3. Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment – ‘Sunday Candy’
Video by: Austin Vesely, Ian Eastwood & Chance The Rapper
Not many songs this year were so unabashed in their positivity but Chance The Rapper and his friends excelled with a song that equated desire with a post-Church treat. The charm of the colorful video, much like Chance Bennett’s resolute independence in music, is the triumph of a large cast pulling it off in one-shot.
2. Tame Impala – ‘The Less I Know The Better’
Video by: Canada
The directors Canada have cultivated their own style of music videos: playful, polychromatic, quirky, sexy, and a little retro. ‘The Less I Know The Better’ might be their largest in scope to date, a feast of colour, set design, iconography, dancing and lust.
1. Kendrick Lamar – ‘Alright’
Video by: Colin Tilley, The Little Homies
The first couple of minutes of Colin Tilley’s high-contrast black and white video sets the world we live in in which things burn, blood drips, money enraptures and things fall apart. It addresses the topical racial violence in the U.S. this year, and every other year too. Unlike, ‘Close Your Eyes (And Count To F**k)’ and its physical brutality, ‘Alright’, a song which was adopted as a chant during police assault protests spreads a message of hope. Lamar memorably floats across the city but even though he meets as a messiah’s end, he lets it be known “we goin be alright.”…
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
