The Stuff

Did you know that people still make music videos? In spite of MTV’s evolution into reality TV, music videos have lived on and found their home on the web in places like YouTube and MySpace, where adults can watch them without seeing commercials for soda and pimple cream. Here’s a list of the best videos I found in 2007, and by best I mean the most unique, unusual, sublime and creative.

Trentemøller: “Moan” (YouTube). The video tells the sad yet sublime story of Laika, the first Earthling in space.

Justice: “D.A.N.C.E” (YouTube). An excellent song, and an excellent video. The animation is simply incredible and unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

DJ Scotch Egg - Scotch Bach (YouTube) Bach played on GameBoys. Not kidding. The most unique video of the year.

MC Frontalot “It Is Pitch Dark” (YouTube). The undeniable apex of the nerdcore genre. Bonus points for not being about Star Wars. “You are likely to be eaten by a Grue”.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip: “Thou Shalt Always Kill” (YouTube). Sort of like being run over by a train for 3.5 minutes — in a good way. The most unique lyrics of the year. The beard will scare Americans.

All Through The Night - “Escort Video” (YouTube). Post modern Muppet mashup. The video is made from edited clips of the Muppet show and synchronized with the music. Retro clever.

José González - “Down The Line” (YouTube). Mellow, somber music and a weird video featuring a pig man. The video is effective because you find yourself empathizing with the mysterious plight of the pig man. I’m not kidding.

Spoon: “Don’t You Evah” (YouTube). A catchy song for sure, but this video stands out because it’s chock full of robots, and real robots. Real robots programmed by the dude in the video. The whole thing was produced by Wired magazine.

New Young Pony Club: “Icecream” (YouTube). This is a quintessential new wave video: bold visuals, primary and secondary colors, cute women and nerds with guitars. Watch it and you’ll think: this could be 1985, and I wish the 90’s never happened (well 1994-1999 at least).

Prurient interests after the jump…

Here’s 2 videos I watched about 50 times for obvious reasons.

Space Cowboy: “My Egyptian Lover” (YouTube).

Ghostland Observatory: “Rich Man” (YouTube).

Tip of the hat to Pitchfork, Mr. Gav, Baggsy and lala.com.