Sorry, I just think you've probably heard enough about that song and video for one year. Here are twenty five others that deserve your ears' attention.
#25: Weyes Blood – "Movies" (dir. Natalie Mering)
There's probably some psychological reason that this video creeps me out — maybe something about us desperately trying to get to the bottom of something and never really figuring out why it is the case. Wherever these people mysteriously splash into, they're happy, they disappear, and they're gone forever. The music video for "Everyday", another of Mering's songs this year, parodies classic slasher flicks, but quite funnily, this is the one that actually sends a chill through my bones instead.
#24: Dom Dolla – "Take It" (dir. Ross McDowell)
All I can wonder is how fun it must've been to film this behind the scenes.
#23: SWIDT – “Bunga” (dir. Anahera Parata)
My optimism excites me with the idea that SWIDT are soon to ramp up their ambitions with even fiercer and important conscious hip-hop in the turbulent cultural context of New Zealand. I can only hope — this standalone video gives me hope. My heart thumped nearly out of my body when I heard the lyric "Our only meetings are court proceedings, they only love us if it’s sports achievements, then we’re kiwis".
#22: Caroline Polachek – “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” (dir. Polachek & Matt Copson)
Caroline Polachek said 'forget it, I'm dancing in hell for three minutes'.
#21: Little Big – "Rock Paper Scissors" (dir. Alina Pasok, Iliya Prusikin)
The Bloodhound Gang are back and care a lot less now, at least according to raving Russians Little Big, whose music video last year for "Skibidi" started a bit of a dance craze over there. Let's hope this one doesn't cause a riot of wild Scooby snack-snorting dogs to rise up, or heaven forbid, maybe that's just what the hell we need.
#20: Rico Nasty – “Roof” (dir. Cody Dobie)
Rico Nasty's abrasive, comical persona as a science-fiction film. She tears holes through the screen, taunts in front of scenery that'll glitch out behind her on command, taunts behind the horizon like some overseeing deity... it is so brazenly cool. Would like to point out 1:47 though, where Rico appears to be wearing a slick dress, before the camera zooms out and reveals it's just a giant, icy mountain in front of you. How good?!
#19: Stormzy – “Vossi Bop” (dir. Henry Scholfield)
Unbelievably smooth. I'd like to think this is already a favourite of many peoples' already, and I'm not here to be miserable and disagree. There's so much action on screen that snugly fits into the right places at the right times like a kinetic jigsaw puzzle.
#18: Lightning Bolt – “Blow to the Head” (dir. Caleb Wood)
Fluid eye-candy. Dynamite visuals for a dynamite opening track to a dynamite album by a dynamite band.
#17: ROSALÍA – “Aute Cuture” (dir. Dir. Bradley & Pablo)
No doubt this gets the year's award for best costuming. It excited me to know that we were only going to get more fiery singles from ROSALÍA this year, mainly because it meant we'd get more fiery music videos to go with them too. And this isn't even the one where she puts on her best Joe Pesci-esque accent and exclaims "fokin' money man!" on the chorus.
#16: Flying Lotus – “More” (dir. Shinichiro Watanabe)
Given Flylo's involvement and infatuation with the grotesque (see: his body horror film Kuso (2017) and commissioning of animator David Firth to take charge of the rather infamous music video for "Ready Err Not"), it's no surprise that the seriously vibrant and pretty-looking space exploration animation video for the equally serene song "More" takes a bit of a grim turn near the end. But the thing is that it still looks gorgeous! Ew...?
#15: Blanck Mass – “Love Is a Parasite” (dir. Craig Murray)
The music video for "Love Is a Parasite" features the same certified Blanck Mass green apples seen on the cover artwork for their latest album, Animated Violence Mild. Given the satirical consumerist themes of the record, the deliciously bizarre, gross twist in the middle of this video should come as no real shock, but it also gives you a good idea as to why Blanck Mass isn't selling the apples as merch.
#14: Buscabulla – "Vámono" (dir. Claudia Calderón Pacheco)
I'm a sucker for any heartwarming music video with a sense of cultural community — it represents a together-ness in the face of any hardship, even if the hardship isn't necessarily detailed in the video itself. This is Puerto Rican duo Buscabulla's high-spirited enactment of the 19th-century festival 'Festival de las Máscaras', and with such a determined-sounding song accopmanying it, it feels special and homely.
#13: ScHoolboy Q – “Numb Numb Juice” (dir. Dave Free & Jack Begert)
If only you'd seen the hysterics I was in when seeing the Elon Musk & Joe Rogan re-enactment twenty seconds into this music video — the entire thing is a barrel of laughs, but that alone could've made it.
#12: Deichkind – “Keine Party” (dir. Timo Schierhorn & UWE)
This tribute to a legendary Kap Bambino video from 2008 is probably a testament more to the original and how simple yet infectious it was that it makes people want to re-enact it themselves. Still, this edition is stupidly fun, even when bringing it into the middle of goddamn traffic, but somebody had to do it. Poor motorcycle, though.
#11: Tove Lo – “Glad He’s Gone” (dir. Vania Heymann & Gal Muggia)
The high budget for this video was probably worth it. Every extravagant scene is used for the sake of a dumb and genuinely hilarious joke that's actually over around two minutes into the video. It arrives so fast and nonchalantly moves on like nothing happened.
#10: Lana Del Rey – “Doin’ Time” (dir. Rich Lee)
If you're sassy enough to make a Sublime song decent, you're definitely also sassy enough to walk giant through the city of Long Beach and step out a few motherfuckers for your clone in another timeline.
#9: Oh Sees – “Gholü” (dir. Leo Nicholson)
(NSFW)
Recommended watching during lunchtime.
#8: Weval – “Someday” (dir. Páraic McGloughlin)
A spectacular (even if dizzying) way to make architecture seem so gloriously alive!
#7: Dababy – “Suge (Yea Yea)” (dir. X Reel Goats)
During his incredible come-up year, Dababy's had no shortage of funny music videos to show for his attention to theatrics and making sure you have a blast watching him take comical swings (unless you're Cam Coldheart stepping him out in a mall). "Walker Texas Ranger" being my introduction to him in January makes me nearly wish I chose that one instead. But there's no denying it — the video for "Suge" had me cracking up the most. Maybe it's the muscle suit.
It's not the funniest video of the year, though. That might actually be...
#6: Zack Fox & Kenny Beats – “Square Up” (dir. Reggie)
These two are secretly the duo of the year. It's easy to argue that since it was followed by an accidental viral (and pants-less) hit, an utter meltdown of a Genius interview and hijacking the stage at Hardfest, "Square Up" miraculously isn't even the funniest they were involved with in 2019.
#5: Anna Meredith – “Paramour” (dir. Ewan Jones Morris)
A very literal video, as in, what you see is what you get. Seeing this again, I'd like to think that I was somewhere near the bullseye in my review by comparing Meredith's album FIBS this year to a toy box awakening to life — it's that playful. I also reckon it must've been a right backside pain to clean up.
#4: Fat White Family – “Tastes Good With the Money” (dir. Róisín Murphy)
Well, I kinda lied. This was probably the funniest music video of the year, if not tied with "Square Up" and "Suge" already. It is so on-brand for the notoriously repulsive Fat White Family that all I could yell was "oh, perfect!". The scene is almost tastelessly Aristocratic, which is perfect for their anti-upper-class-Britain mission statement as tidy, up-market outfits get splashed with an intense amount of absurd blood-spray. That it was directed by Róisín Murphy also makes me wonder: is there seriously anything she can't do?
#3: Slowthai – “Nothing Great About Britain” (dir. The Rest)
I couldn't think of a manifesto more perfect for Slowthai, one of the year's most exciting breakout stars and probably one whose spit tastes really good, too. "I'll squeeze your neck until you pop", he says as he mocks the nationwide idols of British pop culture, a pricking statement against nationalism and the one-dimensional 'country pride' iconography that distracts from its true injustices. Though I'd argue that the most telling scene unfolds after he of all people is the one to un-sheath the King Arthur's sword, later knighting a line of hooded street figures. It establishes that his sympathy lies with everyday working class folk — they are those truly with the excalibur; the "rightful sovereignty to Britain". It also helps that he's wearing a shirt with Theresa May's eyes crossed out.
#2: FKA Twigs – "Cellophane" (dir. Andrew Thomas Huang)
Well, duh...? Was this ever not gonna be on here?
#1: PUP – “Kids” (dir. Jeremy Schaulin-Roux)
I don't give a fuck. I teared up to this when I first saw it. It's weirdly Black Mirror-esque, not just in its disoriented, even clinical embrace of 'futuristic' technology, but in its twisted narrative that dashes your hopes and then pulls the rug out from underneath them, revealing a large, bleak pit. For a song where lead vocalist Stephen Babcock admits that quite literally nothing is going right, this is the perfect visual accompaniment.
Stay tuned in a week or so's time for the round-up of best and worst albums, EPs and songs of 2019! To see previous Top 5s, check out this RYM list.
Honourable mentions:
Yung Lean – "Blue Plastic" (dir. Suzie & Leo)
Floating Points – "Last Bloom" (dir. Hamill Industries)
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