1. Ratatat, 'Drugs'
Directed by: Carl Burgess
From the 2010 album LP4
Watch at YouTube

There's something a little weird going on in this video. I'm not sure precisely how to describe it, but it's similar to that feeling I get when I have to type a word repeatedly in rapid succession: after a while it begins to look as though it's spelled wrong. About a ( Read more... )

I wanted to wait until I found the name of a particular music video. I wasn't expecting it to take three weeks of frantic searching. I was watching New Zealand's music channel at 11 p.m., muted in the background while I took dictation for the speech my father's giving at my sister's wedding (which officially happens today), and I saw the familiar ( Read more... )

1) Brandon Flowers, 'Crossfire'
Director: Nash Edgerton
From the 2010 album Flamingo
Watch at YouTube

In an unusual twist on the 'damsel in distress' routine, our lead singer from The Killers is here tied to a chair and strung upside-down in a straightjacket. What he's done wrong, we may never know, but it certainly seems to involve a lot of ninjas ( Read more... )

1) Scissor Sisters, 'Comfortably Numb'
Director: unknown
From the 2004 album Scissor Sisters
www.youtube.com/watch

I've never been a particularly big fan of the Scissor Sisters, in the same way that I've never been a big fan of most music from the 1980s: I'll groove a bit if they come on, and will probably know most of the lyrics by osmosis, but I won' ( Read more... )

For 20thcenturyvole, who gave me the idea for this list, I give you five videos. Also, I wanted to show you this one director's range.

1) Red Hot Chili Peppers, 'Can't Stop'
Director: Mark Romanek
From the 2002 album By the Way
www.youtube.com/watch

This video took its inspiration from the work of the conceptual artist Edwin Wurm (as mentioned at the end of the video ( Read more... )

1) Kylie Minogue, 'Come Into My World'
Director: Michel Gondry
From the 2001 album Fever
www.youtube.com/watch

Let me state right off the bat that there is a reason for including this video, despite the relatively mediocre song, high-concept idea for video and general forgettable nature of the thing. It's that this video damn well works, despite a ( Read more... )

1) Radiohead, 'Karma Police'
Director: Jonathan Glazer
From the 1997 album OK Computer
www.youtube.com/watch

The concept for this video was originally pitched by Glazer to Marilyn Manson, who didn't like the idea. It's easy to imagine how the finished result might have looked if it were one of Manson's songs, but the Radiohead version is somehow more ( Read more... )

1) Katie Melua, 'Nine Million Bicycles'
Director: Kevin Godley
From the 2005 album Piece by Piece
www.youtube.com/watch

Once described as the most innocent song a reviewer had ever heard, Katie Melua's track is thoroughly uplifting, perhaps bordering on the twee if you're a cynic like me. That said, the video for it is quite nice, and isn't dampened in ( Read more... )

1) Katy Perry, 'Firework'
Director: Dave Meyers
From the 2010 album Teenage Dream
www.youtube.com/watch
See, if I'm totally honest, I've never been really sure what to make of Katy Perry. I know she's apparently the new gay icon, dancing around and exploring heteronormative bisexuality and whatever, but she somehow seemed... without a point. Until now ( Read more... )

The first bunch were probably slightly better known, but a few obscure acts have really brought the artistic style of the Take Away Shows to the fore. Here's four more, because I couldn't find it in myself to drop Wilco or Sigur Ros...

1) Sigur Ros, 'Vid Spilum Endalaust'
Director: Vincent Moon
Shot in: Paris
Watch at La Blogotheque

Not many of these ( Read more... )