Ever since it launched back on August 1, 1981, MTV has been a constant reminder of the central role music videos play in pop culture. Of course, this art form existed well before the network started handing out “moon man” trophies during the first MTV Video Music Awards in September 1984. Music videos were available in some rudimentary form back in the 1960s—the Beatles made a short film for “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” when the studio-bound band wanted to plug a new single—and they continue to exist long after MTV has largely abandoned music programming.
Nevertheless, it’s impossible to deny that the glory days of the music video were the 1980s and 1990s, when the form dominated popular discourse. Even now the biggest videos of that era—“Thriller,” “...Baby One More Time,” “Vogue,” “Sabotage”—are ever present in pop culture, as much for their visuals as for the songs they accompany. The occasion of the 39th MTV VMAs allows us to look back on the great videos that have been made over the years. Don’t think of this list as comprehensive as much as a thorough sampler, one that illustrates the wide range of music videos and their lasting impact on the culture over the last four decades.
50. The Buggles, “Video Killed The Radio Star” (1979)
The first video ever played on MTV, “Video Killed The Radio Star” may not specifically be about the onset of music video television—it’s about the sea change that wiped out radio plays—but it feels as if it was written for this particular moment in time: the place where image and music became inextricably intertwined. Alternating between stark soundstages and tweaked black-and-white video, it’s retro futurism that remains nervy and quirky. It feels perched at the precipice, knowing better things are on the way.
49. Beck, “Loser” (1993)
A little over a year into the alt-rock revolution, major labels were still in a feeding frenzy, sucking up whatever weirdo they could find. A creation of the byways, dives and forgotten corners of Los Angeles, Beck soaked up pop culture detritus then spit it out in digestible form. “Loser” captured that early aesthetic, chopping up different film formats, with jokes ranging from obvious and absurd to inexplicable, touching upon all sorts of showbiz junk, from stock cars and surf to folkies dragging coffins in the night, all led by a Beck whose Stormtrooper mask is blurred out for legal reasons.
48. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Relax” (1983)
Legend has it that “Relax” was banned by the BBC and MTV, as neither network could handle the clip’s decadent tour of the S&M underground. It stands to reason: the video is proudly grotesque, filled with ugly mugs grinning and leering, the kind of transgressive intensity that’s bound to create a cult classic. Frankie Goes to Hollywood then did another video, a performance one laden with videos, but it didn’t erase the memory of the original “Relax,” one of the seediest clips of the golden era of MTV.
47. Yo La Tengo, “Sugarcube” (1997)
“Sugarcube” starts as if it’s going to be a typical indie-rock video from the late 1990s, depicting nothing but Yo La Tengo staring at their shoes as they play their instruments. That’s when it takes a sideways turn into a Mr. Show sketch, complete with Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, and John Ennis as the bellowing record exec who decides to send the trio to Rock School. Bob and David preside over a course designed to turn the indie-rockers into arena warriors, a series of antics that are supremely goofy while also demonstrating a deep knowledge of rock cliches. It’s a riot.
46. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985)
An odd excursion into psychedelia on a concept album about Tom Petty’s Southern roots, “Don’t Come Around Here No More” runs with its trippiness on the song’s video, creating a fantasia based on Alice in Wonderland. Tom Petty presides over the ceremonies as the Mad Hatter—the Eurythmics David A. Stewart, the song’s co-writer and co-producer, cameos as the caterpillar, sitting on a mushroom playing sitar—as the Heartbreakers serve Alice tea, culminating in a feast of musical chairs and collapsing cups. It’s almost all practical effects, and corny at that, but there’s an eerie undercurrent to the playfulness that suits the song’s minor-key meditation.
45. Aphex Twin, “Come To Daddy” (1997)
Maybe Richard D. James, the mastermind behind Aphex Twin, intended “Come to Daddy” as a parody of Prodigy’s “Firestarter,” or maybe he didn’t: the guttural metallic hook suggests it’s a possibility. If it started as a lark, “Come To Daddy” ends up as a nightmarish video, containing a marauding group of children where the grinning visage of Richard D. James is pasted upon every ruffian in the pack. As they vandalize and terrorize, this group seems like monsters unleashed, an unsettling image that’s lost none of its potency over the years.
44. Taylor Swift, “Blank Space” (2014)
The video for “Blank Space” runs away with the conceit posited in the lyric “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream,” depicting Taylor Swift unleashing hell on her boyfriend in the elegant confines of a palatial estate. The opulence of the setting is a far cry from the stark soundstage of “Shake It Off,” the single that immediately preceded “Blank Space,” and Swift’s charisma is at its apex: she’s as playful as she is possessed, the embodiment of the contradictions she sings about in the song.
43. LL Cool J, “Going Back To Cali” (1988)
The idea of California fills LL Cool J with dread on “Going Back To Cali,” so it’s fitting that director Ric Menello stages the music video as a moody noir. All the vibrancy of Los Angeles is drained of color, left as a foreboding black and white that’s as stylish as it is ironic.
42. Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (1984)
Heavy metal rebellion as slapstick comedy, the video for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” stars Mark Metcalf, essentially playing his iconic Animal House role of Neidermeyer without playing Neidermeyer himself. Metcalf’s blowhard dad bullies a son who wants to rock so hard he turns into Dee Snider, then proceeds to liberate the house by turning them into the rest of Twisted Sister, each causing more headaches for Metcalf. The brightly lit suburban house makes Twisted Sister’s ugly mugs look especially ugly, a trick that helps turn this into a celebration of rock and roll as liberation: you don’t have to look good or sing good in order to be saved by the healing power of rock and roll.
41. Elton John, “I’m Still Standing” (1983)
Not strictly a comeback single—Elton was never far from the top of the charts in the late 1970s and 1980s—“I’m Still Standing” still felt like a return back in 1983. And, over the years, it’s turned into a statement of resilience for the rocker. The video plays some part in that. Filmed in the south of France, “I’m Still Standing” radiates with tacky Euro glory, with Elton acting as a bemused observer as much as he is a participant. Off screen, he indulged—the last night of filming, Duran Duran got him blitzed on martinis—but during the clip, he’s smiling at all the madness swirling around him, laying seeds of a middle-aged persona that served him well.
40. Van Halen, “Hot For Teacher” (1984)
At the end of “Hot For Teacher,” Van Halen marches through a “where are they now” credits sequence straight out of Animal House, one that climaxes with the reveal that the young David Lee Roth grew up to be a game show host. It’s one of many jokes crammed into the video’s five minutes, jokes that are silly, sexy, outrageous and goofy, all delivered with a vaudevillian’s flair. It’s no accident that the group stumbles through a dance routine on the clip’s chorus: this is the culmination of Roth’s Borscht Belt aspirations, a place where he turns corny old shtick into the hippest thing on the Sunset strip.
39. Janet Jackson, “Rhythm Nation” (1989)
With the assistance of director Dominic Sena, Janet Jackson turned her vision of a utopian community united by dance into a stark, fiery dystopia. Jackson and her dancers are clad all in black, shot in a heightened black and white that seems to offer only 50 different shades of black. The cuts to the close-ups of Janet illustrate precisely where she is and why but otherwise her dance troop is seen as a cohesive unit, their individual identities submerged for the greater good—and it’s that unified movement that makes the video such a stunner.
38. Fiona Apple, “Criminal” (1997)
Equal parts sultry and seedy, Mark Romanek’s video for Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” crystalizes the essence of the singer/songwriter’s breakthrough hit: it zeroes in on the uneasiness of learning how to wield sex as a weapon. Apple comes from a place of strength in the song, yet Romanek’s staging of the video is in a basement that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since 1976. The empty beer bottles, faceless companions and mattresses in search of beds suggest that Apple is wandering through the aftermath of something bad, possibly dangerous, an eerie quality that isn’t diminished with repetition.
37. Public Enemy, “Fight The Power” (1989)
Treated as a fanfare and greek chorus in Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing,” Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” is a political rallying call as a music video. Lee staged the clip as a concert that evolves into a street protest, using Chuck D and Flavor Flav as visual anchors, then populating the crowds with references to civil rights figures both past and present. That sense of history places “Fight The Power” in a continuum, one that stretches way beyond the point of its release and it still seems vital and kinetic.
36. Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance” (2009)
There is a plot to “Bad Romance,” one involving abductions, Russian mafia, bathhouses and possibly aliens. The particulars are so convoluted that it’s impossible to follow, but narrative isn’t the point of the video. The images create a sense of heightened uneasy reality, one generated by high fashion, choreography and film tricks, all punctuated by close-ups of Gaga’s pleading face. Sometimes absurd—witness the final shot of Gaga in bed—sometimes alienating, the audacity of “Bad Romance” is astonishing: it feels as if Gaga stuffed the five-minute video with every one of her ideas.
35. Outkast, “Hey Ya!” (2003)
Outkast patterned the video for Andre 3000’s big pop move after the biggest pop group of all time: the Beatles, specifically the Fab Four on the Ed Sullivan Show. It’s a move that slightly mirrors Nirvana’s “In Bloom” but where that video reveled in irony, “Hey Ya!” is playful, particularly in how Andre 3000 plays eight different personas, each distinctly rendered. The vibrant, vivacious humor cuts against the song’s melancholy undercurrent while also being a spectacular showcase for Andre’s incandescent charisma.
34. Jamiroquai, “Virtual Insanity” (1996)
It’s fair to say “Virtual Insanity” belongs to a group of a handful of hit singles that scaled the charts almost entirely on the strength of their videos. That’s not a slight to Jamiroquai. One of the more pop-oriented bands in acid jazz, Jamiroquai had hooks and a stylish sensibility, both of which are evident on “Virtual Insanity” but that’s all overshadowed by lead singer Jay Kay, who glides through the video, dancing on a series of imperceptible moving sidewalks. The way Jonathan Glazer stages Kay’s choreography, it all seems like a magic trick—an illusion designed to generate wonder.
33. D’Angelo, “Untitled (How Does It Feel)“ (2000)
D’Angelo’s homage to Prince’s sensual prime is given a sultry video to match. Presented as a single take—director Paul Hunter slyly merges two shots, the blend invisible to the eye—“Untitled (How Does It Feel) focuses entirely on a D’Angelo who appears to be entirely nude: as the song scales to its crescendo, the camera pulls back, revealing the singer’s naked pelvis. The closeups of D’Angelo’s face and chiseled body are more than sexy: they’re startlingly intimate, a seduction between the singer and the viewer.
32. Dire Straits, “Money For Nothing” (1985)
A pub band who grew prog pretensions, Dire Straits were constitutionally opposed to music videos. The only problem was their leader Mark Knopfler wrote a song about MTV. A cynical song but one the network wanted on their airwaves, so they convinced the label to convince the band to make a video—and the computer-animated clip for “Money For Nothing” was born. Two blocky blue collar workers toil away at a warehouse with a screen in the background spitting out videos from Dire Straits and a pair of fictional bands. At nearly 40 years distance, the animation looks primitive but also striking, simultaneously funny and slightly unsettling.
31. Eminem, “The Real Slim Shady” (2000)
At the apex of his popularity, Eminem acknowledged that the land was littered with imitators so he decided to do what he does best: crack wise. Lacking the danger of “Guilty Conscious” and the drama of “Stan,” “The Real Slim Shady” draws upon the legacy of “Weird Al” Yankovic, MAD Magazine and The Simpsons, delivering jokes at a rapid clip that mirror Eminem’s delivery. If many of the jokes seem either dated or tasteless, the dexterity of the visuals and music remains astonishing.
30. Fatboy Slim, “Weapon Of Choice” (2001)
“Weapon Of Choice” was an idea waiting to happen. A chance encounter between Spike Jonze and Christopher Walken led the actor to ask the director to film him dancing. When he was offered a chance to direct “Weapon Of Choice,” a single from Fatboy Slim’s Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars, he paired Walken with the big beat electronica, allowing Walken to slide and glide through an empty hotel lobby for the duration of the video. There are a few cinematic tricks but Walken’s graceful, joyous movement—delivered with flair and humor—proved instantly iconic.
29. Duran Duran, “Girls On Film” (1981)
Not the first Duran Duran hit in the U.K. but the first to cause a sensation, “Girls on Film” gained considerable attention for its stylized, sexy video—so raw and carnal, it was banned from the BBC, which was the only avenue for the clip when the band filmed it with Godley & Creme. Weeks after the video was in the can, MTV launched on American airwaves and the network ultimately demanded a neutered edit of the video, which is the version that can be easily found today. That version still walks the edge of kink—the fashions have dated enough to make it seem stranger—which piqued the imagination for the soft-core version that was seen rarely and occasionally showed up on home video. Years later, Kevin Godley said the video couldn’t be made today and that’s not so much a signal about how dirty it is but rather the weird freedom that he, his partner and the band enjoyed here: they were in uncharted territory and they took full advantage of their opportunity.
28. Missy Elliott, “Work It” (2002)
The first single from the album Missy Elliott released after her crossover smash “Get Ur Freak On,” “Work It” is made with the giddy freedom of somebody who has the world at their fingertips. Working with director Dave Meyers, Elliott delivers a freaky, funny video where the in-camera choreography is as exciting as the fluid, flexible cinematography. Filled with startling imagery thrown off center by an off-kilter sense of humor, “Work It” is the rarest of things: a blockbuster that seemed bracingly weird.
27. The White Stripes, “Fell In Love With A Girl” (2002)
Director Michel Gondry gave “Fell In Love With A Girl,” the breakthrough single for Detroit garage rockers the White Stripes, an ideal visualization: bold, primitive images created with Legos. Like the song itself, Gondry’s visuals are a throwback to a different time but also fiercely modern: it’s finding something fresh and unexpected with building blocks so basic even a child could use them.
26. George Michael, “Faith” (1987)
Almost defiantly stark in an age riddled with overblown imagery, “Faith” contains little more than a jukebox, a pair of legs, and George Michael in bluejeans, boots and a leather jacket. In its own way, the image of Michael as a rocker is as retro as the song’s Bo Diddley beat: stylistically, it’s a throwback to the early days of rock and roll, yet the execution is distinctly modern. Switching between black and white and blue neon, and closeups of Michael’s mug and butt, the video is vigorous in how it sells the idea of a rocker as a polished pop star.
25. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot” (1988)
Sonic Youth discovered a way to harness their electric fury into a hooky anthem in “Teen Age Riot,” an occasion that merited the kind of celebration the group holds in its video. Instead of dedicating the clip to a straight performance, the group intercuts video of themselves with footage of punk icons past and present. Their tastes are catholic: a clip of Elvis Presley is followed by space-jazz pioneer Sun Ra, a snatch of underground comic book auteur Harvey Pekar on Late Night with David Letterman flits by but not as quickly as Susanna Hoffs, with Iggy Pop and Patti Smith providing anchors. The result is a collage that presents alternative culture as a living, breathing, evolving thing with a past that’s as thrilling and subversive as its present.
24. Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These)“ (1983)
A landmark of the New Wave era, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These)“ plays with iconic images of the early 1980s—it’s set in a boardroom, video screens drone on in the background, there are nearly as many close-ups of computer keyboards as there are of faces—while offering surrealistic images of its own. There are dreams within dreams here—an extended dalliance in a field, lights being turned out at the conclusion of the song—but the glue of the video is Annie Lennox, bearing a short cropped haircut and a power suit, bending gender with a grin that seems malicious.
23. Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” (1983)
Filmed for less than $35,000 and looking like it, the video for “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” gets across its exuberant spirit. The cheapness gives it grit and character. Cyndi Lauper commands any setting she’s in, whether it’s the subway or the cramped, cheap apartment she shares with her parents, played by her real-life mother and Captain Lou Albano. Acting as a ringleader, Lauper invites everybody—the hip, the square, a conehead and singer/songwriter Steve Forbert—back to her place for a party that’s warm, inclusive and silly, the kind of party that’s hard to resist.
22. ZZ Top, “Legs” (1983)
The last in a series of videos where ZZ Top happily takes a backseat to their souped-up Eliminator Ford coupe and a band of supermodels with superpowers, “Legs” flips the script by placing a woman at the center of the action. Effectively an ugly goose story—a shoe clerk doesn’t realize her beauty until the supermodels give her a makeover and ZZ Top gifts them their magical story—it’s told with flair, humor and more than a hint of kink (there are many, many shots of feet, shoes and socks) that gives it an absurd verve: yes, it’s silly and exploitative but everybody is in on the joke, especially that Lil Ol Band from Texas.
21. David Bowie, “Ashes To Ashes” (1980)
Filmed many years before videos were an expected part of an album’s promotional campaign, “Ashes To Ashes” benefits from arising in an era where the genre’s tropes were yet to be codified. With his co-director David Mallet, Bowie treats “Ashes To Ashes” as an abstract film, making nods to movies both popular and obscure, drawing upon his mime training and staging familiar locations so they seem like collective nightmares: a beach is oversaturated with pink light, the singer is stranded in an asylum or in a salon that’s faded to be engulfed in explosions. It’s an uneasy, provocative watch that makes the cool efficiency of his later “Let’s Dance” videos seem even sleeker in retrospect.
20. R.E.M., “Losing My Religion” (1991)
Inspired by the emotional candor of Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Michael Stipe agreed to lip synch for the first time in years for “Losing My Religion,” a bracingly open and enigmatic song that served as the centerpiece to Out Of Time. Director Tarsem Singh rejected the idea of replicating the single-shot close-up of O’Connor, choosing to draw upon a wealth of religious and cinematic imagery that feels simultaneously cryptic and candid: the particulars may be fuzzy but the plaintive emotion is not. At the heart of the video is Stipe, who provides a warm human connection as he sings and dances, easing the video away from the realm of enigma.
19. Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991)
Intended as a satire of the teenage cliche of a rock band playing a school auditorium—a trope more familiar in film than music video—“Smells Like Teen Spirit’ wound up offering a serious sense of subversion. Some of that is intentional: the cheerleaders brandish anarchy symbols on their uniforms, the oblivious janitor provides an ironic counterpoint, visuals that push the joke to the center. What gives the video its power is the charisma of Kurt Cobain. Stalking and sulking on center stage, he creates a sense of danger by slightly undercutting expectations until he ends the video with primal screams that somehow seem more gnarled in his expressions than his voice.
18. Madonna, “Like A Prayer” (1989)
Madonna’s art grew increasingly complex and ambitious throughout the 1980s, culminating in the rich, multi-dimensional album Like A Prayer. A blend of gospel and modern soul, “Like A Prayer” showcased a maturing talent, as did its accompanying video. A layered narrative concerning Madonna witnessing an interracial relationship torn asunder by violence, leading her to find salvation in a church, the video freely melds spirituality with matters of the flesh, often suggesting they’re inseparable. Such a notion was a lightning rod for controversy upon its release in 1989, yet the years have proven “Like A Prayer” to have an emotional and spiritual depth that’s rare for a music video.
17. Weezer, “Buddy Holly” (1994)
“Buddy Holly” is something of a high water mark for kitschy 1990s irony, a video that plays upon collective nostalgic pop culture memories. Inspired by Rivers Cuomo’s lyric about early rocker Buddy Holly and Mary Tyler Moore, Spike Jonze sets the video in the 1950s … but it’s the ’50s as seen on Happy Days, a sitcom that painted a rosy picture of the Eisenhower years. Placing Weezer in the show’s Al’s Diner, Jonze intersperses clips of Happy Days with Weezer miming in collegiate sweaters—a funny conceit made even better by the director playing with sitcom conventions, right down to placing a dramatic “To Be Continued” as the song heads into its bridge. Years later, these visual cues have faded from cultural consciousness but the “Buddy Holly” video is executed with such skill and spirit ithat t remains a delight.
16. Talking Heads, “Once In A Lifetime” (1980)
Working with choreographer Tony Basil—who also served as the clip’s co-director and would soon achieve fame herself with the novelty hit “Mickey”—David Byrne riffed upon several religious rituals to create his herky jerky dance for “Once In A Lifetime.” The inspiration seems to lie in evangelical preachers—it’s not hard to picture a sermon structured around the lyrical conceit “And you may find yourself!”—but when captured on a low-tech, low-budget video camera, the results are bracing, eerie and invigorating, a transmission from another world that’s recognizable to ours but distinctly different.
15. Prince, “Kiss” (1986)
During his rise to superstardom in the early 1980s, Prince never hesitated to trade upon his intensity: he treated the camera either as an object of seduction or scorn. This veil began to lift on “Raspberry Beret”—he comes onstage to rapturous applause, only to pause and cough—and is completely absent on “Kiss.” Dancing shirtless and flirting with not just the camera but his bandmate Wendy Melvoin—she proves to be an excellent comic foil—Prince lets himself be playfully sexy, resulting in perhaps the purest distillation of his charisma to be captured on film.
14. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” (1983)
The video that changed everything at MTV—CBS head Walter Yetnikoff threatened to pull all of his label’s videos if the channel didn’t put this clip into regular rotation—“Billie Jean” can seem curiously old-fashioned from a modern vantage. It’s shot on a soundstage with a look as transparent as an old movie, its visual effects are primitive, and it creates a vibe more than it follows a narrative, even if it spends too much time following a detective on Michael Jackson’s heels. Despite all this, “Billie Jean” still carries enormous power. That vibe is as foreboding as the song’s insistent, ominous bass line, which is no small thing, but it’s brightened by Jackson, whose very footsteps lighten every square in a sidewalk. There’s perhaps a shade too much cutting during his dance spotlight but the combination of that simple, basic effect and Jackson’s charisma make this captivating.
13. Run DMC featuring Aerosmith, “Walk This Way” (1986)
A video as clever as the song itself, Run-D.M.C.’s rendition of Aerosmith’s ’70s sleaze classic “Walk This Way” finds the two camps literally at battle: they share a wall in a rehearsal studio, angering each other with their respective noise before Steven Tyler breaks through the wall to sing the chorus. The rappers join the rockers onstage, eventually coming to an agreement to rock together, but the thrill of the video is to see both Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. play up their rivalry, as they both have the comic chops to pull it off.
12. Guns N Roses, “November Rain” (1992)
Music videos grew increasingly elaborate and expensive during the late 1980s and early 1990s, culminating in “November Rain,” a masterpiece of overblown absurdity from Guns N Roses. Telling the tale of a doomed romance between Axl Rose and Stephanie Seymour—a fate that almost mirrored their reality—“November Rain” is constructed on an operatic scale: it’s a melodrama that ends in tragedy, every emotion larger than the last. What makes “November Rain” so great is not just the set pieces, like Slash miming his solo in front of a church in the middle of the desert, but an abundance of gags and stunts: witness Slash losing the wedding rings only to be saved by Duff McKagan, who merely smiles and nods. The fact that Guns N Roses finds space for these jokes shows how this is the pinnacle of ’90s video excess: it has every cliche and then some.
11. Britney Spears, “...Baby One More Time” (1998)
A revolution in the guise of bubblegum, “...Baby One More Time” introduced Britney Spears to the world as a teenager breaking loose from the confines of her classroom to dance in the halls. The idea for Britney’s iconic schoolgirl uniform and pigtails came from the singer herself: director Nigel Dick followed her lead, then had wardrobe buy every stitch of clothing in the video from Kmart. The cheapness of the outfits anchor the fantasy in some tangible reality, but this is still a fantasy, shot in the same school as Grease, a choice that has a subconscious effect on the viewer: it looks familiar but feels fresh, the dawning of a new teen-pop era.
10. Pulp, “Common People” (1995)
Bringing their social protest song “Common People” to life, Pulp saturates the screen with vivid colors and kitsch. The neon lights and glitter provide a backdrop to common people on a loop, caught in mundane tasks and joyless dances, the rituals that the song’s heiress—here played by a Sadie Frost who wields her seductive smile as a blade—looks at with condescension. Throughout it all, Jarvis Cocker serves as the narrator and glue, mining unironic pleasure in the humdrum council flats and grocery stores while finding glamor on the dance floor.
9. Robert Palmer, “Addicted To Love” (1986)
An old smoothie who always knew the power of the female form—on his earliest records, he made it a habit to play second fiddle to models—Robert Palmer landed upon an ingenious idea for the video for “Addicted To Love”: he should be supported by a band of supermodels, all clad in black, all bearing red lipstick and smokey eyeshadow. They’re Nagel paintings come to life, enlisted to perform a song about the inescapable power of sex. The look was indelible, parodied and emulated for years to come, and Palmer found it difficult to escape: for a few years, he kept remaking the same video. But the original works because Palmer winks at the audience as he sings: he’s enjoying the joke and wants the viewer to do so, too.
8. Beyonce, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)“ (2008)
In one of his more infamous moments, Kanye West proclaimed Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)“ “one of the best videos of all time.” He said that after interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for the MTV VMA for Best Female Video, an award given to her for “You Belong With Me,” a perfectly pleasant video that isn’t a patch on “Single Ladies.” Shot in a silvery black and white, “Single Ladies” belongs to the class of video that’s compelling because they capture a performer at the peak of their game. Supported by two dancers, Beyonce is fluid and ferocious, her performance underlying the song’s central conceit by projecting strength as much as sexiness: only a fool wouldn’t put a ring on it after watching this video.
7. Sinead O’Connor, “Nothing Compares 2 U” (1990)
Staged as almost an entirely uninterrupted close-up of Sinead O’Connor lip synching the entirety of Prince’s mournful ballad, “Nothing Compares 2 U” is a shockingly intimate video: it feels as if Sinead is addressing not a departed lover but an individual viewer. The concentration on her face makes the occasional cutaways to O’Connor strolling in Paris welcome—there’s a need to breathe when the instrumental bridge kicks in—but the video’s conclusion is devastating, capturing an O’Connor who is visibly driven to tears by the song she is singing. No matter how many times this is viewed, this sequence is unbearably moving.
6. Duran Duran, “Hungry Like The Wolf” (1982)
A year after Raiders Of The Lost Ark became a runaway sensation, Duran Duran designed the video for their feral “Hungry Like The Wolf” as an homage to Steven Spielberg hit. Filled with crowded marketplaces, river adventures, jungles and stolen kisses, the connection to Raiders is impossible to miss but where many video homages to hit movies fall flat, “Hungry Like The Wolf” crackles with excitement. Some of that is due to its fleet cutting, but most of it is due to Duran Duran themselves, who all reject the roguish charm of Indiana Jones in favor of the devilish charisma of Dr. Rene Belloq: It’s as if villains were the hero of the story.
5. a-ha, “Take On Me” (1985)
The class of 1985 was rife with terrific videos but few were better than “Take On Me,” the clip for a-ha’s synth-pop romance. Initially, the video appears to be scratchy line drawings but it’s soon revealed that these pictures exist in a comic book being read by a lonely woman. The hero of the comic—the band’s lead singer Morten Harket—pulls her into the comic, beginning an adventure where the lovers attempt to find a place where they can share a real romance. The blend of live-action visual and animation is striking precisely because the pencil drawings are fluid and smudged: it gives the clip a welcome sense of earthiness to cut against its romantic fantasies.
4. Beastie Boys, “Sabotage” (1994)
The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” throws the viewer right into the middle of a celebration of all 1970s TV cop shows in all their sweaty, mustachioed glory. It’s essentially a credits crawl, where each Beastie Boy plays an actor who is playing a character—one of a cavalcade of jokes the video offers. A lot of the humor derives from director Spike Jonze expertly mimicking the look and feel of ’70s police dramas, but it’s certainly a thrill watching the band throwing themselves into a chase all while sporting polyester and absurd wigs.
3. Michael Jackson, “Thriller” (1982)
The place where music videos effectively became mini movies, “Thriller” almost treats the song itself as something secondary: the music doesn’t start until nearly five minutes into the 13-minute runtime. That’s a feature, not a bug. All the convoluted framing surrounding the clip’s extended dance sequence allows Michael Jackson to indulge his B-movie fantasies, and there’s a real giddiness to the monster sequences, especially the werewolf story in the video’s movie within movie. Still, the centerpiece is the choreographed zombie shuffle, an elaborate dance that showcases Jackson’s remarkable moves in a way no other video does.
2. Madonna, “Vogue” (1990)
Madonna wrote “Vogue” as a tribute to an underground dance sensation at New York’s gay nightclubs, peppering the lyric with references to old Hollywood stars. Director David Fincher picked up on that dangling thread, turning “Vogue” into a sumptuous black-and-white valentine to the glamor of the golden days of the silver screen. Despite its allusions to a cinematic past, “Vogue” clearly belongs to the 1990s: the cutting is too quick, the visuals too lush and, most of all, Madonna and Fincher deliver every reference with an affectionate wink. Their devotion to old glamor lends Madonna’s dancers an elegance to their voguing, a combination that’s quite alluring.
1. Peter Gabriel, “Sledgehammer” (1986)
Like the song itself, the video for Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” makes no attempt to disguise its sexual metaphor: the clip opens with an extreme close-up of sperm. Although that is the last time “Sledgehammer” gets explicitly biological, the video riffs upon Gabriel’s lyrical imagery of trains and bumper cars, all through a series of stop-motion animation. No single team of animators are responsible for the finished product: the Brothers Quay and Aardman, who’d later do Wallace and Gromit, are part of the roster of animators who brought this to life. The combination of different styles gives “Sledgehammer” a vitality: it’s possible to not know what’s coming after watching it countless times. Better still, the stop-motion animation gives “Sledgehammer” a handmade quality that can’t be replicated: every frame feels like a celebration of human eccentricity, a trait that’s rare and welcome in 2023.