Commercial Break

Ryan Hope Creates "Transform Today" with Yoann Leoine x Woodkid for Absolut

Making a video for director/musician Yoann Lemoine aka Woodkid sounds like way more pressure than most jobs. Director Ryan Hope handles it perfectly, however, delivering short films for Absolut that celebrate the artistic proces with Wookid, graphic novelist Rafael Grampa, designer Yiquing Yin, and digital artist Aaron Koblin.

Watch It

How An "I Quit" Viral Gave Kanye His First Billboard Hot 100 Hit of 2013

How's this for chart perversion: There's a Kanye West song that just cracked the Top 20 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The song is "Gone." It's 8 years old. And it's charting because a viral video features (former) news producer Marina Shifrin performing an interpretive "I quit" dance for her (former) boss. And as you know, the Billboard chart now uses YouTube plays as part of its calculation.

I'm telling you: Keyboard cat will one day be a #1 hit. Or maybe "What The Fox Say"...

PS: One of this video's points was to focus on the content and not the views, which is somewhat ironic since the video has 15+ million views.

Lyrical

Lady Gaga x Machete Kills for "Aura"

Lyric videos are usually lame. And soundtrack videos are usually lame too, since they need to be larded with a certain amount of movie footage. But, combing the two results in something great in "Aura," which doubles as a lyric video and as an extended trailer for Machete Kills.

What makes it truly next level though is that Gaga has a role in the movie, thereby making this look as big as any music video.

Watch It

Bastille "Of The Night" (Dave Ma, dir.)

If you were subjected to a eurodance floor or a late night pop station during the early '90s then you were probably subjected to "Rhythm Is A Dancer" — a song so catchy it'll never leave your head, even after you're dead.

And that, my friends, is your hint for what to expect in deadly serious (but oddly fun) video for Bastille's overhaul of the song into something a bit more weighty.

Watch It

Panic! at the Disco "Girls/Girls/Boys" (D Jay Brawner, dir.)

Right there on the YouTube page, singer Brendon Urie celebrates that the inspiration for his latest torso-baring clip for Panic! at the Disco is everyone's favorite D'Angelo video. Director D Jay Brawner makes sure to give the fans everything (or alllmost everything) they want from this sexy one-taker, assuming the fans don't really want to look at anyone else in the band.

Blog

Annie Lennox, Sinead, Miley and Sex on Film and Music Videos

There must be something in the ether overseas with first Sinead O'Connor and now Eurtyhmics singer Annie Lennox taking stands against the sexualized nature of music videos...

First was Sinead, who has now posted several long open letters to Miley Cyrus, asking her to assume control of her image before it overwhelms her music and her life:

Sinead O'Connor: I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos. It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether its the music business or yourself doing the pimping." 

Watch It

Tyler The Creator "Tamale" (Wolf Haley, dir.)

There's a decent chance that Tyler The Creator crosses way too many lines for you to really get with him — most bars feature at least one word that's not considered kosher for polite society — but "Tamale" is him at his random best, pinging back and forth between making serious points and getting silly. Visually, it's a blast, but there' usually a counterbalance: The ass trampoline gets contrasted with a censored bit of presumed violence, and just when you think he's about to take the piss out of a boring indie rock Zombie appregio riff, he uses as a chance to get deep.

Also worth noting: Tyler could probably have a lucrative career as a director — yes, he's Wolf Haley — if he gets tired of rhyming.