Music COVIDeos
A list of music videos to entertain you during Coronavirus Pandemic
While sheltering at home during the Corona Virus pandemic, I’ve been indulging in one of my favorite indoor activities: watching music videos! Why do I like music videos so much? I enjoy the way that videos add new narrative dimensions to songs. After I’ve seen a video, I continuously reference images from it as I’m listening to music, so it creates a multi-sensory experience.
For my friends’ viewing pleasure, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 contemporary music videos. The criteria for videos on this list is pretty simple: 1) It has to be a song that I like, and 2) I have to like the song more because of the music video.
A couple caveats: I don’t claim to have the broadest or most balanced musical taste, so there’s a few repeat videos in here from the same artist. However, I did limit myself to a maximum of two videos from the same artist. Additionally, it felt weird to mix and match videos from different eras into one playlist. If you know me, you know I adore 90s music. I also adore 90s music videos. But my enjoyment of this media is nostalgic, and it can feel disorienting to jump in and out of nostalgic head spaces while binge-watching music videos. Therefore, all of the videos in this list are from the last decade, and I plan to make a second playlist in the coming days with my favorite throwbacks.
These videos do not appear in any particular order. Happy COVID watching!
- Moderat — Eating Hooks
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Moderat, it’s a collaboration between two different Berlin-based electronic artists, Modeselektor and Apparat. I was turned onto their song Eating Hooks for a while before I finally watched their music video just last week. The following day, I went to see the Tibetan Buddhism exhibit with my friend Ben at the SF Asian Art Museum. The video resonates with a lot of visual and philosophical themes in that exhibit, and Ben joked that we could have skipped the exhibit altogether. So pick your drug (meditation or medication), give the video a watch, and consider it a cultural experience. I also recommend watching Moderat’s live set at KEXP.
2. Grimes — Delete Forever
This track immediately stood out to me on Grimes’ new album Miss Anthropocene for the simplicity of the pop melody and the heaviness of the lyrics. It is in fact a song about her friends dying from opiate overdose. Nevertheless, the music video totally blew me away. Grimes sits on a throne on top of a cold, rocky planet. There are celestial bodies sprouting out of either side of her head in a fabulous hairdo. The colors, a deep primary palette of red, yellow and blue, add new layers to the song. If you want to learn more about the content song, watch this — Grimes refers to Shakespeare as the Britney Spears of his time.
3. Grimes — Violence
To be honest, I could probably do an entire playlist of Grimes music videos, but because of my two video max rule, I had to settle. I picked Violence because it’s another track from her new album, but also because it highlights what Grimes does so well: make pop her own. This is the only Grimes video that features her doing a choreographed dance routine with a group of female backup dancers, a typical pop music trope. But the medieval weapons, face masks, and cool body tattoos make it feel original and uniquely Grimes.
4. FKA twigs — Pendulum
One of the most sensual music videos I’ve ever seen. The video starts with a close up of Twig’s face and then you slowly spiral around her body suspended from ropes in elegant positions. I’m not sure it evokes a pendulum, but it certainly gives the sensation of movement and gravity. I also love the CGI effect of her face in the water at 3:29 that seems like a reference to Busta Rhymes and Janet Jackson’s famous video, “what’s it gonna be”
5. FKA twigs — Glass and Patron
Trust me, if you make it past the weird scarf birth scene at the beginning, this is the fiercest video on the list. Everyone looks like royalty and the dance moves are magnificent.
6. The Weeknd — The Knowing
I was introduced to the Weeknd my senior year of college through this song/video (Thanks MHJ!). It’s a weird low-budget sci-fi video, but it perfectly matches the dark, seductive RnB notes of the track, which felt revelatory back in 2012.
7. Tame Impala — The less I know the better
Can’t really say much about this one except for you have to see it for yourself. The visual metaphors are stimulating and provoking.
8. Honne — Warm on a cold night
There’s a really unique tenderness to this video. It’s also really refreshing to see a lesbian romance on screen that doesn’t feel tuned to the male gaze. After you watch this video, watch this other video by Honne to catch the contiguous storyline.
9. Tegan and Sara — Alligator
Tegan and Sara appear in a manufactured winter setting, dressed in sweats, UGGs, and warm knit scarves. They do synchronized dance movements that perfectly match the poppy tone of their song. This video reminds me of an Old Navy commercial. I like it.
10. Beyonce — Lemonade
Beyonce is a master of storytelling through visual and musical mediums and Lemonade is a tour de force. If you haven’t seen it in full-length, who are you and what were you doing in winter of 2016? The album should really be experienced as one cohesive narrative, but my favorites are Formation, Sorry, and All Night
If you enjoyed any of these, send me comments with your own video recs 😃
