The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

straight2video

The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

straight2video

Run The Jewels and Arca and Belle & Sebastian and a generous handful of other artists made really good videos this week, and I couldn’t find room for any of them. There were too many good videos this week. This is one of those weeks where everything in the top 5 is straight fire, though none of the videos that made it in really have anything in common with one another. Check out this week’s picks below.

5. Esmé Patterson – “The Glow” (Dir. Isaac Ravishankara)

Good music-video acting is its own skill, one distinct from good movie or TV or stage acting. It’s a hard thing to describe, but you know it when you see it. This is it.

4. She & Him – “Stay Awhile” (Dir. CANADA)

Zooey Deschanel, it turns out, has a very particular superpower. She can fly, but only when she’s pretending to dance with an imaginary boyfriend. It’s a pretty useless superpower.

3. Brodinski – “Can’t Help Myself” (Feat. SD) (Dir. MEGAFORCE)

This is probably supposed to serve as an allegory for something, right? The mutable male identity, maybe? The way drugs cam make us feel unstuck in time? It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the whoooooaaaa effect, and this video has that.

2. Mark Ronson – “Uptown Funk” (Feat. Bruno Mars) (Dir. Bruno Mars & Cameron Duddy)

Bruno Mars has always been good at being a pop star, but I had no idea he had “ersatz Morris Day” in his arsenal. This changes everything. I don’t want to see him do anything else ever. Bonus points for Ronson not even trying to look cool. Bonus bonus points for Jeff Bhasker getting to mug while keytaring. Bonus bonus bonus points for Mars yelling for his chauffeur to get the stretch limo and then just dancing in front of it rather than riding in the back.

1. Dizzee Rascal – “Pagans” (Dir. Emile Sornin)

Most weeks, that ridiculously fun Ronson/Mars video would’ve won this. But if you’ve been reading this column for a minute, you’ve probably already figured out that I am going to be completely helpless in the face of something like the gory saga of revenge ninja Dizzee Rascal. Some things simply cannot be helped.

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