A snowstorm has been beating the shit out of Philadelphia since I woke up this morning. My island boy excitement about getting a chance to work on my snowball skills didn’t last too far beyond the first few minutes of bitter cold and the lovely little sensation of frozen water weasling its way inside your pants, which means I get the rest of the day in bed and you guys get a new article.

Today I wanna talk about music videos. This is not the eulogy that it would have been if I had written it a year ago, the music video is not dead and buried as we all had thought, it’s just hiding under tremendous sloppy piles of festering shit. If you pinch your nose and dig a little bit you can find some actual decent production out there. Unfortunately, nowadays the “M” in MTV stands for “reality” and VH1 for damn sure ain’t gonna find it for you so I figured I’d offer a little bit of help.

Below, you’ll find a short list of a few sick little clips that I’ve noticed recently. Comment with your favorites and if they’re ill I’ll add em.
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HEY CHAMP -- Cold Dust Girl
Up and coming rock band from Illinois “HEY CHAMP” recently came out with this video. It doesn’t try to do much, just a sick party seen through the possibly cocaine dusted lens of a high speed camera. There’s beautiful, well dressed women, tripped out rockers, liquor flowing like water, and most importantly, lesbians. Where it wins is the execution. Watch to get what I mean.

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Kid Cudi -- Make Her Say
ft. Kanye West & Common
Hands down the illest execution of the split screen technique I’ve seen. You have to see this video if only for that. Cudi’s been hard on his music video game pretty consistently since he got big enuff to have them. No vacuous booty shaking girls or spinning rims, no rap vid clichés whatsoever. Just good film over good music, and this one is the flagship. The composition is light and airy, colors are perfect, angles are crazy and the interaction between the two halfs of the screen is a panty-wetter.

Bonus Video: The man’s most recent contribution to the vid world, Pursuit of Happiness (ft. MGMT). Manages to avoid being depressing (despite the sappiness of the song) yet still get across the appropriate sense of alienation and detachment with that little selective slow-mo effect they use.


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KJ -- Repeat
Toronto-based rapper KJ snuck into our consciousness with this surprisingly sick little 2 minute video for his single “Repeat”. I’ve done a bit of filmmaking in my time and it makes me shudder to think of how long it must have taken to catch that entire thing in one shot. Needless to say, the effect is ridiculous, it’s just an orgy of sexy angles flowing into each other.

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Mos Def -- Supermagic
I dont even know what to call the effect they put on Mos for this one. It’s stupid fly and my words wouldn’t do it justice if I tried. Just check it out. Shit makes my pants feel tight.

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Regina Spektor -- Fidelity
This is about as artful as music videos get. Muted, piano key themed color set, tea parties with mannequins that turn into a shiny new live boyfriend at the introduction of some inexplicable colored dust. I’m not exactly sure what any of it means but I’m a fan.

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User Submissions

Little Dragon -- Twice
Submitted by: Ashli

Gnarls Barkley -- Who’s Gonna Save My Soul
Submitted by: Ashli

Sour -- Hangetsu
Submitted by: Ashli

Related posts:

1. Jay-Z: On To The Next One (Official Video)
2. Great Places to Find New Music Online
3. Sick Movie Trailers: January 2010