Within this article sit our picks for the best videos of the decade. Has music video become obsolete with the devolution of MTV into a fraternity fuckfest? We here at Spectrum Culture think not. YouTube has become a fecund ground for people who still love their music videos. Please enjoy these picks. - David Harris
Arcade Fire
"My Body is a Cage"
Dir: J.Tyler Helms
Sure, the Arcade Fire did some fancy interactive stuff with the "Black Mirror" video, but this simple Dark Side of the Moon meets The Wizard of Oz trick is so much more effective. Director J. Tyler Helms unites the music of "My Body is a Cage" with the finale of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West to add a haunting new level to the showdown between Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda. If you haven't seen the film, watch it before you see this video. But even without the context, a new dimension is awakened in a classic and a great song becomes immortal. - David Harris
The Avalanches
"Frontier Psychiatrist"
Dir: Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire
What better way to visually portray a single constructed entirely out of samples than with a video of some freaky variety show where everyone acts out those samples? Like the strangest musical number you ever saw, Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire's video for The Avalanches' "Frontier Psychiatrist" is as groundbreaking in its collage techniques as the song it promotes. For anyone who's ever bitched about a video not having anything to do with the song, here's the logical conclusion to your desire.
Though the video's concept is stupidly simple on paper, Kuntz and Maguire clearly put as much dedication and detail into their creation as The Avalanches did in their song; once you've seen the video, it's almost impossible not to visualize the characters that match each sample, whether it's the elderly drag queen behind the drums, the turtle man shouting "you're a nut! you're crazy in the coconut!" or the choir of white sheet ghosts, everything is a perfect fit. There's no plot, of course, but I've always seen the video as the adult version of the "shows" kids put on, full of surreal dialogue and laughably odd characters.
Although the film has a novelty factor to it for its sheer weirdness, it transcends that, becoming the type of work you view over and over out of a need to figure out everything that's happening. Unlike something along the lines of OK Go and their synchronized exercise, "Frontier Psychiatrist" stays fresh through repeated viewings, never getting any less strange. Now if only the song had come out in the '80s, when it would have been treated as a holy relic on MTV rather than being confined to the lo-fi ghetto that is YouTube. - Morgan Davis
Band of Horses
"The Funeral"
Music videos often fall on two unappealing ends of the stylistic spectrum. Either the video is merely a glossy visualizer doing little to build upon the song itself, or the video is so arty and adventurous that it distances itself from the song it's meant to enhance. While Band of Horses' "The Funeral" certainly leans toward the latter, it manages to delve into highly cinematic territory without seeming foreign to its source material or ruining what will likely remain the band's greatest - and most well known - work. Not every music video needs to indulge film-student passions, but this one certainly does it right. The compositions are skillful, the dogged alcoholic protagonist feels relevant while his actions are emotionally challenging, and the song's climactic rush of cacophonic guitars is only enhanced by the video's shocking - yet sadly expected - ending. It's hard to critique a song as masterful as "The Funeral," and it's accompanying video only makes the track more of impressive aural assault. - Michael Merline
The Decemberists
"16 Military Wives"
Dir: Aaron Stewart
Aaron Stewart's take on "16 Military Wives" is part tribute to Wes Anderson (specifically Rushmore) and part protest song. In schools across the country, model United Nations are teaching children about international relationships. The Decemberists took that premise and switched the international relationships to personal ones to represent real problems in the world. The United States played by Colin Meloy is very pompous and arrogant. Surrounded by a coalition of the willing, (Poland and Korea), the US uses the opportunity to declare war on Luxembourg (Chris Funk). A "UN Security Force" proceeds to place sanctions on Funk inside and outside the classroom. Denying his human rights to use the toilet or receive a school lunch. Meanwhile Ireland (Jenny Conlee) doesn't approve of the Untied States' position, spends her spare time writing musicals. The pair join forces with others and eventually calling the United States on its shit and throws Meloy out of the model UN and pelting him with crumpled up papers.
The Decemberists took a stand against the policies of the United States since 2003 by shrinking real problems and issues onto a smaller scale. By imposing sanctions and using a weapons inspector along with fiery speeches to rally others to the cause, the US has bullied its way to be a leader in the world and it is disheartening how honest the video is while wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still wage on. - Nicholas Ryan
Johnny Cash
"Hurt"
Dir: Mark Romanek
As the 70s came to an end, it seemed the book had finally closed on the mythology of Johnny Cash. "I Walk The Line", "Folsom Prison Blues" and "Ring Of Fire" had all aged by decades, Cash sidelined his solo work to play in a country supergroup, and by 1991, record contracts with both Columbia and Mercury had come to a disappointing end. It also didn't help that Cash spent the 80s getting kicked by an ostrich, addicted to painkillers, undergoing double bypass surgery and recording "Chicken In Black." Like Roy Orbinson and Guns N' Roses, it seemed Cash's career was doomed to Greatest Hits and Essentials Collection hell.
That is, until Rick Rubin, head of American Recordings, offered Cash a contract. And for us younger fans, Cash's American albums are easily the best of his career. Rubin fully embraced simple arrangements, allowing Cash's voice to be the centerpiece of every song. Rubin further aided Cash by recommending a wide variety of songs to cover. Over the course of the American series, Cash performed incredible renditions of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave, but it was Cash's cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" that seemed to encompass everything The Man In Black stood for in his twilight years.
And the video captures it perfectly. Cash's voice sounds like a death rattle as he looks over his rotting wealth. You almost expect to see Miss Havisham's spider-webbed wedding cake in the corner. Clips of Cash as a young, happy, vital man intersect his lonely wanderings, until the flashbacks catch up and you seen his museum closed and his gold records lying broken on the floor. As June looks on, Cash clumsily strums a guitar and pounds the same chord over and over on the piano. If there aren't tears in your eyes by the time he dumps the wine on his kitchen table, you should really check yourself for a pulse. An old black-and-white clip of young Johnny Cash looking brightly from the engine of a moving train is the embodiment of hope, only to realize that is the man who can now barely open his mouth wide enough to get his words out.
The video for Johnny Cash's "Hurt" is powerful and poignant because it's not just about the life of an iconic musician, it's a startling reminder about aging, loneliness, and death. This video perfectly portrays that no matter who you are, what you've done, or what you hope to still accomplish, "You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later God will cut you down." - Brian Loeper
Justice vs. Simian
"We Are Your Friends (You'll Never Be Alone)"
The video for this 2006 dance hit goes strikingly against the mold. Forgoing flashing strobes and E-compatible effects, "We Are Your Friends" is grainy and shot under mind-numbing fluorescent bulbs - the perfect lighting to convey the bleary eyed stagnation of a hangover. The real beauty of this piece is the incredible display of evil genius. A roomful of comatose party goers awaken to find their "friends" have constructed inconceivably elaborate pranks around them, trapping these helpless souls amidst a sea of empty beer bottles and toppling furniture. As you watch these staggering displays of betrayed trust and utter humiliation, the track poignantly continues to remind you that these, your captors and torturers, are your friends, "You'll never be alone again." Whether you choose to delve into the validity of friendships that revolve around communal escapism through drugs and alcohol, or you just take a somewhat sick pleasure in the misery of others, you will enjoy these two and a half minutes.
For its muted chaos and destruction paired with some damn catchy beats, this video is a masterpiece. - Nicola Fairhead
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LCD Soundsystem
"All My Friends"
Dir: Tony Kurtz
The second single from LCD Soundsystem's phenomenal Sound of Silver, "All My Friends is one of their finest, a rumination of aging, regrets and the passage of time- its video, however, is practically an exercise in minimalist strangeness. Directed by Tom Kurtz, "All My Friends" keeps a fixed close-up on singer James Murphy's face (painted up somewhere between Aladdin Sane and Optimus Prime) as he sits in a staid suit and uncomfortably nods along to the chiming, repetitious piano chord that the entire song is built around.
And then things start to get a little weird. As Murphy's rough, untrained voice starts into desperate lyrics like "When you're drunk and the kids look impossibly tan/ You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead," the camera begins to pan back over mirrored images of drummers and keyboardists...and then the rain begins. As a video, there's no story and no plot- but as an impression of what the song is, it's a triumph. Sitting there getting soaking wet and lizards crawling about shoulders as fireworks go off, Murphy is an image of a man with no control over his journey. Things happen- things change, but we all always remain the same inside somewhere, wondering how the passage of time makes the world around us so strange. - Nathan Kamal
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Modest Mouse
"Oceans Breaths Salty"
My tastes in videos are similar to my tastes in movies. Visual stimulation, an intriguing storyline and interesting characters spell out success. I submit Modest Mouse's "Ocean Breaths Salty."
The story is actually rather simple: inside the mind of a child. The video opens with a boy venturing outside, picking up his bike and rides off. Immediately you get deep scenery - a wide-open green and gold field, metaphorical of the boys wide-open imagination. Playing catch with a scarecrow holding a glove gives way to curiosity as something catches his eye. A dead bird lies in wait as the boy pokes at it with a stick.
Loosing his attention, he continues walking through the field until he spies another fallen creature. Isaac Brock, MM lead singer, lies on the ground, his feathered wing broken. The boy drags him home, mends his wounds and collects him in a box. In the boys mind, he has found a new playmate. However, the boy's mother disapproves and sends him off to be rid of the creature. He runs off into the field and falls asleep. Upon waking he finds the man gone. After a brief search, the boy finds the man waiting for him, wing mended and ready for a game of catch. The jubilation is short lived however, as the man/bird succumbs to death. The boy buries him in the box. As the camera pulls back you see multiple crosses in the field. The ghosts contained below rise up to form the band, each dressed as the different animals once collected, as they play out the balance of the song to the boys' pleasure.
The song is about life and death and the video makes for a great visual companion. A dreaming child, large scenery and metaphors galore, the video embodies the essence of the song adequately, capturing the music's meaning by tying the theme to the storyline. It is a simple video, but sometimes the simplest are the best. - Josh Vietti
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The Mountain Goats
"Woke Up New"
Dir: Rian Johnson
"Woke Up New" struggles with the idea of unconditional loss and how it spurs on the birthing pains of a unknowable future. Under the song's floral atmosphere, panic laden realities rise from the earth like ivy wrapping itself around a fence. The instrumentation and lyrics strike a balance between existential sharpness and ethereal numbness. Something painful has happened, but just how painful this person's absence is hasn't quite hit with full force because the hurt hasn't spread far or high enough.
In his video adaptation, director Rian Johnson guides his account through several television screens with each one showing frontman John Darnielle with long time bassist Peter Hughes and sometimes contributor Eric Friedlander in different attire and positions on each frame. Occasionally, everyone is omitted save for Darnielle himself. The set is the same within each screen even though simultaneous perspectives are shown in direct contradiction to one another like the splintered vision of a nervous arachnid. As the song is played and sung, a different trick is employed just as the camera seems comfortable that the present visual incarnation of the group must be the genuine article and, implicitly, the true source of such a confusing sorrow. Every shot is misleading but nobody is lying. Like the song, grief makes the short film bend towards different desires while satiating nothing of lasting consequence. As a film it aches in different and contradictory directions, never meeting a physical need for a direct dialogue with an elusive pain by not letting us converse with the band visually.
Only at the end does the camera zoom back to reveal Darnielle sitting alone on a chair and staring at a single TV screen. His expression is contemplative but also haunted with an understated knowingness. Having absorbed, perhaps, the full force of his own vision, it has pinged off him the way that sonar contours deep sea trenches. Unlike the men in the other frames, this John Darnielle is not singing. It's hard to imagine this one opening his mouth. At that moment, the story of The Mountain Goats becomes the burden of one person gazing pointedly at the disjointed concept of human separation and barely making sense of it all. The video stops right before the point where "Woke Up New" will be allowed to wash over the spirit if there is a willingness to let it in.
The White Stripes
"Fell in Love with a Girl"
Dir: Michel Gondry
It's amazing what one clever video can do. "Fell in Love with a Girl" (aka the Lego video) catapulted the White Stripes from a cult indie band to unlikely superstars. They won three MTV video awards that year and shared a stage with Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Eminem, and host Jimmy Fallon. It felt like a great mistake that this cool little band that loved old blues and the Stooges was suddenly on national television.
The video that started it is one of the decade's most immediately recognizable. Both the White Stripes and French director have an aesthetic that favors the handmade/homemade over the slick, ultramodern, and artificial. Both have qualities that could be called child-like, but not childish. The concept for the video is simple, but brilliant and though it may be low-tech, it was painstakingly crafted. From the beginning, the White Stripes seemed to exist as an art project, with their uniforms, self-imposed rules, and strong design aspect. Their videos are an extension of this, but this may be the best at embodying that; the fast, energetic, ecstatically creative visuals perfectly mirror the burst of bluesy garage rock that, like so many of their singles, makes everything else on the radio seem stale and dull. After all, Legos are one of the best toys ever and it was a masterstroke to employ them for one of the decade's best bands, who, even as they were looking back for inspiration, paved the way forward. - Lukas Sherman
The White Stripes
"The Hardest Button to Button"
Dir: Michel Gondry
In the obscure and marginalized world of music video direction, Michel Gondry is perhaps the closest you'll find to a visionary. His videos, often stunningly original and quixotic, rank as some of the most interesting and memorable of the 90s and 00s. With a sizable videography spanning the elite artistry of Radiohead, Beck, Daft Punk and Björk, he's amassed even more indie-cred than those very artists can claim. In 2002 Gondry stumbled into a relationship with Jack and Meg White when their label mistakenly enlisted his services to direct a video for their hit single "Fell in Love with a Girl." He and a team of animators ultimately turned out the terrific Legoland extravaganza pivotal to The White Stripes' emergence from the garage and into the living rooms of the average MTV viewer. A year later, this video for "The Hardest Button to Button" marked the ambitious peak of the Gondry-White collab.
The vid features more than 30 custom Ludwig drum kits and Fender amps snaking through the streets, tunnels and subway stations of Manhattan's Upper West Side--empty save for a dapper Beck Hansen who presents to Jack "a box with somethin' in it." Gondry's inclination toward camera trickery matches the beat-driven Elephant cut perfectly as Meg's peppermint skins multiply and retreat at the expense of a crew tasked with building and dismantling kits ad infinitum. A trio of gruelling 16-hour days were required for Gondry to get the shots needed to match his vision, all of which the lead Stripe weathered with a recently-broken hand. The effort ultimately paid off of course, for my money it's the best video in the Stripes' catalog. Further, 2006 saw the video parodied in a rare intersection of indie rock and "The Simpsons;" and if that's not the truest measure of success, I don't know what is. - Brady Baker
