2006 was the year of the video. Apple’s video iPod (released late in 2005) started taking over with the help of the iTunes video store which allowed moms everywhere to download all those missed episodes of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. YouTube became the thing of the moment, letting millions of people easily share all their boring ass home videos and stupid tricks pet tricks with the rest of the world, in horrible quality to boot. Then the ruler of the internet Google, decided there was merit in it and dropped a hefty 1.6 billion dollars in its acquisition. Various intellects are already arguing that YouTube is posing to be the end all of internet streaming video, but only time will tell. In way, but not entirely, these events led to the birth of us. A small website named So Hot Right Now decided to step up it’s game and morphed into Shots Ring Out (hopefully your second stop for all things music videos.) And that’s where this list comes in. We here at SRO have spent quite some time, deliberating, yelling, and debasing each other in hopes of the best year end video list on the web. So here you have it, our exhausting list of the best Shots that Rang Out in the year of our Lord, 2006. Get it.

Here’s the deal: every video is available via YouTube for casual, low quality viewing. Every video is also downloadable in higher quality to truly appreciate the work (and to amass a nice music video collection for your iPod/Zune/PSP/etc.). Simple.

For those who plan on downloading many videos, we offer the videos in 10-pack zip files. If you want to download many, most, or all of the videos we beg that you use this option to prevent our server from blowing up in a fiery death ball. For the truly dedicated and tech-savvy we also have the entire list available in one shot: a torrent file. Take this option if you can as it’s the fastest way to have the best videos of the year living happily on your hard disk. Of course, you can still download individual videos as you wish.

Enjoy!

*** Mass-Download options (we prefer you use these if you can!) ***

DOWNLOAD ALL VIDEOS (torrent)

The link below is a torrent link. If you don’t know what that is, don’t bother with it: try the ZIP files instead. I think I only 80% know what I’m doing when it comes to torrents, so please let us know if the torrent isn’t working.

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UPDATE 01-17-07: Okay, so our previous torrent tracker (Torrentbox) got shut down, so I’ve created a new one via Mininova. Hopefully this one sticks around for awhile longer. This torrent is a directory and not a ZIP file, so there’s an improvement at least. Let us know if something isn’t working.
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(1.36 GB - Directory, via Mininova)

DOWNLOAD VIDEO 10-PACKS (zip)

Clicking the link will take you to a page. On the top right of this page is a 3 letter code. Enter this code and hit ‘Download’. You will then be shown a counter where you must wait 45 seconds, after which you can click the actual link to begin the download [via MegaUpload].

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Individual downloads available within the list. Speaking of which…

The Top 56 Music Videos of 2006

1) Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Joseph Kahn)

If you haven’t caught on, Music Videos are an underappreciated art form. Especially as of late, music videos get very little respect as the money to produce them is scarce and the means to view them is questionable. Compared to feature-length Hollywood movies, Music Videos are barely a blip on the radar. Wannabes do music videos; real men make movies.

If you want to make the analogy, imagine Hollywood films (the popcorn, summer movie type) as the arrogant rich kid and Music Video as the scrappy kid who works twice as hard for half the reward. Of course the arrogant rich kid always picks on the scrappy youngster, pushing him down, stealing his money, and getting the girl. Poor little kid can’t get a break, and nobody at school respects him at all.

Now imagine that scrappy kid walks right up to that arrogant rich kid and with no hesitation punches him in the face, knocks him out, catches the football to make the game winning touchdown, grabs the arrogant rich kid’s girl, and walks away into the sunset. That, in a nutshell, is “Knights of Cydonia”.

Technically, the video is amazing. Everything is shot absolutely beautifully. It looks just as good - hell, it looks better - than what’s currently playing at your local multiplex. All this holds while making tongue-in-cheek mistakes based on the fictional production company that would have made a space cowboy epic, like being able to see the crew in the mirror during the bedroom scene. All the details, even the mistakes, are present, accounted for, and perfected.

Artistically, Knights of Cydonia is in a league of its own for creating a compelling world. Sure, everything is culled heavily from a handful of cinema greats, but this is essentially a great popcorn movie edited down to the bare essentials to a tidy 6 minutes. This video is your favorite movies, with all the boring crap edited out. I’ll say it right now: this is a complete film, start to finish, and quite honestly it really loses very little compared to the Star Wars, Indiana Jones, James Bonds, of the world. This music video has proven what we’ve known all along: our favorite movies are really 6 minutes of goodness surrounding by 114 minutes of filler. This music video is doing “movies” better than most movies are.

While other videos may be a bit more clever or have a better gimmick, none of them have the balls that Knights of Cydonia has in battling Hollywood on it’s own turf and taking a win. The minor point is this: if this were a full movie, I would pay to see it. The major point is this: if this video were expanded into a full movie, it wouldn’t be as good. This is not music videos being Hollywood: this is still a music video through and through, it just happens to beat Hollywood at it’s own game. What Joseph Kahn has done is shown that music video has the potential to rival the art form that spends so much time looking down on it. The boundary between music video and Hollywood cinema was just obliterated and with that Mr. Kahn has created the best music video of 2006.

(36.1 MB)

2) the Mountain Goats - Woke Up New (Rian Johnson)

You either like the Mountain Goats or you don’t. Their sound is very defined and I’m pretty sure at this point the phrase Mountain Goat-ish has become an adjective that is well understood in the indie world. Being a fan of John Darnielle, I was presently surprised to see Rian Johnson tagged as the director for their latest video. His debut film Brick made quite a splash in the cinematic world, garnering him much acclaim and little hate, for a movie that was mostly successful for its clever writing. Juxtaposed to this video, which is all tricks and edits, one wonders what else this young director has up his sleeve.

Rumor around the internet said that this was done with only two cuts and no post production trickery, and while I’m no film editing/trickery/magic expert, I do find it hard to believe. All of the fade in and outs from the TVs are too clear to be done without cuts and more importantly, on a few of the zoom ins the angle becomes tilted or slanted and could no way be obtained from just getting closer to flat screen. The cuts are seamless though and do make for wonderful and tricky video that at first may seem like an inappropriate companion to an acoustic/slow going song about loss and love, but after it finishes all the flash seems quite appropriate. No matter the number of cuts, this video stands as quite an accomplishment for director Rian Johnson and his next project will definitely be scrutinized and anticipated with equal fervor.

(20.5 MB)

3) Sean Lennon - Friendly Fire (Michele Civetta)

As far as music videos go, Sean Lennon’s Friendly Fire opus goes well above and beyond the norm in both style, scope, and caliber. Granted, the help of his and his namesake’s deep pockets and significant connections are a factor, this project still could’ve been a trainwreck. Director Michele Civetta’s keen eye and distinct style marry the visuals to Lennon’s score impeccably giving the piece a kind of class that is scarcely found in the disposable field that has engulfed mainstream music videos.

The mere fact that this encompasses an entire album alone make Friendly Fire worthy of being placed on this list, however, what sets this apart from the other album-related projects, is its devotion to one entire storyline via alternate routes found in daydreams, memories, and outright fantasies. All of which, no matter how whimsical or fantastic, hold respect for the audience without pandering to us or lowering its standards for the general populace.

Like most of any artist’s finer works, the album and accompanying film spawned out of the tragedy, pain, love and loss that surrounded Lennon, and it is with that, in which he presents us with such a personal tale, 10 songs long, that I’ve no doubt his mom does and dad would approve.

We leave you with the first two pieces of this truly inspiring work as but a sample of what Lennon has to offer. It would be a disservice to such a project to post it in its entirety, not only because of the monetary angle, but because craftmanship like this should and needs to be supported. Do yourselves a favor and buy this from somewhere, shit like this needs to be encouraged for sure.

Dead Meat

(51.62 MB)

Parachute

(45.24 MB)

4) The Teddybears - Cobrastyle (Ace Norton)

Ace Norton is the wunderkind, straight outta USC Film School, who seems to actually represent what most of us expect of someone to have attended such a prestigious establishment. At 24, his work is already acclaimed and his resume longer and more established than most of the players in his field. With no less than 20 videos already under his belt, its scary to think that his stride has even begun to form.
And in the midst of all the quality videos he’s dropped on us so far, including Death Cab’s “Crooked Teeth”, The Faint’s “Desperate Guys”, Smoosh’s “Find A Way”, and The Willowz “Ulcer Soul”, I find it hard to top his crowd pleasing Mockumentary-like shot for The Teddybears “Cobrastyle”.

Norton throws in the usual rock star fare of drugs, sex, parties, overdoses, and homages to famed classic incidences, however the means he uses to sew them together so that we end up rooting for them to come back to life or feel sorry for them when they miss their child’s first “grrr” impresses the hell out of us. Not to mention his attention to detail in balancing the humor and respectability of handling such an idea that could’ve easily gone the road most traveled. Kudos to him and his team for giving all of us a video we can watch again and again without having to explain ourselves.

(27.39 MB)

5) Jeremy Warmsley - Dirty Blue Jeans (Ben Rollason)

Ben Rollason has been a busy boy this year; directing clips for Little Man Tate, Battle, and two for Jeremy Warmsley. Here we find him tackling a worse song with a better concept (versus his work for ‘I Believe In the Way You Move), Rollason pulls off a great video with a simple yet effective idea. Filming still actors while having them move only certain parts of their body and then speeding up the frames and doing some post production magic, Rollason creates a visually stunning ride that leaves you asking ‘How’d he do that?” Well from the mouth of the director and a much better explanation than the sentence above:

“The backdrops are stills, but it’s all shot with a moving camera. Scenes were filmed for several minutes, with actors posing still. Unbalanced poses are supported by ropes, boxes, sticks, inflatable air mattresses and so on.(which you can see in the shots). The point was to see genuine physical pain and uncontrolled muscular spasm as the ’stills’ collapse.

The post process was simply to speed the footage up by varying degrees (up to 20x) and then blend frames together to create a time continuum within each frame, (sometimes as many as 700 frames per frame). The blurring is real motion blur. Sometimes the actors held a pose, save for one limb which they continually moved back and forth. In the finished shot they appear static, but the limb is a blur.

As the footage speed increases and the frame blending reduces, the movement reveals itself.”

As you can see he likes his tricks and his videos serve as evidence that he is quite savvy at pulling them off. Rollason is definitely a director to watch and it will be exciting to see what the new year has in store us/him.

(11.1 MB)

6) Justice vs. Simian - We Are Your Friends (Rozan & Schmeltz)

The Mtv video lovers across the pond chose this as their “Video of the Year” much to the distaste of a Mr. Kanye West. What this proves is, that no matter the budget, genre, or star-power a shot is driven by, nothing beats fuckin’ with your passed out drunk friends. Granted some of these -ahem- “situations” are completely ridiculous and far-fetched, their payoffs are damn well worth it, to the point that if we ever got the chance, we’d love to do this to our own friends.

And that my friends is a testament to the power of a video, in which it excites and motivates you to replicate it or its ideas outside from your “viewer” position. Like Jackass or any of its other subsidiaries, it was a big thing because of how it influenced so many people, despite being for the wrong(?) reasons. Yeah, this isn’t some groundbreaking serious masterpiece, but it still leaves a lasting impression on us and shows that some plain old lighthearted fun can translate over into art and still keep up with those that hit on a more thoughtful or significant level. Here’s to exploiting our friends when they’re most vulnerable, and doing it with style!

(21.89 MB)

7) I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness - The Owl (Emmanuel Ho)

The song The Owl is a wonderful 2:30 instrumental piece. Despite having no lyrics, the video for The Owl might just be the most perfect visual representation of a song this year, or ever. The moment the opening guitar is paired with the vibrations of the wire holding the crow captive you know you are in the midst of something very, very special. The trend continues throughout the song, with every subtle shift, addition, or pause in the music paralleled by a perfectly representative symbolic representation on the screen. The ominous chords paired with the images of the Owl make for an absolutely chilling moment that ignites a sense of impending doom like no other.

Aside from this perfect marriage, the visuals themselves are a thing of beauty. While technology has allowed animated videos to tend to more dense layering and increasing complication, Emmanuel Ho takes a completely different path in The Owl that evoke a naked vulnerability. Working in black and white, the images in The Owl define a bold serenity that add a sense of urgency and anxiety to the visuals. Every single still frame in this video would make a stunning print to hang on your wall (Note to Emmanuel: contact us for our mailing address wink wink). Further, every scene is pregnant with symbolic structure: every time I watch this video the symbolism becomes more textured, deep, and brilliant. Bold, haunting, and unique, The Owl is easily the best animated video of 2006, adding credence to old adage that “less is more”.

(22.6 MB)

The Maccabees - First Love (Terry Hall)

Everyone wants to fall in love. Everyone wants to find that one person that completes them. The sad truth is that not everyone finds that, or if they do, it’s only for brief moments in their life. So, anytime someone can creatively capture the sentiments of love and the mystery that surrounds it in a way that makes you tingle a bit, I say we should take notice.

Oh the Maccabees - where to begin? After reveling in their cloud of British obscurity for the past few years, they hooked up with Terry Hall and somewhere in that encounter get a top notch video made and for no money I’m assuming. (No money = very little money.) Presently they’re getting mentioned all over the web from the ville, to the fork, and back again for their creative efforts. I say bravo. They’re well deserving of the adulation.

This is the kind of perfect coupling of video and song that conjures the most heartfelt sentiments. Between the off-kilter vocals and the quirky, yet meaningful imagery throughout the video, it’s sure to strike a chord in everyone it reaches. I have shown this video to quite a few official “I don’t like music videos” people and I have come away with nothing short of praise and acclaim for it. Nothing speaks truer to the inherent value of a work of art more, than when it transcends the boundaries of its medium and reaches those others, who would normally not take notice.

The video itself is the work of Terry Hall, who does a stellar job at capturing the “first love/lost love” sentiment in familiar objects - be it a car, lips, clothes, a room, a broken mug, or the imprint of a hand. All these items convey a surprising amount of emotion when presented visually and are much more effective than overtly obvious, classic concrete images that usually signify love and loss and pain. Similar to the scare tactics of great horror/suspense film makers, the less you show the audience and the more you leave up to their imagination, the more successful you will be in evoking the desired emotion - be it horror/love/sadness or anything else.

Simple stated, the video is touching. This rarely happens in the realm of the music video - maybe a few times a year, at best. Sure, there are plenty of visually stunning or gimmicky/tricky videos out there, but the ones that touch your heart are the ones that are remembered - just like with love.

(35.9 MB)

9) Wolf Parade - Modern World (Adam Bizanski)

Despite the fact that the modern world is all around us and we all actively contribute to it, we sometimes fail to realize how modernization actually effects our society. Adam Bizanski’s vision for Wolf Parade’s Modern World takes us through an alternate-reality where everything, even the making of music, has become mechanized. It is here that we find our heroes of this ‘Modern World’, just trying to make ends meet.

Opening with a premonition of things to come, the video follows through the scenario of a modern world becoming modern to a fault, and neglecting its human inhabitants. The visuals are amazing and Bizanski does a superb job, putting to shame other stop motion attempts and proving his peerless status. It actually seems like the eyes of the characters are actual video, superimposed over the stop motion dolls, giving them an added life-like quality.

For such a simple song, it’s amazing to see such a complex treatment of it, allowing us to extrapolate all kinds of themes and messages. The over-modernization of the workplace, the harm in technology, the effects on blue-collar America, and our most historic fear of robots taking over the planet, are all brought to light in the short 3 minutes that it runs. When Dan Boeckner sings, “Modern world, I’m not pleased to meet you/You just bring me down,” the sadness that this band is feeling sinks in and we feel something for them/us, thinking “maybe that could be me someday.” Closing with the images of the initial premonition becoming reality and a beautiful shot of the characters at sunset, Bizanski closes out one of the best videos of the year.

(28.72 MB)

10) Mogwai - Friend of the NIght (Woof Wan-Bau)

How do you make a compelling video about connection without using ANY social interaction? This is how. A long, drawn out breath in a field full of screaming, Friend of the Night is a sort of semantic bullet-time for the mind where the path of intertwining themes and ideas come to skip from one manifestation to the next. The long sweeping trail of connection becomes more and more intriguing as the elements become more random and symbolic. Despite lacking a gimmick or a plot, this video is rich with meaning and you’ll be sure to connect new dots and create new interpretations with each viewing.

Visually stunning, the set for this video could have easily comprised an art show all its own. The motion, however, is as crucial to the message as the music is to the tone and in that music and video of combine to create a unique and masterful piece showcasing the power of the form. This is exactly the kind of video that challenges the viewer to dig deeper and rewards for the effort. While not everybody will be up to the task (many will call this video boring before they ask where the treadmills are), with videos increasingly moving towards quick, clever gimmicks a work like this definitely stands out from the crowd and deserves praise.

(28.72 MB)

11) Beck - Cellphone’s Dead (Michel Gondry)

Possibly the biggest name in music video, it’s no surprise to see Michel Gondry on a list of the best of the year. For Beck’s Cellphone’s dead, Gondry explores the line separating identity from location as as a chase unravels not through physical motion but through physical transformation. Why walk over to the chair when you can simply *become* the chair? While Cellphone’s Dead may not live up to the greatness of Gondry’s past work as the execution is just a bit off, there’s no denying that even when all the pieces don’t quite fit the picture they combine to create is something of understated brilliance.

(iPod Compatible: 43.6 MB)

12) Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back To Your House (Dougal Wilson)

Russian kick-dancing. That’s it: that’s why this video is great. I mean sure, we have a catchy Basement Jaxx track and a catchy pop singer, but when it comes down to it this video is probably the most bouncy and fun yet well-thought out and perfectly executed of the year and that fact is perfectly encapsulated by the Russian kick-dancing. In stark comparison to your typical pop/hip-hop number, the brilliant dancing is nestled within a fine layer of atmosphere and joviality that is breath of fresh-air in the sometimes too pretentious for their own good world of music videos. Also, this videos continues this year’s hottest music video trend: people in bear costumes.

(iPod Compatible: 15.62 MB)

13) Spinto Band - Oh Mandy (Jon Watts and Sean Donnelly)

If there is one technique that music videos love to abuse it is stop motion animation. When every other video is using a stop-motion, your video better be damn good (see Wolf Parade’s Modern World) or have a unique angle. Thankfully, the Spinto Band’s Oh, Mandy manages a good deal of both. The town of Mandy is imagined as a construction paper wonderland with its inhabitants being cut-outs from photographs. The style comes of as both adorably quaint and technically impressive, something that the similarly styled video for the Format’s The Compromise doesn’t quite manage. The ice sculpture at the end is stunning and the whole package just melts together with the song to form a simple yet enchanting, invigorating tale. Much respect to the animation crew.

(30.9 MB)

14a) Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s - Quiet As A Mouse (Michael Jones Everett and Mike Jenson)

(The following two videos were amazing for essentially the same reason, so we grouped them together.)

Taking hundreds of paintings and manipulating them into a coherent, animated video is a beautiful marriage of art and technology. While there are plenty of stand-out animated videos this year, most of them fall into the trap of showing you how well the production house can manipulate Flash or After Effects. Quiet as a Mouse, on the other hand, uses such wonderful software tools to do things with honest to goodness a-brush-touched-canvas Stacy Novak paintings that simply would not have been possible a few years ago. Most computer-animated videos can seem too polished and too slick, but this work actually allows you to see the brush strokes and paint dabs, allowing a feeling of intracacy and whimsy like seeing your favorite oil painting in a museum for the first time. This also happens to be one of those videos where YouTube compression absolutely ruins the work, so we humbly command you to view the high quality download lest you be disappointed.

(iPod Compatible: 45.9 MB)

14b) Psapp - About Fun (Thorsten Levin)

Visually, About Fun is very similar in concept to Quiet As A Mouse: While the latter animates cats via paintings, the former animates cats via the illustrations of the lead singer herself, Galia Durant. Where Quiet As A Mouse takes a more dramatic, narrative turn, About Fun focuses on, well, fun. The bouncy track sees the cats chasing, playing in bands, working crazy sound -making machines and generally just being as delightful and random as Psapp themselves. What animator Hanke Hilberg does with the illustrations is masterful as a seamless, never-ending world flows from one ridiculous situation to the next with beautiful layering and not a hint of over-effected buzzkill. Bringing traditional static arts to a new level of kinetic energy is definitely one of the high points in the resume of music video.

(20.0 MB)

15) Zero 7 featuring Jose Gonzalez - Left Behind (Adam Bizanski)

With anybody else the stop-motion would immediately raise a “not again…” flag, but with Bizanski I let it slide because the man knows how to make it work. Here we have a pretty little Zero 7 but really Jose Gonzalez track and a pretty little video to pefectly match it. Bizanski takes one emotion and perfectly expresses it with the canvas of video. Simple, emotional, and powerful, there’s no denying that when a song and video match up perfectly it can create something that is more than the sum of its parts.

(iPod Compatible: 13.8 MB)

16) Gorrilaz - El Manana (Hewlett & Candleland)

Remember that happy windmill from Feel Good Inc.? You know: “Windmill, windmill, for the land… blah blah blah” and then that rap part kicks in. Let’s tear down that windmill. No, better yet, let’s send two helicopters to use machine guns to hose it and it’s happy little inhabitant into swiss cheese. And then we’ll fly right through that damn windmill to make sure it’s a crumbled, flaming wreck. And then we’ll send the whole fucking floating island the windmill is resting on back to the earth. And then we’ll drop a couple of bombs on it. Yeah, sounds good. Coupled with the somber song, no other video gets across the sense of hopelessness that can fill the soul when the Man decides you no longer deserve your small bit of happiness.

(20.7 MB)

17) Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (Robert Hales)

As one of the biggest songs of the year from one of the breakout artists of the year, you probably have a love/hate relationship with Gnarls Barkley and/or Crazy. However, there’s no denying that the video for Crazy is the coolest thing to happen to the Rorschach since the Watchmen. Channeling some of the hypnotic flow of Alex and Martin’s Seven Nation Army video, Crazy makes the list for being the most iconic video of 2006. Years from now somebody will flash an inkblot on a white screen and the first word that will come to your mind is “Gnarls Barkley”. If that doesn’t define a successful video, I don’t know what does. Also notable for making the inkblot test a lot harder to conduct from here on out: “What does this picture remind you of? Gnarls Barkley. And this one? Gnarls Barkley What about this picture. Gnarls goddamn Barkley.

(11.5 MB)

18) Placebo - Meds (David Mould)

Take one part Trainspotting, one part Blackhole Sun, a touch of Smack My Bitch Up, and a whole pile of fucked up and you get Meds by David Mould. Reportedly worked into and shot during Placebo’s actual touring schedule, this video shows that you don’t have to compromise just because time and money are lacking. This video gives you a no-nonsense visual handshake to the stellar song, allowing a glimpse into the drug-addled (or non-drug addled) eyes of a rock ‘n roll frontman. The subtlety of manipulations of the very real situations gives the whole package a raw, voyeuristic quality that most other directors shoot for but ultimately fail to accomplish and end up looking postured and false. Also gets bonus points for unabashed rocking of the tighty blackies.

(24.9 MB)

19) Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler (Saam)

Girls making out, over and over and over again; everyone wishes they had thought of this first. It takes the right type of song though, and Simian Mobile Disco’s dance/rock/puck/disco is it. It also works because it’s common knowledge that girls just wanna dance…..and then make out.

(28.72 MB)

20) Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Cursed Sleep (Andy Bruntel)

From practicing his falconry to wrestling with E.T., Andy Bruntel, with help of his star actor Mr. Oldham, takes us on a wild little ride set to a beautiful little song. The crux of the video has Bonnie making a metamorphosis from a blind/sleeping birdman into a red sweat suited Ornithologist, all in a matter of a three minute song about a cursed love and its strangle hold on his life.

(39.4 MB)

21) The Horrors - Sheena is a Parasite (Chris Cunningham)

I felt people expected more from Chris Cunningham when this video came out but for a song that runs a short 2 minutes, I think he played his hand quite well, delivering one of the better performances pieces of the year. Showcasing some a simple yet able ‘parasite’ effect, with lead singer Faris Badwan jumping back and forth in the frame, the video is exactly as the he sings, ‘Sheena is a parasite’ and it shows.

(28.72 MB)

22) Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Follow You Into the Dark (Monkmus)

Bunnies are cute, drawings of bunnies in an animated music video are cuter. DCFC making the soundtrack to said cuteness, is the cutest.

(17.6 MB)

23) The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes v.2 (The Malloys)

Every kid wishes they could have soap box races as cool as this. The Raconteurs do, but not with out throwing in some some evil villain to cause some hi-jinx and a cameo from Pee Wee, proving is ever looming comeback is for real. Definitely better than Jim Jarmusch’s take.

(29.8 MB)

24) Field Music - In Context (Dan Lowe)

Film someone drawing something to music. Simple as they come yet still deserving of praise. The zoomed in perspective is what sells it, not unavailing the money shot until the end.

(29.2 MB)

25) Cornelius - Fit Song (Koichiro Tsujikawa)

For Japanese musician Cornelius, Tsjukikawa offers a completely insane ethereal interpretation of everyday objects that takes the form of whimsical Rube Goldberg machine that will make you look at sugar cubes in a whole new light. This video really must be seen to be understood so just watch it and discover the best video from a band you’ve never heard.

(18.3 MB)

26) Kanye West - Touch the Sky (Chris Milk)

A rap video that doesn’t follow the standard formula is aces in my book. Some people call him the whitest rapper on the scene, but if I have to see one more video with money, girls, cars, and some rapper telling me about stuff I’ll never care about, I think I just might start up my rapping career and then I will be the whitest rapper. No one wants that. So keep up your image Kanye, it’s refreshing.

(52.8 MB)

27) Jarvis Cocker - Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time (Dougal Wilson)

Released just days before 2006 came to a close, this video highlights an important point: don’t do your year end video list until the year is actually over because something like this might come down the pipeline and make you look foolish. Dougal Wilson’s second appearance on this list has Jarvis Cocker playing the Cab driver from hell… or maybe just awesometown. While videos with voice and soundwork separate from the song itself tend to polarize opinions, here it is used effectively to communicate that some things just aren’t worth worrying about no matter how pressing they seem. A clever gimmick that isn’t ashamed of what it is: a bit of pre-fab fun.

(24.3 MB)

28) Hot Chip - Over and Over (Nima Nourizadeh)

This is a green-screen video that flips the premise: the point is not the final special effects shot but rather the actual people-dancing-around-in-front-of-a-green-screen production. The deceit isn’t always perfect (for the video to work you have to accept that green = invisible, which isn’t exactly true), but I’ll be damned if Hot Chip doesn’t have some good old fashioned fun in exploiting every green screen trick for the silliness that it is. The most satisfying part of the concept is that relies on the viewer piecing together what the final special effect would look like, leading to a few bits of “a-ha” hilarity. Still, as enjoyable as the video is, I can’t help but point out that it may seem a lot more engaging to those interested in video production than it does to normal, discerning folk.

(36.3 MB)

29) Yeah Yeah Yeah’s - Gold Lion (Patrick Daughters)

Karen O sings “This is a Moon Without a Tide.” She’s talking about herself, the band, the song, and the album. One of the years best singles off of one of the years best albums. This video should be on one of those lists and low and behold here it is. Daughters takes the Yeah’s to the cold and fiery desert and shows us that one our time’s most volatile bands isn’t afraid to get drrty-drrty. DO NOT Underestimate The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

(22.04 MB)

30) Ok Go - Here It Goes Again (Trish Sie)

Who in their right mind would’ve thought that Ok Go would still be around in this day in age, let alone come out with a video (so appropriately titled as well) that would take the music video world by storm? It’s a one-trick pony of a video, so any and all derivatives in the future beware, the power is all if not completely gone from this idea. And is it me or does the bald singer look like that bald gay guy from “Sex and the City”? It was fun while it lasted though, but alas “Here It Goes Again…”

(18.17 MB)

31) Futureheads - Skip To The End (Martin De Thurah)

A hypnotic journey into the future of a newlywed couple, Martin De Thurah’s work looks as beautiful and poetic as always. Unfortunately, the high concept never quite comes together as the symbolism can be hit or miss, which keeps this video from achieving the great heights it may have otherwise reached. Still, this abstract affair achieves more in its missteps than most do in their success.

(iPod Compatible: 14.5 MB)

32) The Thermals - A Pillar Of Salt (Whitey McConnaughy)

The Thermals hatched one of the year’s most goofy and enjoyable videos without a treadmill at the hands of Whitey McConnaughy. Its fun, its easy and it uses every trick in the book to achieve its proper level of entertainment. We couldn’t ask for more.

(18.01 MB)

33) Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Cold and Wet (Einar Baldvin)

The Prince isn’t quite known for his mainstream comedic prowess, actually, we doubt he’s known for anything more than his music outside of the tiny indie music blogosphere. So this shot may come as a surprise to many of you who aren’t aware of his dark humor or of his existence in the first place. It’s a messed up little cartoon attached to one of his tiny ditty’s. Together they’re the perfect match for trouble.

(26.20 MB)

34) J-Dilla - Nothing Like This (Daniel Garcia & The Mixtape Club)

Jellyfish love is something you don’t typically hear about on the tube or around the watercooler. Especially jellyfish love set to the hefty beats of J-Dilla. Stones Throw dropped it like its hot with the whole Chrome Children audio/visual release this year and we should all be grateful. The Soft Serve Ice Cream monster alone is worth the price of admission for this kids. No two ways about it.

(29.28 MB)

35) Fiona Apple - Not About Love (Michael Blieden)

How do you take the sheer serious fucked-upness of Fiona Apple’s songs and turn it into a comedy? You grab a relatively unknown comedian and throw him in the same vicinity of Ms. Apple herself, turn on the camera, and cross your fingers. We swear we even saw Apple smile and laugh. Checkmate.

(25.11 MB)

36) The Knife - Like a Pen (Andreas Nilsson)

The Knife aren’t one of the easiest bands to decipher or even like for that matter. Why would their videos be any different. This one follows suit by being ten kinds of crazy yet, somewhat likable in that Knife-y sort of way.

(21.18 MB)

37) Jeremy Warmsley - I Believe in the Way You Move (Ben Rollason)

His second to breach our tops of the year list and for good reason. Its a commentary on life, love, aging, and flexibility, things we all must face sometimes with one another, and sometimes, alone. No apologies. No explanations. Just enough time to smell the flowers. We’ll be right back.

(19.81 MB)

38) Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before the Lights Come On (John Hardwick)

I like videos that come back to a beginning. This video starts and then ends where it began and we learn something along the way. A different ending may have suited the story/video better, like if she just jumped the second time and it ended on a mid air shot of her falling to here doom, but I like where things went, it gave me a little smirk. See for yourself.

(20.2 MB)

39) Albert Hammond Jr. - 101 (Patrick Daughters)

You can see who led the Strokes in their humblest of beginnings and its obvious where they now stray from when you hear the first single off of Hammond’s solo effort. He’s one of those nice guys who just wants to play some good music and take a leisurely bike ride around the town. What’s the worst that could happen…

(19.78 MB)

40) TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (Jon Watts)

TVOTR are hot this year. Their album Return to Cookie Mountain has been mentioned in almost everyones year end lists and mostly near the top. Despite all this fire and hotness surrounding them, I kinda wanted more from John Watts, maybe because my TVOTR love is so strong. Watts goes crazy giving the whole clip a gritty silent film type look, while telling a story about werewolves getting revenge for being persecuted at a club. Don’t ask, just watch.

(27.3 MB)

41) Gnarls Barkley - Who Cares? (Barney Clay)

Barney Clay took the pop culture loving Gnarls, threw in Mario Van Peebles, and a little bit of Blacula to create the year’s best homage to a film. It’s campy, yet sophisticated and held together with some solid art direction that is sure to please anyone in the know or out.

(20.85 MB)

42) The Album Leaf - Always For You (Aaron Stewart-Ahn)

An exquisitely edited piece highlighting the simultaneous connection and separation of missing love via split screen. Scored by Jimmy Lavalle’s subtle, yet grand songwriting, and elegantly woven together by editor Rob Ryan, the piece would lead you to believe that this is a romantic video, but if you pay attention in the end, there is some question as to what was really going on between the couple. His words, memories, things he wanted to change: they were all for “someone”, but is that “someone” finally his making this track something of a victory lap? Or has that “someone” turned and left him, thus rearranging the song’s intention as a sort of eulogy for the failed relationship? The ending is both frustratingly and satisfyingly left open to interpretation, so check it out and draw your own conclusions.

(30.5 MB)

43) Klaxons - Magick (Saam Faramand)

Eye vomiting is the new rage. Uncontrollable eye vomiting, well, that’s just a whole other level of hardcore. We wish we could step to this, if only we could stomach past the whole vomit part. Is there a word more disgusting than ‘vomit’? This shot isn’t, but it is more badass. Step to it, we dare you.

(25.03 MB)

44) The Killers - Bones (Tim Burton)

The Burton descends from his mountaintop of cinema production to lend a hand to those dapper lads The Killers and shows us that a size 0 is the new chubby and the size 1 is the new fatass. Skeletal is in. Nicole Richie knows this, now you do to. Only, Devon Aoki, you just stay how you are….big is beautiful baby.

(12.67 MB)

45) Emily Haines - Doctor Blind (Jaron Albertin)

With her full band Metric, Emily has not been shy about being in front of the camera and she continues the extroversion with her first solo single. Director Jaron paints an eerily isolated picture of department store pharmaceutical shopping gone awry, touching on chemical dependence, threat, violence, and madness in a completely delicate and simple manner. His dynamic approach is reserved, following the model of the track itself, creating a beautiful marriage of sound and vision that will leave you satisfied and a bit unsettled.

(48.7 MB)

46) Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill (Chet White)

Have you seen those pictures where the actual landscapes/buildings/monument look like they are miniature models instead? Well this is the music video version of those pictures. The same tilt/shift camera trick has been employed, along with some other footage of a paper cutout bird being hand-flown, and also Mr. Yorke himself taking a plunge. Not much of a concept but the stark and interesting images coupled with the bird shots, play well with the glitch happy electronica that is Harrowdown Hill. A beautiful video.

(20.2 MB)

47) CSS - Alala (Cat Solen)

A backwards fight scene, blood and punches. The gore doesn’t seem to add up though cause we all know girls just pull hair. Maybe if this video got together with the Hustler video then things would have went off. Maybe even secured the number one spot. As it stands, could have been more but definitely worth mentioning.

(17 MB)

48) The Rapture - Whoo! Alright - Yeah… Uh Huh (Ben Dickinson)

This song is a party, actually, this album is a party. What better way to help convey that message than by throwing one on a rooftop in the city. The Rapture have invited their friends and we’re inviting ours. The Dress Code is “Scandalous” and drinks will be provided. Just make sure you’ve brought your boogie shoes, no excuses.

(21.76 MB)

49) Matt & Kim - 5k/Yea Yeah (Colin Devin Moore)

We won’t even mention the other cute boy/girl couple band, as we don’t want to invite comparison, suffice to say that these two rugged kids got that spark and aren’t afraid to take the lumps and bruises that it will cost them. Both videos are different as can be on supreme low budgets, however the results are the same. Good times.

(14.57 MB)

50) Battle - Children (Ben Rollason)

We’ve seen the whole weird random yank effect before (hmm….where was it now?) but alas, this year we get it outdoors with the relatively unknown Battle. Will they survive long enough to employ more gems like this? We will see, but for now, we’ll take this incredibly crisp looking joyride of a shot and ask questions later.

(15.41 MB)

51) Bob Dylan - When The Deal Goes Down (Bennett Miller)

You can’t really go wrong with Scarlett Johansson and Bob Dylan. And even if you could, its probably better than most anything out there on the market. Take this to a picnic, on a drive, or fall asleep to it, just don’t miss out on it. This means everything.

(30.15 MB)

52) Scissor Sisters - Land of a Thousand Words (National TV)

Why did this goddamn video have to be so goddamn good for a band so goddamn bad!? Another homage shot, but not for a movie in particular as it is inspired by opening credits. We’re sure the James Bond camp would’ve approved of this back in the day and if we never heard from the band subsequently, life would be a little more enjoyable.

(40.88 MB)

53) Daedelus - Sundown (Clay Lipsky)

Daedelus’ lush sounds and vocals are honored with a painstakingly intricate vision brought forth by Clay Lipsky whom we all hope finds his way into the hands of more artists as time bleeds on. The blend of animation and Daedelus’ live action is paired in a way that is neither tiresome nor dull. It’s not what we would’ve predicted as a video to the song, which is mostly why this is such a success. Here’s to more where this came from.

(24.09 MB)

54) The Raconteurs - Level (Sophie Mueller)

There was much debate on this site over the merits of this video, its effect, and production. Aside from all of that, it still makes the top 50 due to the sharp style of the video and the performance by the band that humbly powers through the song. Now if we could only get the audience in the shot to play along by showing some life, then we can get to the nitty gritty of things.

(24.54 MB)

55) Cursive - Dorothy At Forty (Michael Grodner)

Michael Grodner puts Cursive’s ode to the Wizard to Oz to film via a forty-year-old double-dream sequence. His “Dorothy” seems to be living the prototypical life with the two kids she has to drop off at school on the way to her unrewarding job. The dissatisfaction between her current life and the dreams she once held becomes unrelenting as a rainbow representing ideals and possibilities long since abandon beckons her. Does the rainbow have that which she seeks, or an even more important lesson to be learned? Watch the video and judge for yourself.

(17.1 MB)

56) Wolf Parade - I’ll Believe in Anything (Matt Moroz)

Fighting. Drinking. Ladies. Guns. Chickens. Would you expect anything else from the last band to live up to their hype? Could you expect anything at all from a group of fellas obviously not from this planet? Your guess is as good as ours and we’re keeping the faith that the Parade will forever keep us on our toes. Cheers boys, we smash our champagne classes to you.

(27.75 MB)

[This list wouldn’t have been possible without: a) the kind directors and bands who may or may not have sent us videos (wink wink), and b) the videos.antville site and community giving us a quick way to find who directed what (as well as pointing us to a few video gems along the way), and c) whack year-end lists fueling our spiteful fire. Thanks guys!]

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