The Music Video 125 Project: the whole shebang, because I surrender

[slipjig]

A while back, in a typical fit of boredom I assembled a list (not for the first time) of my choices for the 125 greatest music videos ever created, with the intention of talking about them in detail online, one at a time. Thus followed a long period of brainstorming, shuffling around a few hundred index cards, transferring data to a spreadsheet,

Comments

[theloriest]

This is going to take a while for me to wade through. But at least I do see all of the videos I'd have definitely included on this list. Some way further down than I would have listed them, though.

[slipjig]

Coolness. Which ones, out of curiosity?

[theloriest]

I'd have put "Weapon of Choice" in my own top 10, to start. "Virtual Insanity" and "Jeremy" would have been higher up than you placed them, as well.

This is acknowledging that the only song (let alone video) I even know from your Top 10 is "Losing My Religion".

One song I don't see that I would absolutely have added is "Stan" by Eminem.

[ckd]

I probably would have had to put "Take On Me" on there somewhere; even though it did what it did so definitively that it hasn't been riffed off of nearly as much as, say, "Addicted To Love" it's still a milestone.

Lots of good ones on that list, though, and I'll probably say more about several of them when I have more time.

[slipjig]

Thank you! I think "Take on Me" was on the shortlist, but there was something about it that never sat right with me. (Possibly the waitress, who manages to overact without saying a word.) Agreed that it's a milestone, however.

[ckd]

It'd be interesting to slice and dice the list by year, artist, and director. You have a whole lot of Michel Gondry (exactly 10% of your list, if we give him half credit for #73 :-) and another video and a half by Olivier. I like MG's work well enough, but that seems excessive to me.

Meanwhile, only one for Russell Mulcahy and five for Spike Jonze (he should get credit for #60 as well)? Actually, 5 seems about right for SJ to me, though I would probably add in one of his Weezer videos (either "Buddy Holly" or "Undone - The Sweater Song") and Mathew Cullen's video for their "Pork and Beans". (Even though Barenaked Ladies did it first with "Sound of Your Voice", I'd put "Pinch Me" in ahead of SoYV

[slipjig]

Thank you for the magnificent reply! To address your points:

* I do have a rather serious Gondry fetish, which I'm prepared to defend. (In one of my write-ups, I even noticed the 10% thing). I'm a sucker for the specific sort of conceptual reality-bending that he dishes out, and am floored by his execution thereof. That said, I could have probably trimmed a few, notably "Star Guitar," which I tend to waffle on

[felisdemens]

"Wild Boys" is a great video for a song that makes me cringe.

Ditto "Dear God". Eurgh.

[ckd]

An interesting alternate list would be "meta-videos": videos that parody/reference not just one other video, but multiple videos or video genres.

Some examples:
"Don't Lose My Number", Phil Collins
"Just a Gigolo", David Lee Roth
"Thanks That Was Fun", Barenaked Ladies
"Would You Be Happier?", The Corrs
"1985", Bowling For Soup
"UHF", "Weird Al" Yankovic

[slipjig]

Oooh, I like this idea! Add "Heart and Soul" by the Monkees, "The Wrong Heartbeat" by Richard Thompson, and the pair of videos whose titles I can't recall by the Roots and Tesla, skewering hip-hop and alt-rock video cliches, respectively (Tesla was first, and the Roots used it for inspiration).

[ourika]

I'm looking forward to spending a free Saturday afternoon browsing through these. Or, more realistically, browsing through bits and pieces of these. There's enough here that I haven't heard or or seen that I don't have an opinion on the list, yet.

[slipjig]

Coolness! A lot of these I only know about because of someone else's top-whatever list along the way.