This might be my favorite music video of all time, at least specifically in terms of quality and production values: Madness - Night Boat to Cairo.

They’ve got nothing on the technical perfection of Madness, but OK Go is notable for the impressive choreography and authenticity of their music video performances: OK Go - Upside Down & Inside Out. Some, like this one, are particularly impressive for being filmed in a single take: OK Go - Here It Goes Again.

There’s also, in the same vein as “of course Aha,” the ones that are historically significant in terms of evolution of the medium: Video Killed the Radio Star, Thriller, Sledgehammer, Virtual Insanity, etc.

There’s so many iconic ones! I’m going to skip the ones already mentioned and add:

• Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight Tonight
• Korn - Freak on a Leash
• Elton John - I’m Still Standing
• The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
• Primus - Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver
• Weird Al - Smells Like Nirvana, Fat, White & Nerdy, Gump
• Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches, Lump
• Radiohead - No Surprises
• Byörk - Army of Me, It’s Oh So Quiet
• Fatboy Slim - Praise You, Weapon of Choice, Rockafeller Skank

I love the Fincher-directed video for “Judith” by A Perfect Circle.

Other favourite music videos:

• Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy
• Smashing Pumkpins - Stand Inside Your Love
• Tool - Parabol / Parabola

What about Everlong or Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters?

OK, you’ve got me looking for shit now.

Carpenter Brut - Turbo Killer

Perturbator - She Is Young, She Is Beautiful

Both of these have strong neon synthwave type vibes but with different kinds of art direction

Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up

Highly controversial video when it came out and I believe is highly regarded, bit Meh in my opinion but it caused a ruckus when it was originally released.

As an example, I didn’t know this had a video until yesterday. https://youtu.be/8AHCfZTRGiI?si=MtmfLY-ePNNdLiIh

Oh yeah, how could I forget?

Daft Punk made the music videos for the songs on their album Discovery into an entire anime movie: Interstella 5555.

I grew up without MTV. Are music videos still good? I feel like the heyday was like 1980-1998 or something, which was when I grew up.

Friday - Rebecca Black

Yummy - Justin Bieber

Stupid Hoe - Nicki Minaj

My jeans - Jenna rose

Hot Problems - Double Take

Every time we touch - Cascada

STFU - Pink Guy

Well this thread is going in my saved list.

For me, it’s an odd one, but my love of jets means that Van Halen - Dreams is my all time favorite video.

I remember sitting around watching MTV just waiting for it to come on. Other distinct memories from that era.

Van Halen - Panama
Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue

And just some random picks of mine:

Alice In Chains - Them Bones
Tool - Vicarious
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
Herbie Hancock - Rockit

Flogging Molly’s “punch drunk grinning soul” or Modest mouse’s “king rat” are the first two that come to mind. If you like those I can probably find some more gems from the hours a day I used to watch back in the mid to late 00’s.

I’ve seen tons of music videos growing up but I never really liked most of them. Like, so, so many have a weird disconnect between the visuals and what the songs are about, it’s just not what I would expect. I like when the video goes along to what the song is about.

At the same time, I immediately think of Beastie Boys’ Sabotage when I think about good music videos. And a lot of videos directed by Spike Jonz, really.

deleted by creator

Similar to kolanaki I’ve never really seen the appeal of music videos, I like music a lot but can absolutely live without the videos as I don’t really feel like it adds a lot to the experience for me.

That being said I can still recommend a couple that immediately come to mind and hopefully you might like.

Lorn - Acid Rain Lorn has a lot of amazing music and quite a few interesting videos that tend to try and capture the feeling behind the music. This song is probably the most mainstream and probably one of the best videos for his music.

A$AP Rocky - L$D This one I quite like purely because it has some alright representations of an acid trip that most people don’t capture when trying to represent LSD in the media. The way the light is used and over exposed making colours more vibrant, the sudden shift in both the music and the scene which can happen as your trip suddenly shifts. It is definitely not a highly accurate depiction of a trip but has elements that feel familiar that go some way to build up a familiar feeling in places.

I’m going to continue to reply to myself with examples of amazing songs that I loved before I ever saw the music video. Perhaps my favorite of the last couple years has to be this one: https://open.spotify.com/track/0pJO1tc1GpnxFyQp6Zp82r?si=b910dd1069844a24