Just because something is the most popular doesn’t make it great.
Much has already been made of certain omissions from the Best Video nominees for this year’s VMAs.
Well, forget the MTV charade – these are the best videos of the best 12 months without paying heed to popularity, record sales, marketability or any of the other nonsense that only the bean counters care about.
1) OK Go – I Won’t Let You Down
Remember OK Go? The guys who did that incredible treadmill music video a few years back? Well they released a single in October called I Won’t Let You Down and the accompanying video was astounding.
Choreographing their way around those treadmills must have been tricky, but nothing compared to their perfectly choreographed performance in the video below. The lads ride around on Honda UNI-CUBs, personal mobility units that are controlled by the rider shifting their weight.
We can’t imagine how many takes it took for the band to immaculately perform their routine while riding around on those things, but the octocopter drone captures it in all its glory from ground level and a bird’s eye view.
2) J. Cole – G.O.M.D
G.O.M.D is a standout track of J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive and director Lawrence Lamont gave it a video to match.
In what is essentially a short film, the North Carolina rapper gives a convincing performance as a slave who ignites a revolution against the owners of his plantation.
It’s an energetic and exciting video that explores the themes of liberation and freedom, telling a story that needs to be told. G.O.M.D is in a completely different league to some of the prospective ‘Best Videos’ at the VMAs, such as Ed Sheeran’s ball-dancing adventure Thinking Out Loud.
3) The Decemberists – Make You Better
The Decemberists had a bit of help with this one from Nick Offerman, famous for his roles in the American version of The Office and Parks and Recreation.
The Decemberists play a gig that looks like archived Top of the Pops footage, bookended by Offerman’s comedic performance as a stereotypical German TV presenter who gives an incomprehensible interrogation of Colin Meloy (“the band of Decemberists is bringing you hit song, “I Make You Butter”), before haplessly pursuing his colleague in an ill-fated attempt at romance.
4) Kendrick Lamar – i
Kendrick Lamar did pretty well for himself out of yesterday’s VMA announcements, nominated in the best video category for Alright, and as an attaché to T-Swizz for her Bad Blood video.
We’d have chosen his i video instead, which combines a classic party vibe starkly contrasted with shots of cops shining a flashlight into the eyes of a black man as Lamar looks on, perturbed. The video climaxes with Lamar’s comedown, as he hangs out of the window of a Cadillac, looking a bit like Heath Ledger’s Joker.
5) Sia – Elastic Heart
Sia’s video for Chandelier somehow lost out to Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball at the 2014 VMAs. As if that wasn’t enough to prove that the whole thing is a bit of a farce, her video for Elastic Heart wasn’t even nominated this year.
This video features the return of the frighteningly talented child-dancer Maddie Ziegler as she leaps around a cage with a neanderthal Shia LaBeouf.
100 bonus points for being really weird.
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