The post-MTV generation of music videos means that the internet is where it’s at for the artform. I love music videos and the marriage of visuals to music almost as much as the songs themselves, so here’s a list of my 30 favourite of 2010. It was hard to cap it at just 30.
Best Music Videos of 2010: 1-10 | 11-20 | 20-30
1. iamamiwhoami concert film (Director: iamamiwhoami)
I’ve already written about why I think the iamamiwhoami live concert stream is one of the best things I’ve seen all year but make no mistake, this was a big glorious pay-off after nearly a year of snaking around Youtube leaving cryptic videos for us all to salivate over. This 57 minute concert is jawdropping, a work of art on a large scale with amazing songs to boot. Truly inspiring. It’s on Youtube in fan-ripped parts but download it in full to savour the full experience. You can buy the track on iTunes and Amazon.
2. El Guincho – Bombay (Director: Nicolas Mendez)
For sheer randomness including nudity, foot sucking, branch licking, naked sparkle holding, cracking eggs off heads, murdering plush toys, and using a vacuum cleaner where it doesn’t belong. It all adds up to a huge WTF factor that strengthens the song. Job done.
3. Duck Sauce – Barbra Streisand (Director: SoMe)
Styling itself like a mid ’90s MTV Dance clip, the ‘Barbra Streisand’ video is actually better than the single due to the excellent musical additions from the likes of from Questlove, Santigold, Chromeo, Ezra Vampire Weekend and more.
4. Kendal Johansson – Blue Moon (Directors: Philippe Tempelman & Kian Zubicky)
Stylistic mood-setting video which perfectly suits the enigmatic Swede’s beautiful Big Star cover.
5. Kanye West – Runaway (Director: Kanye – who else? with Hype Williams)
For having the audacity and ego to make a 35 minute movie trailer to proceed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye I salute you. Bonus points for ‘Power’ too.
6. Janelle Monáe – Tightrope (Director: Duke & Roper)
A star finally gets her dues. You wish you could dance like this.
7. M.I.A. – Born Free (Director: Romain Gavras)
Nine minutes long, explicit, violent, politically-charged and featuring graphic gingercides. Perhaps, the most envelope-pushing video of the year. This ain’t pretty.
8. Dan Deacon – Woof Woof (Director: Showbeast)
11 minutes of madness from Baltimore’s eccentric wonderman. An amazing alchemy of cheap special effects, puppets, evil Tiggers, dog-faced humans and warped minds.
9. The Ambience Affair – Devil In the Detail (Director: Souljacker)
No video in the traditional sense just 15,000 still images taken in the Wicklow Mountains.
10. Arcade Fire – The Wilderness Downtown/We Used to Wait (Director: Chris Milk)
An interactive experience that used HTML5, Google Street View to create an engaging and hopefully personal experience. Try it for yourself here.
