Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Lists of Best/Worst Videos Ever Made

Lady Gaga features in both worst + best lists...
If seeking inspiration, why not learn from the best, or apply the lessons from the worst?
Here's a few lists, mainly subjective of course, and reflecting the audience of the site/publication, which may help you identify some useful vids to investigate further - or simply to browse and to come up with a list of what features make for a truly popular/great/awful music video.
If you look closely, you'll find certain directors appear repeatedly: Spike Jonze, Anton Corbijn, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry prominent amongst these.
If you've any lists you can recommend (or have made your own), add a link as a comment.


YouTube's most watched - quite a list of abysmal audio it is too. Still just one billion+ vid...

Its very noticeable how dominant VEVO have become in the global music video audience: compare their top ... 74,675(!) vids with the top YT list (don't worry, they're displayed as 40 to a page).

Billboard magazine, the US chart compiler, ran a poll for the 10 best vids of the 80s, 90s and noughties, a drilled down list well worth a look and a good way to get a quick sense of how the form has changed over the years.

On a much lower scale, and so ridiculous it might help inspire you to create your own, comes the TheTopTens.com list.
Billboard's top 30 list featured global icons

Much more credible, but not simply a reflection of chart placings, is MusicRadar's Top 30.

...Having said that, I couldn't help but notice that one of their 'best' ever listed high in NME's worst ever 'top' 50!

More standard fare with two titans of globalised media (helping to homogeonise taste and genres worldwide?): here's VH1's Top 100 Vids.
Compare with MTV's Top 20.
Time magazine did its own top 30.
Mashable.com marked MTV's 32nd birthday (Aug 2013) with this list of the best 32 ever.
Compare these (and the Billboard list) with the NME top 100 (UK Indie magazine).

There is (sort of) an app for this: YT's top 100 vids (ie, the current top 100)!

There are also many lists/charts of the best banned vids:
http://redux.com/bestbannedmusicvideos/posts; http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/10-banned-music-videos-20130509; http://flavorwire.com/377661/the-most-controversial-music-videos-of-all-time etc

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