2008

The BPA (ft David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal): ToeJam directed by Keith Schofield. Definitely one of the funniest videos of late. The end is pretty hilarious.

Radiohead: House of Cards directed by James Frost. Fascinating experimental video using new visualization technology.

The Hours: See the light. Directed by Tony Kaye, art director Damien Hirst and starring Sienna Miller. Dark. Great.

Yuki: Sentimental Journey directed by Nagi Noda. Quite nice. A muybridge like visualization whereby every step in a progression leaves a bodily trace.

City and Colour: Sleeping Sickness directed by Vincent Morisset. Now this one is pretty cool even though the interactive feature doesn't really work. Nice idea though. Reminded me of Dogville and an arts project the name of which I can't remember.

The Herd: 2020 directed by Mike Daly. The band is dancing inside newspaper layouts. Really like the concept of history repeating, the band members hanging from words, falling and landing on a horizontal bar.

Thunderheist: Jerk It. Beautiful close-ups of skin movements. Nice conceptual video.

Baby Kites and Nokea: Reef. Looks like it was directed/animated by an architecture student from the Bartlett or the AA School of Architecture.

Portishead: We Carry On. Directed by Chad Pugh. Not the official video. This is a bit like the making of Remind me by Royksopp.

Air France: Collapsing at Your Doorstep directed by Eric Berglund. Little more than a compilation of windmills, but quite nice and dreamy and it goes well with the song.

Terry Lynn: The System. Strong images of pigs being slaughtered in Jamaica. Great cinematography.

Hot Chip: Ready for the Floor. I like the dancers' costumes, one half color, one half black and how it combines with the lighting.

Beck: Gamma Ray. Love it. A splash of colour to brighten up your day.

M83: Kim & Jessie dir. by Eva Husson. Spoiler alert: the girls will get the guys in the end.

Sigur Ros: Gobbledigook directed by Arni and Kinski. Naked people running through the woods and playing in the water. Any neanderthaler would say they're crazy.

LCD Soundsystem: Someone Great directed by Doug Aitken. Simply beautiful to watch.

Grace Jones: Corporate Cannibal directed by Nick Hooker. What? A new album by Grace Jones? Some interesting moments in the video as her face appears from and disappears into abstract shapes.

Jakob Dylan: Something Good This Way Comes directed by Josh & Xander. A collection of beautiful images from somewhere across the U.S., could be Arizona, could be Texas. And yes, son of.

Hercules and Love Affair: You Belong directed by Kris Moyes. Very stylish.

The Ting Tings: Shut up and let me go directed by Alex and Liane. It's been done before, but it's well done.

Albert Hammond Jr: GfC directed by Laurient Briet. Briet usually has amazing light in his videos and this one is no exception.

Josepha Conrad aka Susie Asado: Hello Antenna directed by Veronika Samartseva and Anna Samoylovich. Simple but effective and quite lovely, yes that's the word, lovely, animation video.

N.E.R.D.: Spazz directed by Robert Hales. I like this because the editing, camera work, special effects and other treatments of the live performance go well with the song.

Classixx: Cold Act III directed by Tim K. Some old skool 80s sounds and breaks and the accompanying compilation of skate videos.

Justice: Stress, directed by Romain Gavras is one of the most talked about music videos of the moment. It's another youths on a rampage video. It reminded me of the videos for Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin, Hot Ride by The Prodigy and Father by Ms Dynamite.

The Get Out Clause: Paper. The video was allegedly compiled from CCTV footage, except that you don't get this video quality with CCTV. The Surveillance Camera Players, a group of performers co-founded by Bill Brown, do perform in front of CCTV cameras and then request the videos based on the Freedom of Information Act. Always interesting how the aesthetics (or form) of an idea can be reterritorialized and all that's left is style without substance and critical dimension.

Elbow: One Day Like This directed by Ringan Ledwidge. It doesn't happen that often that music videos are topical this one is, perhaps by accident, I don't know. It's also quite a nice video in its own right, it's just that I find the song pretty boring. In that sense the video goes quite well with the music.

Lykke Li: I'm Good, I'm Gone, directed by Mattias Montero. I'd almost say that this is a typical old school video: some slightly surreal scenes alternated with a playbacking singer and some dancing.

Zu Zhou: ??? Definitely one of the weirdest music videos I've seen for a long time. Think Beavis and Butthead meets South Park but without restraint and self-censorship. It's Chinese. No idea what the title of the track is or what the song is about. So if you speak Chinese, drop me a line. If Chinese music videos take off like the Chinese contemporary art scene we're in for some interesting videos.

Blonde Redhead: The Dress. Film portraits of people asked to think of something sad. Directed by Mike Mills.

Chromatics: Killing Spree. A girl and a wolf, swimming in a river, filmed in black and white with the sun reflecting in the water and restless editing. Beautiful.

Le Le: Breakfast. Funny animation. Tag line: bitch you breakfast.

Erdmöbel: Aus meinem Kopf. Stop motion + amateur dancing a la OK Go. The song is a German cover of Kylie Minogue's Can't get you out of my head.

Live: Turn My Head. Directed by Jake Scott.

Kenneth Bager: Fragment Eight, directed by Uwe Flade. A compilation of heavily loaded motorbikes in Vietnam. The craziest thing I saw when I was in Vietnam happend when the taxi I was in was overtaken by a motorbike with a pig that had just been slaughtered, its head cut off, blood still dripping from the neck. Unfortunately I didn't have time to fling my camera out of the car window and take a picture.

Buraka Som Sistema: Sound of Kuduro. Forget krumpin', parkours and free running, this is some breakdancing from Angola. Great song as well.

The Raconteurs: Salute Your Solution (or here) and Kaki King: Pull me out alive both use the same technique of creating a linear collage of still frames. I kind of like the navigation of The Raconteurs site. Kind of, because it forces you to go through the whole menu every time. But the idea is nice.

Dionysos: Tais-toi mon coeur, Blue Seeds: Lost and Delirious and The Raveonettes: Black/White more animation.

Leonard Cohen: In my secret life. Floria Sigismondi directs. (2007?).

Young Knives: Turn Tail. Somehow the idea behind this video seems familiar.

Modest Mouse: Fly trapped in a jar. Really like the first two candy colored pink minutes.

Jack Conte: Yeah Yeah Yeah. Won Best Music Video at the 2008 Alice 3 Minute Film Festival.

Naive New Beaters: Bang Bang. The band gets to beat the lead singer. This one may be from 2007 but what the heck.