After more than five years, Massive Attack have released brand new music. This track off their Ritual Spirit EP features friend Tricky on the audio and the video stars Sol Star himself, John Hawkes, drunk and stumbling/dancing through the night. But, he's not necessarily alone in another gorgeous clip from VS fave Hiro Murai.
If you're gonna parody '00s pop and especially NSync's "It's Gonna Be Me" video, then who better to make it happen than that video's original director, Wayne Isham? Also along for the ride are guest singer Demi Lovato, NSync members Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, plus some old marionette toys of the band inspired by their "Bye Bye Bye" video (which was also directed by Isham).
Now, when do those Fall Out Boy toys hit the shelves?
You might get the sense that Selena Gomez is toying with you in this sexy twisty stylish video. Is she a play-at-home sexpot pining for the movie star? Or are the two of them living in bliss and she's just missing him when he's at work? Or maybe she's just a stalker.
Whatever the case, she's got her hands full in this welcome return from director Alek Keshishian (who you should know from his groundbreaking 1991 tour documentary film Madonna: Truth Or Dare).
David Guetta doesn't have a strong hand at the poker table, but he has a beautiful woman who knows how to win at a horserace in this twisty and futuristic video.
5 Seconds Of Summer reinforce their stronghold on that sweetspot between pop/punk and boy band thanks to this cartoonish tale about rallying all the underdogs for a parade that would make Delta Tau Chi proud.
Isaac Rentz, director: "This is my 4th video for the band. They're always fun to work with because they have a great sense of humor but they also take the message behind their videos seriously. The band wanted to make something with a revolutionary theme that showed them sticking up for underdogs. I worked with my production designer to create a mad max-style vehicle that they would drive through the suburbs, made completely from scraps that you'd find in a neighborhood garage. It was an intense night shoot, with hundreds of extras on the Warner Brothers studio lot. I was nervous about it all coming together, but I remember the first moment we saw the band rounding the corner on that big smoking, blinking vehicle, we all knew we had found the right visual to match the song."'
You knew Eminem's history with both Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre meant he would show up in the Apple Music launch, but did you expect his contribution to be a music video that casts him as an ass-kicking Neo-style action-adventure star? Or, for John Malkovich to have a cameo as a mysterious purveyor of noodles and wisdom? The nearly 8-minute big-budget opus starts in a hospital and ends with a helicopter leap to a rendezvous with Dr Dre — plus, instead of the usual Beats product placements, we get an integrated storyline with an Apple Watch.
Stardom as an instant glamour model can be a bitch. Or maybe, it's just the photographers who discover and explout these beautiful people who are truly the bitches. Such is the situation in this tale of Rita Ora going from a street savvy headturner to a glossy pin-up girl under the watchful eye of a creepy Warholian predator type who peels her away from her man.
Alon Isocianu takes the cube genre (see this Eric Prydz video from this year) and transforms it into a self-empowerment story alongside Kelly Clarkson. Brilliant!
This campy and retro musical tribute to pretty girls around the world (that would be all of them) is an out-of-this-world quest to bring these two blonde superstars together. Iggy plays an alien robot-type creature who is, naturally, new to the scene, while Britney is otherwise worshiped and glorified.
Dance is definitely the trend of 2015, ever since Sia’s “Chandelier” (and Kiesza’s “Hideaway”) broke some ground last year with their ur-dance videos. This time Muse and director Robert Hales take you inside a chalk-filled silo while two dancers express their kind of creepy selves.
If you're going to do anything that's even close to the masterful True Detective opening credits, then you better do it well. And if you know anything about Taylor Swift, then you know that she only does things well. "Style" plays with double-exposures, projections and other tricks as we see a love affair come together and shatter apart again and again.
