The best experience I had this week watching music on video -- and, I suspect, the best experience anyone had watching music on video -- was with a murky, janky, bootleg stream of Beyoncé's Coachella set. It's going to be a long time before I'm over that one. The level of vision, ambition, sweat, talent, and all-out athletic grit that went into that was honestly like nothing I've ever seen before. It was a halftime show from a football game at a Southern black college, blown out into an Avengers-level blockbuster. I watched it late at night, when I couldn't sleep, thinking that I'd drift off after 20 minutes or so. No. I couldn't sleep while I was watching it, and I couldn't sleep for a long time after, either. There were moments -- those dancers! -- when I seriously thought I was hallucinating. Anyway. This week's five best videos are below.
5. Flatbush Zombies - "Vacation" (Feat. Joey Bada$$) (Dir. Tone)
Without the dumb and distracting subtitles, this video would be maybe two slots higher. Even with them, it's still a lot of fun.
4. Let's Eat Grandma - "It's Not Just Me" (Balan Evans)
Maybe it's a cheap in-camera effect, but the way this video tiles its images, so it feels like you're watching through a prison, turns an already pretty video even more blissful.
3. Zayn - "Let Me" (Jose Padilha)
Look, it's extremely dumb. I acknowledge that. I might even celebrate that. The fact is: This dork got the guy who made the Elite Squad movies and created Narcos to direct a Miami underworld fantasy where he's a gangster of love. I respect that.
2. Ghost - "Rats" (Dir. Roboshobo)
If he's gone, I am going to miss that old satanic-pope character. But if we're replacing him with a guy in a gigantic waxy Vincent Price mask who does Fred Astaire dances through a zombie apocalypse, I might learn to accept it.
1. Moses Sumney - "Quarrel" (Dir. Allie Avital)
This is a beautiful and spellbinding and unsettling and surprising vision, just like the other Sumney/Avital videos. And it also includes some of the best horse acting I've ever seen. For instance: How did they get that one horse to look just like Moses Sumney for so long?
