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Any time I enter a new obsession with a new artist, my second stop after or while listening through their whole discography is to watch their music videos. I have had a YouTube playlist called “Quality Music Videos” since high school, and now I will share them with you and why I rewatch them for fun. As host of Punktones, they all fall into Punk, New Wave or Grunge. In other words, basically most are from the best era of music videos, the eighties and nineties. You may see a reoccurrence of 60s cars, Beck, and Trent Reznor for no explicable reason.
As this is part one, these are 24-11th favorites, in ascending order.
24) “Show Me How to Live” - Audioslave
Rewatchability: 40% Humor: 20% Concept: 20% Aesthetics: 50% Car Stunts: 100%
Sure they live on the edge with high speed chases, but why do they suddenly pause in the desert to pose before telepathically agreeing to hop back in the Chevy for a last ride? And how can they have a concert in the desert complete with snakes knowing they’re on the run?
23) “Sweden” - The Stranglers
Rewatchability: 30% Humor: 80% Concept: 80% Aesthetics: 20% Sterile Conditions: 2%
They really drive home how lifeless they think Sweden is, they use gloves and everything. But mostly they poke their drummer with stick-like instruments, and he just lays there.
22) “New Pollution” - Beck
Rewatchability: 40% Humor: 20% Concept: 60% Aesthetics: 90% Dance Moves: 100%
Beck directed this music video himself. The visual of Beck driving a swanky car with a big hood ornament at night fits the saxophone riff perfectly. At some point, how many retro dancers and funky extras is enough? Tell that to his Best Direction award. The Best Choreography and Best Art Direction awards would also disagree with you. And so would his light mustache.
21) “Santeria” - Sublime
Rewatchability: 50% Humor: 75% Sad: 40% Concept: 80% Aesthetics: 40% Lou Dog: 100%
If there was ever a famous dog I wanted to meet, it was Lou Dog, the dalmatian. It’s sad because Bradley Nowell had died so footage of him from live shows serves as the force ghost guiding Lou Dog to choose love instead of violence after the dalmatian cheats at poker or something.
20) “Deep” - Nine Inch Nails
Rewatchability: 15% Concept: 80% Disturbing: 40% Aesthetics: 60% Heist Success: 0%
A reverse-linear narrative of a heist turned deadly for the perpetrators. Pretty dark if you listen to the consequences in the news segments and piece together the Why of the beginning.
19) The Specials - “Ghost Town”
Rewatchability: 60% Humor: 20% Concept: 80% Aesthetics: 100% Class: 90%
Something about these blokes riding around in a swanky car through empty swanky streets hits. One guy stumbles out when the driving gets too crazy, but the only violence is portrayed in shadows on a brick wall, echoing the emptiness ever present in the video.
18) We’re In This Together Now
Rewatchability: 50% Concept: 75% Aesthetics: 60% Trent Reznor’s Haircut: 100%
It begins looking like Trent has been bloodlet on a slab but suddenly wakes up to some mass fleeing. Interpret it yourself, if you can. A bunch of dudes running around in some abstract prison break, plus Trent Reznor in his best haircut era in a nice black outfit with a shiny belt and shoes. Say no more.
17) Butthole Surfers “Pepper”
Rewatchability: 100% Humor: 10% Concept: 80% Aesthetics: 100% Texans in Hats: 50%
The meaning is a perpetual mystery to me. It’s hard to grasp the color scenes, as I think they must represent something in the mind of the criminals in harsh contrast to the reality of the television footage of the arrest and interview of the suspects.
16) David Bowie “I’m Afraid of Americans” (Nine Inch Nails mix)
Rewatchability: 70% Humor: 100% Concept: 75% Aesthetics 40% David Bowie’s Fear: 100%
Best artist team-up I’ve seen. They really cast Bowie and Reznor in the right roles, y’know? In that suit and turtleneck sweater, Bowie’s a marked man. Which is probably the point. The taxi scene gets me every time. At the end, Reznor mouths “David Bowie” as some kind of eternal threat.
15) “Devil’s Haircut” - Beck
Rewatchability: 95% Humor: 80% Concept: 70% Aesthetics: 80% Beck’s Outfit: 100%
Something so iconic that even though not much happens, I appreciate the cinematography and the timing. This music video got me to watch Midnight Cowboy. Add in the twist ending where Beck learns something crazy, and you wonder if there was something you missed. Nope.
14) Hole - “Miss World”
Rewatchability: 60% Sad: 90% Concept: 90% Aesthetics: 100% Iconic: 100%
If it doesn’t explain the inner truth of the album Live Through This perfectly, I don’t know what will. It’s beautiful but Courtney Love stands in for the beauty queen that hungers for the spotlight that glorifies while it silently destroys.
13) DEVO “Whip It”
Rewatchability: 70% Humor: 75% Concept: 90% Aesthetics: 75% DEVO: 100%
It’s dumb, but effective. Can’t tell what’s being necessarily satirized or what the exact subversive message is lurking behind the cowboys cheering on the painful whiptease. Don’t miss the last two seconds.
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