The 5 Best Videos Of The Week
Between Christina Aguilera’s “Accelerate” and the two new Nicki Minaj videos, it feels like we’re entering a golden age of declining superstars making gallingly, furiously, almost confrontationally ugly music videos. Have you seen those things? Would you ever do it again by choice? What are those directors even thinking? The “Chun-Li” video even adds crazy levels of Asian stereotyping to the stew; it must’ve taken work to come up with something that objectionable. But there were good videos this week, too. Our picks are below.
5. Duke Dumont & Ebenezer – “Inhale” (Dir. Gerard Bush & Christopher Renz)
The sheer levels of music-video logic in this videos — A sloth works in an office! And everyone gets into a bloody brawl to see who can get to the elevator first! — are just a wonder to behold.
4. Céline Dion – “Ashes” (Dir. David Leitch)
It’s a bit sad watching Céline Dion hitting the William Shatner/David Hasselhoff professionally-making-fun-of-herself stage of her career, but she is genuinely funny, which helps.
3. Parquet Courts – “Mardi Gras Beads” (Dir. Brother Willis)
This video is plenty fun on its own, with its story of the lonely co-frontman who is convinced to rejoin his band at the house show by the sentient beads. But it gets extra points for picking up exactly where the band’s previous video left off.
2. Frankie Cosmos – “Apathy” (Dir. Tom Scharpling)
A perfectly ridiculous little comedy-skit story, perfectly told, with amazing casting on the sad-sack metal band who (depending on your perspective) are either this video’s villains or its heroes. Why don’t all attempted-comedy-bit music videos turn out like this?
1. SZA – “Doves In The Wind” (Feat. Kendrick Lamar) (Dir. Nabil)
The logical endpoint of Kendrick Lamar calling himself “Kung-Fu Kenny” is, naturally, for him to have his ass kicked by a levitating wire-fu SZA. In this video, everything is as it should be.