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Jul 30, 2021 · MTV, Music Video, Nirvana, Prince, U2. 100 Greatest Music Videos — from Adele's 'Hello' to ZZ Top's 'Gimme All Your Lovin',' Rolling Stone's picks for the best music videos ever.
- 3 min
- David Browne,Mankaprr Conteh,Brenna Ehrlich,David Fear,Maria Fontoura,Jon Freeman,Elisabeth Garber-Paul,Andy Greene,Kory Grow,Brian Hiatt,Christian Hoard,Jeff Ihaza,Jason Newman,Angie Martoccio,Jerry Portwood,Claire Shaffer,Rob Sheffield,Hank Shteamer,Brittany Spanos,Simon Vozick-Levinson
- Annie Lennox, “Why”
- The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
- Grimes, “Oblivion”
- Cibo Matto, “Sugar Water”
- Vince Staples, “Fun!”
- Alanis Morissette, “Hand in My Pocket”
- Lorde, “Royals”
- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
- Kanye West, “Flashing Lights”
- FKA Twigs, “Cellophane”
The no-frills video for Annie Lennox’s first post-Eurythmics solo effort presented the image-driven singer, simply and delicately, echoing the solemn sentiments of the song and building gradually with it. In the clip, a bereft Lennox sits before a mirror and seemingly contemplates the complexities of life and love with aching sincerity. Like a pain...
The dizzying video for the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” pulls out all the viral-clip stops: an exhilarating running sequence, a slowed-down hallucinatory interlude, luxury cars, bloody makeup effects, a giddy Abel Tesfaye dancing like no one’s watching—enough bells and whistles for the entire Top 40 but rendered with cinematic elegance by director An...
Part of Claire Boucher’s charm is her inherent lonerism. It’s easy to imagine her writing and recording in some dank, dark basement, alone but for a litany of stuffed animals, dated twee trinkets, and other odd miscellany surrounding her laptop studio. “Oblivion” plays on that impression—and the capriciousness of Grimes’s music—by thrusting a girli...
Director Michel Gondry evoked the concept of a “visual palindrome” via his split-screen narrative for Cibo Matto’s “Sugar Water” video. Within their respective frames, Hatori Miho and Honda Yuka rise out of bed and take sugar water showers. The women exchange a threatening note between frames before a black cat enters the picture and prophesies a v...
The video for Vince Staples’s 2018 track “Fun!” is both an astute condemnation of racial tourism and a (perhaps unintentional) auto-critique of hip-hop’s exportation of the black experience to middle America. It’s also a bleak commentary on the ways technology—in this case, satellite mapping—has simultaneously united and divided the human race. Cin...
Mark Kohr’s best music video is this underrated clip for Alanis Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket.” Based on the singer’s purported fascination with observing people in crowds, the video casts her as the chauffeur of a local parade. The languid black-and-white photography, Kohr’s cynical direction, Morissette’s possessed “taxi cab” facial tick, and o...
Though additional footage of New Zealand pop singer Lorde was added to the U.S. edit of “Royals” for American consumption, her absence for most of the original international version speaks to both the 16-year-old’s “postcode” shame and her friends’ suburban-teen ennui. Cinquemani
Only in a Tom Petty video can Alice trip her way through Wonderland. A naïve Alice downs psychedelic shrooms courtesy of a hookah-smoking caterpillar. As the crazed Mad Hatter, Petty fucks with her high. The clip was released in 1985, and its stunning art direction was remarkably ahead of its time. Here, it’s a virtual threat to Alice’s confused se...
“Flashing Lights” suggests a willing attempt on Spike Jonze’s part to play in Quentin Tarantino’s sandbox. In a glorious, slow-motion tracking shot, a buxom woman strips to her lingerie, bludgeons her captive to death with a shovel, and burns the evidence. His fetishized violence is also shot better than anything Q.T. has done. (Watch as a double b...
The voyeuristic introduction to FKA twigs’s “Cellophane” is, perhaps, symbolic of the public scrutiny that the singer endured in the wake of her split with Robert Pattinson. Her graceful flight up and down a stripper pole is vulnerable and wounded, far from the sensuality typically associated with the dance form. She abandons her performance, climb...
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- Beyoncé, Lemonade. Beyoncé didn't stop at one music video. She made an entire visual album and completely changed the game with Lemonade, which chronicled her marital struggles with husband Jay-Z as well as other traumas in her life, including her father's infidelity and her own miscarriages.
- Michael Jackson, "Thriller" Michael Jackson made an entire short film set to his hit song, and it became a Halloween staple (and even a favorite at weddings).
- Rage Against the Machine, "Sleep Now In the Fire" Rage Against the Machine got the New York Stock Exchange to shut down early. Don't say these guys don't walk the walk.
- Madonna, "Material Girl" Madge sends up Marilyn Monroe in this classic clip (and looks stunning in that pink gown). Related: Madonna's Best Videos of All Time.
Sep 12, 2023 · The 50 greatest music videos of all time, ranked. Prince, Madonna, Duran Duran, Beyoncé, R.E.M., Taylor Swift, and Sinead O'Connor are just some of the artists who make our list...
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine
May 30, 2023 · 1. Fatboy Slim ft. Bootsy Collins - "Weapon of Choice" View full post on Youtube. This could be the all-time greatest celebrity feature in a music video. Christopher Walken's stoic...
- Jacob Linden
- 7 min
- Temporary Editor, Partnerships
Jan 17, 2022 · 1. ‘Thriller‘ by Michael Jackson. From the moment it was released in December 1983, ‘Thriller’ was destined to become one of the most legendary music videos of all time. Nearly 40 years...
Jun 2, 2011 · 89 Don’t You Want Me. Released: 1981. Director: Steve Barron. It’s all too easy to mock it now, but this film-within-a-film was pretty groundbreaking at the time, with nods to French New Wave ...
