The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

The 5 Best Videos Of The Week

Drake released a long-form music video this week. He shouldn’t do that! It was very bad! Honestly, if someone would’ve just taken the “One Dance” bit and made that its own video, it probably would’ve made this list. But nobody did that, and instead we get this goofy-ass narrative that involves Drake shooting a machine gun while looking like a weenie. Drake has to be one of the worst music-video actors on the face of the earth, which is mind-boggling when you consider that he was an actor before he was a rapper. But fortunately, Please Forgive Me wasn’t the only music video released this week, and we’ve got five good ones below.

5. John Carpenter – “Utopian Façade” (Dir. Gavin Hignight & Ben Verhulst)

One of my pet peeves is this: John Carpenter, one of the greatest genre-movie directors in the history of film, makes a music video, and he doesn’t direct it. Still, the people who did direct it translated his whole tense, cheap B-movie aesthetic nicely, and it’s fun to see Carpenter’s face onscreen near the end.

4. Weyes Blood – “Do You Need My Love” (Dir. Weyes Blood)

Better than The Revenant.

3. Kvelertak – “Svartmesse” (Dir. Torjus Førre Erfjord)

I like the idea that all our best metal bands are competing to have the animated video in which the most metal things happen. This video can’t touch what High On Fire did with their last one, but it’s a valiant attempt.

2. PWR BTTM – “I Wanna Boi” (Dir. Liv Bruce & Anneliese Cooper)

Have you seen the BBC/Amazon show Fleabag? You really should. It’s great. I can’t quite put my finger on why — the haircut, maybe? — but this video reminds me of that, except more glamorous, rendered in a music-video format, and entirely post-gender.

1. The Weeknd – “Starboy” (Dir. Grant Singer)

I love the idea of an artist introducing his new persona by ritually murdering his old one, a la Bowie killing off Ziggy Stardust. It’s just awesome. Really, that’s why this video is #1. Everything afterward — the pink neon cross, the glowing cityscape, the this-can’t-be-real car — is icing on the cake.

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