Parenthetical Girls are a fantastic, bizarre, and grossly under-recognized, avant-pop band from Everett, Washington. We’ve been fans of theirs for a while, so we’re excited to see that their incredibly clever new music video is attracting some attention. The clip for the catchy, glitchy, semi-absurdist “I Need Nothing” is simply a point-of-view shot of a guy browsing in a record store — but the records he’s flipping through are mock-ups of real album covers, decorated with the lyrics to Parenthetical Girls’ song. Watch the video after the jump, then click through for a gallery to get a closer look at some of our favorites of the 200 handmade covers, and see which ones you can identify. We see Led Zeppelin’s debut and London Calling and New Order’s Power, Corruption & Lies and…
Casey Pugh, who describes himself as a “creative technologist,” whipped up the Music Video Genome service in a weekend. The site is basically like Pandora for music videos, or a personalized, streaming MTV, if you will. “I called it Genome because it’s not that simple to match music videos to real songs. Most music ‘videos’ on YouTube are just a stupid static image,” Pugh says. “Granted not all songs have music videos, but it would be amazing if I could crowd-source the documentation of music videos to songs.If a song does not have an official music video, fans could make their own and have it bubble up as the official video.” [via The High Definite]
To commemorate the space shuttle Atlantis’s return from its final mission, Boing Boing posted the music video for David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” It’s a great and weird clip, featuring Bowie as a retro-futurist, silver-clad astronaut gyrating through space. And he’s also ground control, which you can tell because he’s wearing a red baseball cap that says “GC.” Then there are some girls with big hair, who don’t appear to be astronauts. Anyway, it got us thinking about how much we love stumbling upon music videos from the days before MTV, when the medium was new and unpolished. Ten of our favorites, including everyone from the Beatles and the Stones to ’60s French pop and Devo, are after the jump.
For those of us who love music and film in equal measure, it’s a rare treat to watch a beloved band’s music video and realize the group has been watching the same movies we have. While song clips can take inspiration from all manner of media, some of our favorites are based on or inspired by films. From R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” to the Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight, Tonight,” the aesthetics of distinctive movies can complement songs in beautiful, unexpected ways. After the jump, watch 10 more fantastic music videos that take their cues from classic or cult films.
Yesterday, in what was, perhaps, a nod to the ’90s-nostalgia zeitgeist that’s been sweeping the Internet — a phenomenon we at Flavorpill have been heartily on board with — Pitchfork posted a list of the 50 greatest music videos of the decade. Their countdown is packed with great moments, from Daft Punk’s “Around the World” to Blur’s “Coffee + TV” to Snoop’s “Gin & Juice,” we can’t help but point out that many of our favorite touchstones of the era were conspicuously absent. After the jump, watch 20 more videos that we think should have earned a spot on the list.
Last week, the hard-working girls at the top of the high-school food chain got a rude awakening: Turns out that, according to a judge who was, like, obviously turned down for a lot of dates in his teenage days, cheerleading is officially not a sport. Although we weren’t exactly the rah-rah type in our school days, we’ve seen Bring It On and think the decision is totally bogus. But hey, if the courts don’t support cheerleaders, at least music videos do. After the jump, watch 10 clips that make good (if not always athletic… or flattering) use of America’s pom-pom wielding princesses.
Typography geek Greg Solenström recently paired black and white photos of Brooklyn with Akzidenz Grotesk font and Jay-Z and Lil Wayne’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0″ for a fan made tribute that we think could work as an official video. Check it out after the jump, plus nine more of our favorite fan videos for artists like Radiohead, MGMT, and Grizzly Bear.
Though they only last a few minutes, music videos can be cinematic works of art. This week’s best clips are mini masterpieces of perspective, both mentally, and in terms of cinematography. Using some fancy film work, The New Pornographers give us a new outlook on the mundane, North Highlands get fit while getting up close and personal, and Bomba Estereo use the lens to let us peek inside an intimate vacation. On the more conceptual side, Broken Bells ask what happens when a vacation actually costs an arm and a leg, and Stars bend time and space as the past is literally projected across their bodies. After the jump, watch our picks for the best music videos of the week and let us know if they’ve helped you gain some new perspective.
Last week, Bill Nye made an appearance on CNN to talk about the effectiveness of different proposed solutions to fixing the BP oil leak. All we could think about was coming home from elementary school and watching him on PBS back in the day. In commemoration of those golden years of Bill Nye, The Science Guy, here are our eleven favorite music videos from the beloved program. If nothing else, make sure to check out the awesome puns on band names, as Bill Nye puns equal the best puns.
From stark black-and-white shots to Sega-like Technicolor animation, this week’s best music videos represent a delectable spectrum of styles for your viewing pleasure. On the shadowy side of things, The National’s Matt Berninger gets some solo screen time staring pensively off camera, while the Pains of Being Pure at Heart chronicle a young girl’s journey to a party, where she finds characters as colorful as those in the land of Oz. Meanwhile, Mark Ronson gets animated in his own brightly-colored video game and Macy Gray celebrates the beauty in the world with some color-coded choreography. Enjoy your trip over and through the rainbow and be sure to let us know what you think of the videos in the comments.
