Music videos are a precarious combination of art form and commercial necessity, usually hovering somewhere between seen-it-before drudgery and headline-grabbing sensationalism. But now and again a director or artist sees the endless possibilities inherent in the medium and produces something breathtaking.
Pour yourself a lemonade and grab your sledgehammer as we take a look at the top ten most creative music videos of all time (usual caveats apply).
BJORK – ‘BACHELORETTE’
‘Eternal Sunshine’ director Michel Gondry spins a hallucinogenic tale of a young writer setting out for fame and fortune in the big city in his video for Bjork’s ‘Bachelorette’ single, taken from the Icelandic avant-garde pop maestro’s 1997 ‘Homogenic’ album.
It’s the bewildering parade of exquisite hand-made sets dancing through a mock-up of a Broadway stage that is the true star of this Technicolor labour of love from the endlessly inventive French filmmaker.
A-HA – ‘TAKE ON ME’
A singular talent towered over the first wave of (often extremely experimental) music videos from the MTV era, and that was Steve Barron. Responsible for putting a fledgling art form on the map and spawning countless imitators, his crowning glory is possibly the video to ‘Take On Me’ by Norwegian synth-poppers A-ha.
The use of rotoscoping to map animation onto live action brings to life a dimension-hopping story of a comic-obsessed woman trapped in one of her favourite strips.
The genius of the video is that rather than dating badly (ok, let’s forget the fashion for now) like so many videos from the Eighties, the use of scribbled lines gives this epic tale of love and violence a deliberately retro feel that resonates with our Hipster times. It also inspired a pitch-perfect ‘literal video’ parody that was itself the beginning of a new comic art form.
PINK FLOYD – ‘ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL’
‘Another Brick in the Wall’ was one of the greatest protest songs of the MTV era. Its video manages to capture the authoritarian menace of an education system that still seemed to be stuck in a Dickens novel.
Although it’s the Roger Water’s-penned rock-horror-picture-show ‘The Wall’ that represents The Floyd’s audio-visual masterwork, this video is a fine distillation of the creative energies of a band teeming with feverish visions and bursting at the seems with ground-breaking ideas.
BOB DYLAN – ‘LIKE A ROLLING STONE’
I know what you’re thinking. Surely there’s not a music video to this ripping Dylan scream-a-long? Well, there wasn’t. But there is now. 2013’s ‘interactive’ music video to this folk rock classic takes the form of a TV set that allows the viewer can scroll up and down through sixteen channels each showing a different programme where actors, anchors and game show contestants sing along to the soundtrack.
Never mind the most creative, this is probably hands-down one of the best music videos ever made. But that’s a list for another day. In the meantime, take a bow Vania Heymann, for producing one of the most creative music videos of all time.
OK GO – ‘HERE IT GOES AGAIN’
Creativity is as much about working within the confines of what already exists as it is about creating new and elaborate realities. That’s a very pretentious way of introducing the idea that this lowest of lo-fi videos by irrepressibly inventive Indie rockers OK Go is bloody great.
The group have made so many deliriously creative music videos over the years that this list could be entirely populated by them. But, sad to say, I’m going to resist the urge.
The 2005 video simply consists of a static camera shot of the band dancing along treadmills in a fairly drab-looking gym. It’s the gawky, Jarvis-esque choreography combined with a refreshing DIY sensibility (their most recent video was filmed in zero gravity) that sets this video apart from the crowd.
FLEET FOXES – ‘WHITE WINTER HYMNAL ’
In an era of CGI there’s something about stop-motion that seems so refreshingly… inefficient. Like, in a really good way. The otherworldly, achingly sombre fairy-tale visuals of Sean Pecknold’s creative tour-de-force perfectly complements the Fleet Foxes’ delicate, layered vocal harmonies.
ARCADE FIRE – ‘REFLEKTOR’
2013 was the year of the interactive video. Not to be outdone, alongside a conventional (in the loosest sense) music video for their ‘Reflektor’ single, Canadian angst-rockers Arcade Fire released an interactive video via Google Chrome. Users control a range of filter and animation effects via smartphone, tablet or mouse as we follow dancer Axelle Munezero on a murky-yet-luminous adventure through the streets of Haiti.
BEYONCE – ‘LEMONADE’
Billed as the first visual album (it’s not but the production values mean we can forgive the hyperbole), Beyonce’s epic Lemonade is a spellbinding masterwork of glamour, grit and Lynchian flights of fancy.
The songs themselves reveal Bey at the height of her creative powers, with visuals to match. We’re taken on a journey through domestic strife, identity crisis, and political turmoil, with evocations of America’s slave history and current racial tensions intertwining with the irrepressible star’s fairly intense relationship drama. The result is like being punched in the face with a glitter-encrusted fist. But, like, in a really good way.
PETER GABRIEL – ‘SLEDGEHAMMER’
Creativity means suffering for your art. Ok, well it doesn’t- but nobody told Peter Gabriel that during the making of his chart-bothering ‘Sledgehammer’ video.
Almost as if doing penance for the music of Genesis, the reformed English rocker lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours whilst the geniuses at Aardman Studios animated a joyful parade of Claymation lunacy around him.
It all works so nicely as a complement to the unusual visual references in the song’s lyrics themselves. The video quite rightly won tons of awards and became MTV’s top playing video. Ok, Peter, all is forgiven.
THE BEATLES – ‘PENNY LANE’
Creativity is often about overcoming external restrictions in original ways. When the music-video industry was hit by a Musician’s Union ban on miming to camera (something that would make the modern music scene a tad more interesting), director Peter Goldmann decided to forgo the conventional lip-syncing approach altogether and focus on crafting a gently escalating vignette of the fab four idling around a fictionalised Penny Lane whilst John Lennon ruminates wistfully.
There’s something very modern-seeming in the production values; a combination of the outdoor, cinematic setting and the focus on visual storytelling over the tired format of bands in colourful outfits performing on barely disguised sound stages (*cough* *cough* Hello Goodbye *cough* *cough*).
So, there we have it: without a doubt the ten most creative music videos ever made. Ok, fine, maybe there’s a little room for adjustment. Let us know your own picks in the comments below. Well, goodbye.
‘The Top Ten Most Creative Music Videos of All Time’ is an article written by Dan Poulton. You can check out Dan’s music on Soundcloud and follow him on Twitter. Or visit his website.
