The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

straight2video

The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

straight2video

Last week in this space, I wondered where the hell all the Halloween-themed videos were. They all finally showed up this week — including a few today, which puts them out of contention for this week’s list. But some of the best videos of the week weren’t dark or spooky at all. They were technicolor joy explosions. “Techinicolor joy-explosion,” it turns out, is probably still the most dependable music-video context. This week’s picks are below.

5. Lemonade – “Orchid Bloom” (Dir. @LILINTERNET)

Lots of videos attempt to evoke the effect of a really intense high, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one so completely recreate the exhilarating, scary, unstuck-in-time, trapped-inside-your-own-head feeling that can happen.

4. Sharon Van Etten – “Your Love Is Killing Me” (Dir. Sean Durkin)

Carla Juri’s face in the final moments here is pretty much a face-acting clinic. It tells more story than the entire rest of the video.

3. Shamir – “On The Regular” (Dir. Anthony Sylvester)

I knew Shamir had a lot of talent. I didn’t know he was about to become the twee Missy Elliott. But here we are.

2. FKA twigs – “Video Girl” (Dir. Kahlil Joseph)

This video does more, in four and a half minutes, to create a terrifying ominous dreamworld than most horror movies manage in 90. It might sacrifice narrative coherence to do that, but, I mean, I don’t miss it.

1. OK Go – “I Won’t Let You Down” (Dir. Kazuaki Seki & Damian Kulash Jr.)

I am fairly certain that the ending is CGI. It has to be, right? That’s fine. But as for the rest of it: How is it even possible? How much practice does it have to take to pull something like this off? I am not confident I could sit one one of those things for 45 seconds without falling off and badly hurting myself, and yet OK Go have managed to make this beautiful thing out of it. How can they be so good at this one tertiary part of their jobs?

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