Music videos were good this week. The rest of the world was absolute fucking trash, but music videos were good. Consider: Foxygen made an eight-minute video, and I watched the whole thing even though I don't like Foxygen's music at all. I watched the whole thing because it was good. It wasn't good enough to make this week's list, though. This week's picks are below.
5. LCD Soundsystem - "Tonite" (Dir. Joel Kefali)
A straight-up performance video, very low on frills, that works because it lets you see all the painstaking work that goes into constructing an LCD track. Also, the lights are pretty.
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4. Shabazz Palaces - "Shine A Light" (Feat. Thaddillac) (Dir. Neil Ferron)
What a strange, absurd, vivid vision. At first, I thought it was some kind of allegory. But no: I'm pretty sure it's just about the sacrifice of some kind of goat/chicken creature at a kids' wedding.
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3. M83 - "Do It, Try It" (Dir. David Wilson)
A lovely tribute to the power of imagination, as exemplified by a cartoon bunny in sunglasses who smashes up a shitty fast-food joint.
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2. Pet Symmetry - "Stare Collection" (Dir. Emulsion)
A goofy, genuine, heartwarming look at the whole band-reunion phenomenon, starring the actual dads of the dudes in the band. I giggled delightedly when the song dropped out and you got to hear what the dads were actually playing on those instruments.
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1. Queens Of The Stone Age - "The Way You Used To Do" (Dir. Jonas Åkerlund)
A straight-up, no-qualifiers necessary classic music video. It bears mentioning that Josh Homme is a 44-year-old rock dude. Imagine the levels of swagger it took to pull this off. (The Apple Music exclusive thing is an undeniable pain in the ass, but the 90-second preview gives you a pretty good idea of the whole vision. Still, seek out the complete thing if you can.)
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