For many years albums and live performances were the only way artists would present themselves, acoustically but also visually. From now on the production of videos for individual songs became increasingly important for the fame of any musician. Some songs would never have become the hits we know today without their outstanding music videos.
During the past 30 years, certainly the best music videos of all times have been created. Here is our personal top 10 of the best and most popular.
The most popular, best and most famous music video ever MUST come from the "King of Pop" and he did not disappoint us.
"Thriller" paved the way for all the following videos, which wanted to be more than just a pictorial background for the artists. The director John Landis (Blues Brothers) and Michael Jackson were inspired by Landis' film "An American Werewolf in London". Because of the "spooky" content, the music video could only be shown in the USA after 10 pm.
The video shows mainly the singer's face in close-up. O`Connor, bald, looking pale and haunting, shakes the viewer to the core.
The singer says that in the performance for this music video she has dealt with the death of her mother, the tears at the end are real - one can and wants to believe her. The singer was able to use the song to musically process her pain of separation.
Racism, religion and sexuality meet in one of the best music videos of the 1980s. This controversial idea was not only condemned and boycotted by many viewers, it even provoked the Vatican, who complained about the blasphemous depiction in this Madonna video. Needless to say, this made the video even more popular among young people and in 1989 it also won the "Viewer's Choice Award".
The award for the most successful use of stop-motion in a music video goes to: Peter Gabriel! For this music video, the former Genesis singer had to lie under a glass ceiling for 16 hours to be able to realize the idea cinematically. So much effort was rewarded, "Sledgehammer" enjoys one of the highest levels of popularity among music videos.
In 1987, the video was nominated in ten categories of the "MTV Video Music Awards" and won a sensational nine of them - a record!
This video cost less than $50,000 to produce, but it will live on forever. Despite the low-budget and a basic concept, this was the video of the early 1990s. While the atmosphere was decidedly punk, there was something different about this song. It punches you in the face, but somehow you like it. Kurt Cobain's melodic, intense screeching meshed perfectly. But mostly, this video set the tone for the next decade. It was the "grunge" movement in video form.
Johnny Cash was 71 years old and seriously ill when he stood in front of the camera for this incredibly moving video. His condition was open to see and was made even clearer by showing Cash as a young man again and again in the music video. The transience of life is portrayed in a wonderful way.
June Carter, Cash's wife, also took part in the video, which was shot only three months before her death. The singer himself followed her few months later. With this knowledge in mind, it is impossible to get through the video without getting goose bumps when he sings: "Everyone I know goes away in the end".
Today one can probably no longer understand the boundaries this music video broke back then, but back in its time it was groundbreaking.
Aerosmith, at that time roughly the most popular rock band and RUN-D.M.C., at the same time probably the most popular hip-hop group, fought together for the good cause.
The music video starts with the two musical opponents being separated by a physical wall. In 1986, this battle between rock and hip hop really existed, and people didn't really know what they were allowed to like from the other camp without being seen as disloyal to their own musical style.
After a few "fight scenes" the wall comes down and in the end the two bands not only play together but now seem to be fans of each other's music. The message got through. Since the release of this video, collaborations between the two musical worlds are no longer a rarity and music lovers can enjoy both rock and hip-hop.
You can argue about whether the video for “Wicked Game" is the best of its kind. But there is no doubt about that it is one of the most romantic and seductive videos of all time.
Dream man Isaac is rolling on the beach with supermodel Helena Christensen in this black-and-white video that is bursting with aesthetics. Her flawless bodies absorb the powdered sugar sand to the exact degree that makes her look bold and sexy. In between meaningful, serious looks into the camera, accompanied by one of the most melancholic songs of the 1990s - a dream! This music video has shaped the aesthetic ideas of generations.
Directed by music video legend Dave Meyers, “Humble” is the most recent video featured on this list. Packed full of powerful imagery, the video starts with Lamar dressed like the pope in a cope. The scene then shows Lamar in all black lying on a table of money, “ignorantly” shooting loads of bills from a cash cannon. It also features a reenactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century painting, The Last Supper.
“Humble” was nominated for eight categories at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, winning six awards, including Video of the Year, marking Dave Meyers’ third time winning the award.
In 1992, nearly no band in the world was bigger than Guns N' Roses, and that's why they got a $1 million budget for the best video they ever made. Axl Rose's nine-minute ballad had been a kernel in his mind for nearly a decade when it was finally released on Use Your Illusion I. Given the epic nature of the song, an epic video was needed to match. From the wedding scenes with Rose's then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour, to the performance shots, to Slash wailing away in front of a church in New Mexico, everything about this video is expansive.
It’s for sure that these music videos are among the most famous ones ever and that they have influenced the visual style of videos which are produced in 2020. Anyway, as a choice is always a subjective matter, be sure to check out some more amazing music videos on right.video!
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