25 Best Music Videos: 13

13. Learn To Fly
Foo Fighters

For a guy who was in a band whose lead singer blew his head off, Dave Grohl sure is one goofy guy. Take the video for "Everlong," which has silly parodies of both "Nightmare on Elm Street" and the Evil Dead films. Also take this video (PLEASE /rimshot)

Airline cleaners (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass, whose suits have "Kage" and "Jables" embroidered on them, natch) accidentally leave a huge pound of some drug (guessing hash) in the coffee pot and causes almost the entire plane, crew and passengers, to hallucinate like crazy. As the pilots begin breaking down and the passengers turn into animals, its up to the only people who didn't have coffee (the band, of course) to land the plane safely.

It's a crazy little music video filled with fun visuals and an insane amount of characters played by the Foo Fighters themselves, including Dave Grohl playing an effeminate flight steward and a pre-teen girl, and drummer Taylor Hawkins playing a weirdly attractive stewardess (marking the second time in a video where Hawkins plays a woman, first playing Grohl's girlfriend in the "Everlong").

25 Best Music Videos: 14

14. Buddy Holly
Weezer

Nostalgia isn't that funny. Making reference to the Transformers because old=lol doesn't actually mean it equals lol. Very few people seem to understand that. Someone like Seth MacFarlane doesn't understand. Just cut to Peter talking to Mr. T and hilarity ensues!

Its what you do with said nostalgia that can make it fun or funny or whatever you're doing with it. Spike Jonze gets it.

By placing Weezer in matching sweaters and having them play in an episode of "Happy Days," Spike is able to get his point across by having the joke be the band itself. Their music so out of place that Potsie and Ralph Malph hang their heads listening to it, but still hip enough to get Fonzie to dance.

Spike Jonze totally gets it. I guess that's why he's doing "Where The Wild Things Are."

25 Best Music Videos: 15

15. Birds
Vitalic

DOGS JUMPING IN THE AIR

DOGS JUMPING IN THE AIR

DOGS JUMPING IN THE AIR

DOGS JUMPING IN THE AIR

DOGS JUMPING IN THE AIR

25 Best Music Videos: 16

16. Tonight, Tonight
Smashing Pumpkins

If I made a comprehensive list of things I like (and not like "at the moment," but shit I'll never get tired of) two things would be "the early 20th century" and "Tom Kenny" Well, what are the odds that there is a video that combines these two things!

Directors Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (directed almost all of Mr. Show's taped segments and would go on to direct "Little Miss Sunshine") made this beautiful music video that embraces the cinema of the 1890s/1900s, including a less-than-subtle tribute to Georges Melies's "A Trip To The Moon"

So the plot involves a couple (played by comedians/Mr. Show cast members/voice actors/real-life married couple Tom Kenny and Jill Talley) on a blimp ride's maiden voyage to the moon. They get too close to the moon and fall down, facing moonmen and meeting Poseidon.

You know what? I don't really have a good reason to love this music video, I just do. It looks beautiful and it brings forth my love of the 1900s. I'm not asking for much else.

25 Best Music Videos: 17

17. Enter Sandman

Metallica

Anyways, lords of thrash Metallica hit the mainstream hard with this song, as I'm sure you know. The dark melodic tune devoted to nightmares delivered the band to MTVs attention and the video helped.

A seizure-inducing horror story, the video for "Enter Sandman" regards a young boy, haunted by nightmares and the Sandman, a wrinkly old man that still haunts me sometimes. Dude's creepy, y'know?

My main concern with embedding this video is that the audio lag ruins the best part of the video. In the end, when the music begins dying down, the boy wakes up in the middle of the street with a TRUCK BARRELING DOWN TOWARDS HIS ASS. When the truck hits the boy's bed, James Hetfield comes in with a big BOOM and the music starts up again until the end.

25 Best Music Videos: 18

18. Loser
Beck

Infusing his sense of vaguely folkish, alterna-rock to a video, Beck Hansen's most famous song gets a video matching the brilliant eccentricity of both the song and artist.

Full of images ranging from Death washing a car window to people dancing in a cemetary, the whole video gives an air of some strange experimental film. A Lynchian musical, as it were. But much like David Lynch, the maddest images can bear genius in them.

Beck went on to do a bunch of crazy shit like releasing a cool funk album (my favorite of his albums), releasing a heart-crushingly sad album (done post-breakup and one of the most depressing things I've ever heard), and a guest appearance on Futurama. Beck is a crazy ol motherfucker who constantly pushes his ability into other styles of music and is pretty awesome for it.

25 Best Music Videos: 19

19. Bastards of Young
The Replacements

The epitome of aesthetic simplicity, the single shot of a stereo system playing the song is a perfect representation of the band itself, in my opinion: Entrancingly minimalist (oh god i sound like pitchfork what is wrong with me). Paul Westerberg could barely hold any notes, Bob Stinson had a serious drug problem, Tommy Stinson was roughly 14 when the first album came out and the bass was almost the same size as he was, and Chris Mars couldn't drum for his life unless he was blind stinkin drunk.

In other words, the band's power came from their limitations. Of course, much of those limitations (specifically Bob's drug problems and Chris's alcoholism) also led to their downfall.

The Replacements are underground legends who did something most indie bands never do: play with their hearts on their sleeves and openly embracing classic rock bands such as The Box Tops and Badfinger as influences.

I guess I just put this video on the list because I respect and enjoy the band so much, but I seriously think this video is a perfect example of how so much can be done with so little.

/kicks stereo

25 Best Music Videos: 20

20. I'm Impressed

They Might Be Giants

Hello, do you realize this blog's URL?

This video made my list, due in part to the great animation of paper dolls and the conceptual story line of a violent, facistic monarchy. Also, there are robuts.

All in all, it's just a really well-made video with lovely visuals and a good storyline. Oh, and its also on this list because I'm a bastard who plays favorites

25 Best Music Videos:21

21. Come to Daddy

Aphex Twin

Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) scares me. Like legit scares the shit out of me. While we're on the subject, this video. THIS VIDEO. It is like staring into the soul of Satan it is so horrifying. What with the disturbing trance/ambience music playing and James's spooky distorted face in a TV screen and a bunch of children that HAVE HIS FACE.

Then there's the ending, which I'm not going to give away if you haven't seen, but I just want to tell you how sorry I feel for the old woman in the video (the character, not the actress). She just wanted to walk her fuckin dog. Now she's getting tortured by scary little Aphex Twins?

Shit's fucked up right there.

25 Best Music Videos: 22

22. It's Oh So Quiet

Bjork

Spike Jonze is a god damned music video genius capable of the craziest, funniest videos I've ever seen. Bjork is a musical genius and she is absolutely insane and adorable and I'm pretty sure she has some sort of magical power. Apparently when you mix a Brooklynite with an eye for the absurd and an Icelandic pixie, you get beauty.

Drab and dusty at first, the song starts off with a sad quiet little lilt by Bjork, then the big band starts getting bigger and the colors of the video suddenly explode and it turns into some kind of crazy suburban Busby Berkley number. Expertly choreographed with beautiful visuals all around, both colorful and gray.

Spike Jonze is amazing at what he does and prepare to see at least four or five more of his videos because he is crazy good.

25 Best Music Videos: 23

23. Wicked Game
Chris Isaak

So I think by posting this video, I don't have to write anything. There is more to be said in Isaak's and Helena Christensen's half-naked bodies, writhing on the beach in a series of passionate embraces than anything I could write. Not like I can actually write, anyways.

I would like to mention, however, how hilarious I find Isaak's face in a couple of shots in the video. He is seems confused that all of this is happening. He's all like "Hey man, I don't know. Don't ask me."

I'm pretty sure the sexiness of this blog has been upped by about 50%.

25 Best Music Videos: 24

24. Smells Like Nirvana
"Weird Al" Yankovic

Weird Al constantly amazes me with his ability to make not only pitch-perfect parodies of songs, but also make the videos exactly like the original. There's plenty of examples of this ("Bedrock Anthem," "Eat It," "Fat," etc) but the best remains "Smells Like Nirvana," Al's mockery of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

The video seems to follow the same rules as the movie "Airplane!" ie. Throw as many gags against a wall, and see what sticks. Among my favorite gags:

• Rudy Larosa, the janitor from the original video, eats a donut from out of his mop bucket
• One of the anarchist cheerleaders is a man
• Dick van Patten is in the crowd and offers another audience member a bit of his sandwich
• Al plays a rubber guitar at one point and bends the neck
• A basketball game begins in the middle of the song and one of the players even runs into the bassist.

Kurt Cobain himself marveled at the reproduction of the video and said he laughed his butt off. "Weird Al" knows his shit, you guys.

25 Best Music Videos

OK, I need something to get myself out of this non-writing funk. Too bad the only thing I actually know how to do is lists. So now we're here, I've been watching a lot of music videos lately and this is what I'm doing. I'm going by each video individually, so I can try to write more about each, rather than two sentences about how much I like a zombie I put at number three or whatever.


25. Land of Confusion
Genesis

Political songs never really did much for me. I don't really care if the Goo Goo Dolls or whoever are really adamant about saving the Earth or some shit. Just shut up and do it, you are wasting time by writing the music and lyrics to this fucking song.

"Land of Confusion" is slightly different. It's a catchy song about how, at the height of the Cold War and the corruptive 80s, we were all pretty much fucked. Pretty heavy stuff from the same guy who wrote "Sussudio."

The video, however, is what got it heavy airplay. Featuring puppets from English satire show "Spitting Image," various 80s world leaders and pop culture figures do nutty shit as horrific-looking puppets. Oh, and its all a nightmare from the creepy puppet version of Reagan.

Addendum to Zombie List or: "Me talking about an old video game for a paragraph"

In my list of favorite zombies (see below), I listed Stubbs from "Stubbs the Zombie in: Rebel Without A Pulse" at number 11. In it, I called the game "one of the most unique games I've ever had the short chance to play."

Well, I recently purchased it and I can safely say that while Stubbs shall remain in his position on my list, I had way too many good times playing his game. While most zombie games have you play as a survivor warding off the undead, it is beyond joyful to play as a zombie. I don't think I've had as much fun in an action game than using the abilities of heaving explosive organs, using mind-controlling hands, and, of course, brain-eating, all to build an army of the undead to chase down an old flame.

"Stubbs the Zombie" is an incredibly underrated game that is fun as hell to play. Buy it on Steam or Xbox Live or find a place that still sells Xbox games. Seriously, find it and play it. I cannot support this game enough.