BEST Music Videos of 2008

I feel terrible for not doing a post in forever (2 weeks), but I have a backorder list of ideas, but after watching what the "culture" idiots thought were the best music videos of 2008, I decided I needed to make my own list. I only agreed with them on 2 songs (I think)

10. Closer by Ne-Yo (from Year of the Gentleman [September])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUTh3OJjWjM
This video made the list mainly for the dancing.... it lacks everything else, but the pop moves mixed with the urban style behind the hypnotic lyrics make the video, plus the cinematography is pretty good-almost as if the producers were trying to get Ne-Yo from every angle, and I do mean every.


9. Love Song by Sara Bareilles (from Little Voice [July])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR5xv3pt7KI
If you thought this song was about, well.... love, then your wrong. It's about how best this artist can say screw you to the music industry and get away with it. Not a love song, but a pop jingle that ended up selling over 2 mil copies. You may have missed that unless you watched the music video which features Sara trapped in a jukebox.... you'll get the idea.


8. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa by The Vampire Weekend (from Vampire Weekend [January])


High school jock chases goth chick with the poofy hair at the beach party in preppy pantaloons. Most definitely the best slice of 80's I've seen all day... month, or year for that matter.


7. Squeeze Me by Kraak and Smaak (from Plastic People [April])


A little less unknown indie video. Flip books are the new treadmills. The idea would get old but it is used creatively up to the end. I kinda wish the music was a little more so.


6. Touch My Body by Mariah Carey (from E=MC2 [April])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzxR8OH-fDQ
This is exactly the kind of song that would never end up on any of my best lists, except that Mariah parodies every video she's ever done in this. The plot is Mariah has computer problems, calls the geek squad and then while the geek fixes her computer, she runs off leaving the guy to fantasize about Mariah. What follows can only be described as nerdcore.



5. Disturbia by Rihanna (from Good Girl Gone Bad [Album from 2007, single from June])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zdhHLvT7k
Take Trent Reznor's creepy mad scientist lab oriented video for Closer (1994), swap out all meaning and symbolism for sexiness and don't forget that Rihanna is standing in for Reznor.


4. Time to Pretend by MGMT (from Oracular Spectacular [October '07/January '08, single from March])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVnRzEjpUmE
I'm glad we're pretending, or I may need to go to rehab. These are the people mother warned you about during the drug talk. I mean, we can look at it as an audacious stab at creativity, but lets admit it, its a beach party with some strong LSD. Jokes aside, this video won because when originally posted on MGMT's website, you could control the trip.... errrr... effects yourself from a color panel at the bottom of your screen.


3. Who's Gonna Save My Soul by Gnarls Barkley (from The Odd Couple [March])

http://pitchfork.tv/videos/gnarls-barkley-whos-gonna-save-my-soul
This video just really needs to be watched, and no skipping the beginning dialogue, or you'll wonder why the hell a heart is screaming soul music into a broccoli stalk on the middle of a diner table.


2. Love Lockdown by Kanye West (from 808's and Heartbreak [November])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVZX-W3vo9I
YES, I'm biased. I'll admit it. I love this side of Kanye, not permanently, but it's a good change. It shows that beneath the cocky Hip-Hop star there is some emotion. The video fits perfectly with the song, lyrics, and music. There is the harmony of the elegant camera action with the rawness of the shot. The contrast between Kanye's typical futuristic motifs and the "warriors". There are fantasy elements contrasted against the stark reality of his emotions. Evidence, around 2:35, when Kanye is sitting with the primitive native beside him, does it not occur to you that the native represents Kanye's raw and primitive emotion? It just works. Get off my case.


1. Pork and Beans by Weezer (from Weezer AKA The Red Album [June])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI
Props to a video that at my last count, included references to 26 of the past 3 years' weirdest and most watched youtube videos of the last three years. It's unique, and if you have been online at all the last couple of years, I'm sure it will maintain your interest.


Runner Ups
--House of Cards by Radiohead (from In Rainbows [Album from 2007/Single from May])


To be really honest, this video is downright boring, but instead of using traditional film technics, the video was used with lidar technology, which uses a laser to detect the properties of the object it hits. This gives the video its grainy and gridlike feel. Not only did they use the new technology, but they also eccentuated the video by putting sheets of acrylic glass in front of the lasers to distort the image (hence the "blowing away" effect). How they did it video here.


--Chasing Pavements by Adele (from 19 [January])

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz7vGW2_5c0
This one just told a great story in a creative way. It recounts a car crash, with the two victims on the ground, but in the chorus, the couple's relationship is recounted on the pavement on which they lay.


Footnote/Rant
If you didn't notice, I was only able to supply three of the videos on my list of 12. This is due to the fact that the bullies have disabled embedding on youtube to all their music. So take notice of the three artists that are independent or on an indie label.