thought Dangerous was actually the most interesting of Williams and Rhymes' videos of this era, because it heightens what the two do so well in all these videos, which is use editing, frame skips, and freezes along with kinetic movements of Rhymes et al on the screen to imitate the beat and rhythm of the song.

Also, it must be said that Busta Rhymes and Hype Williams are being done a great wrong online, because most of Busta Rhymes best videos are not available in good looking copies on YouTube, which I don't even understand how that happens. Surely Busta Rhymes still has enough cachet for nostalgia clicks at a minimum to merit remastering these in HD? Speaking of nostalgia, I watched a couple of his recent videos and Rhymes is virtually unrecognizable, his raspy voice now a gravelly bark reminiscent of Eugene Pallette, and with a notably larger knockout paunch to match!

[swo17]

Haha, is that Denis Lavant in the "Dangerous" video?

[Maltic]

I regret not revisiting the first few Busta Rhymes videos back when compiling, because I rewatched them all last night

The Youtubegorithms sent me on a Busta video binge as well earlier, when I had clicked your link to the Redman video (which ftr I love, but do not condone nor endorse)

[Swift]

Haha, is that Denis Lavant in the "Dangerous" video?

It's not, I believe it's another rapper named Spliff Star, who was part of Busta Rhymes' Flipmode Squad crew.

But rather than just post a correction, here is Denis Lavant in UNKLE's Rabbit In Your Headlights directed by Jonathan Glazer.

[therewillbeblus]

Vulfpeck’s Back Pocket featuring some pretty talented kids! This will either dazzle or repel you

[swo17]

repel you

Yeah, if you're a monster

[therewillbeblus]

Hey some people can't stand overly cute kids, but my thoughts exactly. This would have made my list easily had I submitted one

[thirtyframesasecond]

Haha, is that Denis Lavant in the "Dangerous" video?

Speaking of cult European actors, Udo Kier turns up in music videos every now and then. He's in the Eve video for Let Me Blow Ya Mind for some reason.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Eric Roberts is the king of music video cameos though - https://medium.com/@BAFeldman/these-are ... 128eed8491

[brundlefly]

Alex Ross Perry's new Pavement video.

[Never Cursed]

Good music video for the new Girl In Red song from a rather left-field director - not the biggest fan of the actual song, but the video is handsome and finds some good use for well-worn aesthetics

[brundlefly]

Brady Corbet directed the new "rated X" video for Maya Hawke's "Thérèse." (NSFW, TW: Tick Anxiety)

[zedz]

Technically this isn't a music video (it's a section from a variety show), but it's the most amazing thing I've seen this week and I wish most music videos had this level of invention.

I stumbled across it looking for the song (which I found, but left YouTube running and it brought this up afterwards), which is one of the al-time great Motown covers. From Dusty Springfield's 1969 TV series, a pop-art extravaganza: the bastard son of Roy Liechtenstein and Michel Gondry:
Ain't No Sun Since You've Been Gone

[swo17]

That was great, thanks for sharing!

[domino harvey]

Crumb “Locket” 75% of this music video is bargain basement indie music video nothingness, but I found the other 25% unexpectedly creative: using a moving 360 camera in an enclosed space (and presumably aided by some after effects), we get the most extreme and disorienting fisheye distortion I’ve ever seen (particularly the first iteration with her going down an angular stairway). I think 99% of things described as “Trippy” are about as groovy as a Fruitopia bottle, but I’ll go ahead and approve its usage here. Why in the world would they stumble upon this methodology and not make it be the entire video?!

[swo17]

You're right, that's a very cool effect. I like Crumb but hadn't seen that video before--thanks for sharing!

[therewillbeblus]

Brady Corbet directed the new "rated X" video for Maya Hawke's "Thérèse." (NSFW, TW: Tick Anxiety)

Just catching up with this now- glad he’s been up to something while we wait for the (perpetually shelved?) The Brutalist… this was terrific. It’s cool to see Corbet channel all of his European arthouse influences in an obvious but unique way, and clear collaboration with a fearless Hawke

[domino harvey]

Two more new to me music videos I've been coming back to recently:

Vladimir Cauchemar "Aulos"
Big Flute Energy. Simple editing tricks and splicing plus the unexpected focal point(s) equal a big dumb smile on my face every time I watch it

Stuck in the Sound "Let's Go"
This is the laziest way to talk about anything, but sometimes you just gotta give in: If Mike Judge made a Christopher Nolan movie

[domino harvey]

Alpine “Hands” (NSFW) is the most weirdly horny thing I’ve ever seen, like AI trying to figure out arousal with incomplete data

[swo17]

Uh huh. Their video for "Gasoline" that auto-played after it was slightly less horny but had some cool, simple effects of time-toggling dancers mid-move

[domino harvey]

Real fans (of me) will of course remember “Too Safe” and “Damn Baby” from my mixes, but the video for the latter is barely horny at all, why did these fools even bother

[Swift]

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Thriller, 4K restorations of the title track and Beat It have been uploaded, though not Billie Jean. I'm not knowledgeable about this stuff but one commenter states that it's not true 4K but just upscaled. Either way, after seeing them in low quality for years it's a revelation to suddenly see little things like the An American Werewolf in London poster outside the movie theatre in the former, or the background extras (apparently real LA gang members from everything I've ever read about the shoot) bopping along in the background during the end dance in the latter.

[flyonthewall2983]

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - “Little Wing”, from the 1991 album The Sky Is Crying, a compilation of unreleased recordings released a year after the tragic crash that took his life and of everyone else aboard in Wisconsin. It’s dad rock heaven for my generation and just me personally recognizing all of the legends in this clip, created by NFL films in occasion of the SRV tribute Strat Fender created just around the same time as the album’s release. I recognize it from the end of a compilation of his appearances with Double Trouble on Austin City Limits perhaps some of the most electric appearances on that show’s deeply varied musical history at this point.

Revisiting this now is kind of an emotional point for me, after watching this 1997 VH1 special on Stevie’s life and career, principally interviewed are Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, Jimmie Vaughan and the late Doyle Bramhall. And of course Stevie himself, with many clips from appearances on television to some early recordings and footage from his days roughing it out on the Texas blues circuit behind his older brother’s success. I saw this when it came out I would have been 14 and just getting into music and understanding it’s effect on me other then what was always more immediate and less satisfying to me as a younger kid. 13 came along and so did music, and I really didn’t bank on how emotional I got seeing them at this point in their collective grief over him being as honest as they can about the highs and lows of what was a meteoric rise for someone who worked damn hard at what he did and those closest to him.

Kind of also took me back to that time when VH1 did a lot more music-based shows. Storytellers, other concert specials and the Legends program this show (narrated by Tate Donovan, a wise choice) was in a series with. There were some other interesting episodes including one on Led Zeppelin narrated by Steven Tyler that has the only ever footage I’ve seen of their Live Aid performance. And one on The Who narrated by of all people, Levon Helm (Likewise the episodes Kris Kristofferson narrated for Janis and the Grateful Dead). Sure they were still blaring out Counting Crows and Sheryl Crow and the left-behinds of MTV, but there was a certain emphasis there awhile on the “Music First” slogan they had until reality tv wrecked it all.

[colinr0380]

Aura by Hatis Noit

This was quite a striking video combining A.I. technology and film reconstruction into something that is both a little disturbing in its compulsive tracking and labelling strategies yet strangely beautiful in the juxtapositions it reaches, and slightly relieving too in that technology just cannot as yet seem to figure out how to label certain things entirely correctly!

(It also keeps making me think of Peter Greenaway's Vertical Features Remake)