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10 Music Videos That Put Their Songs to Shame

By Heidi Vanderlee on

When OK Go dropped their new video for “This Too Shall Pass,” the Internet became abuzz — and rightfully so, as the clip is near-genius. (Go behind-the-scenes courtesy of Fast Company.) The band spent three months building what is essentially a giant, musical game of Mouse Trap, with the help of friends from NASA and Jet Propulsion Labs.

This isn’t the first time the band has grabbed our attention with a music video, as the infamous treadmill choreography of “Here It Goes Again” is also, admittedly, kind of brilliant. Unfortunately, OK Go have never quite caught up to the level of their visual aesthetic on the musical end of things. Of course, they’re not the only act that has been outshined by its own videos. The following clips exemplify just what happens when an unexceptional song gets trumped by an exceptional visual counterpart. … Read More

Music

The 5 Most Talked About Music Videos of the Week

By Aaron Gonsher on

What do you do if it’s so cold and snowy that if you go outside you risk looking like an explorer of the ice-world Hoth? You stay inside and watch music videos, of course! As part of a Flavorwire recurring feature, we’ve compiled five of the best music videos from the past week to transport you from a bitter winter into… well, at least some of these videos show a more artistic bitter winter. The music is good and the accompanying videos even better, so after the jump soothe your eyes with new offerings ranging from Pantha du Prince to interrupter-extraordinaire Kanye West, along with a Haiti benefit performance that aesthetically tramples “We Are The World.” What were your favorites from the last week in music… Read More

Music

The 5 Best Music Videos of the Week

By Aaron Gonsher on

The Academy’s decision to cut the performances of all Best Original Song nominees was a misguided attempt to shorten the telecast. (They said the songs would be better served when put into context with their cinematic accompaniment.) This rational claim of expanding an aural experience with enhanced visual contrasts is legitimized by a long history of music videos (We looked to MTV for backup, but apparently they’ve forgotten about that whole “music television” thing). Artistically challenging and stimulating music videos are still constantly cranked out by any band with a video camera and a vision, pairing awesome music with some awesome eye-candy.

On the occasion of Vampire Weekend’s star-mashing, RZA-presiding premiere of the video for “Giving Up The Gun,” Flavorpill is launching a recurring feature where we’ll give you the best music video releases of the past week: lo-fi, high concept, NSFW, and everything in between. After the jump, watch the brand-new Vampire Weekend video and our other choices for this week. As always, let us know if we missed anything. … Read More

Music

Christmas Music Videos from Around the World

By Spencer Lund on

As Jezebel noted in their roundup of the 10 Cheesiest Christmas Music Videos, holidays songs are inherently corny, especially when a sexy Santa or washed-up child star is the one doing the crooning. But does the cheese factor translate? To investigate, we’ve gathered Christmas music videos from five other countries. They are all very, very strange, and there is an inexplicable preponderance of “Jingle… Read More

Music

Animated Sound: Five Epic Stop-Motion Music Videos

By Isis Madrid on

With Wes Anderson’s film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox coming out this weekend, every Zissou-loving, B.F.G.-worshiping and Bill Murray-enthusiast cinema go-er is salivating with anticipation. Anderson, a master of whimsical dark comedy, chose to adapt the beloved children’s story into his first-ever animated feature film. The medium? Stop motion. A meticulous animation technique that links hundreds of individual photos to create an illusion of movement, stop motion has been around for decades and continues to mesmerize viewers. In the past few years, the music industry has grown hip to this classic technique and has begun employing it in many a music video. Some of our favorites are after the… Read More