Panopticon Blog

Hey everyone,

Though we’ve already said goodbye to 2008 (finally!), there’s still time to reflect on the year that was. Though it took some digging, 2008 was an exceptional year for music videos, both from well-known artists and upstarts. At their best, a music video can define the memory and meaning of a song, and these are 10 excellent examples:

10. Goldfrapp – Happiness

OK, so director Dougal Wilson doesn’t match the one-shot brilliance of his own “What’s a Girl to Do” video for Bat For Lashes. But this wonderfully bouncy video hides its technical virtuosity nearly as well. And that dancing dog at the end is hilarious.

Goldfrapp – Happiness from Mute Records on Vimeo.

9. Tie: Portishead – The Rip and Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

This animated video manages to apply the menace and claustrophobia of Portishead’s masterpiece Third to that album’s least unsettling track. On the opposite side of the spectrum is this kookily serene stop-motion video for Fleet Foxes’ glorious “White Winter Hymnal.”

White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

Portishead – The Rip

8. Santogold – LES Artistes

I’ve heard the label was so unhappy with this video that they wanted to reshoot it completely. I can understand that, based on the beginning, where Santogold sits on a horse… and that’s it. But the second half is a deliriously surreal, totally original vision for one of the year’s best tracks.

Santogold – L.E.S. Artists from Jesika Novoa on Vimeo.

7. Elbow – One Day Like This

One would expect the video for “One Day Like This,” the gorgeously epic climax to Elbow’s tremendous Seldom Seen Kid, to reach for the stars. Instead, it features a kid spinning a “Condos For Sale” sign on a corner in LA. It may not sound like much, but it’s an audacious choice — oddly befitting and hypnotic.

6. Supergrass – Bad Blood

A direct rebuke to anyone who thinks there are not any new ways to shoot a performance video. Director Keith Schofield (digitally?) anchors his camera to weird places in the frame (a swinging light, the tip of a drum stick) as Supergrass performs “Bad Blood.” If that weren’t enough, then there’s masks! And instruments made of cake!

SUPERGRASS “Bad Blood” from Tokib on Vimeo.

5. Eastern Conference Champions – The Box

This deliciously ironic, hand rotoscoped video takes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, A-Ha’s video for “Take on Me,” and a Busby Berkley musical and puts them in a blender. The sunny song by Eastern Conference Champions, with its oddly triumphant chorus juxtaposed against men in straightjackets dancing in formation, is compulsively watchable.

4. Wild Beasts – Brave Bulging Bouyant Clairvoints

Sometimes a video is so groundbreaking that the song it’s attached to almost doesn’t matter. Wild Beasts may be playing a hand directly from Modest Mouse’s musical deck, but this hypnotic full-motion take on M.C Escher may cause sea-sickness – if only because it’s impossible to look away.

Wild Beasts – Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants. Dir: OneInThree from OneInThree on Vimeo.

3. Young Galaxy – Come and See

The narrative music video is not dead, but it is becoming more of a rarity. Like a particularly engrossing short story, the video for Young Galaxy’s “Come and See” tells a compelling, musically appropriate tale – full of button pushing (no pun intended) symbolism and allegory – with a climactic wallop.

2. Low v. Diamond – Heart Attack

Simple without being simplistic, the video for Low v. Diamond’s “Heart Attack” never allows its casually amazing special effects to overcome its almost unbearably affecting emotional tug. Redefining what a “one shot” music video can be, the video tells its story all in close-up, delivers a knockout emotional punch as the song climaxes, and then pulls the rug out completely. Staggering.

More Videos

1. Radiohead – House of CardsA good music video can make an average song memorable, and a good song a classic. It takes a groundbreaking video to redefine and enrich a song from one of the most acclaimed albums of the decade. The accomplishment of the “House of Cards” music video is two-fold – technically, it’s a marvel. Shot without the use of cameras or lights, the video employs motion and distance capture devices that extrapolate shapes based on proximity to the lens. Alone, this would be an interesting but sterile exercise. However, in establishing and then artfully deconstructing it’s own technical rules, the video enriches the song’s lyrics and ultimately clarifies its meaning. The video’s final image is as haunting as it is mind-boggling. At first, I thought “House of Cards” was the weakest track on In Rainbows. Now I think it is the best song on the album. That’s one damned good music video.

House of Cards – Radiohead from Shinichiro Matsuda on Vimeo.