#BUT. Jan’s guitar during the chorus???????

[itskrejsaitsparty]

sooooooooooo normal about this old version of Vse Kar Vem

[jokeroutsubs]

[ENG translation] Is Joker Out a possible antidote to the youth's obsession with turbofolk music?

Original article written by Aleksandar Dragaš and published in Jutarnji List newspaper and online on 19.01.2024.

English translation by @moonlvster and proofread by @itinerantbookworm (Instagram)

The most wanted Slovenian music "export"

Is Joker Out a possible antidote to the youth's obsession with turbofolk music?

They have experience performing abroad and a contract with the powerful Virgin Music: nobody from this region has had that kind of start to their European journey since Ivo Robić.

Last autumn Joker Out had two rapidly sold-out concerts in Tvornica Kulture, at which youngsters fainted and sang along like a chorus with their favourites, regardless of whether the songs were in Slovenian, English, or Croatian (Serbian).

The Croatian youth's mass hysteria around the Slovenian pop-rock band Joker Out started after their performance at Eurovision. However, no matter how young Bojan Cvjetićanin (son of the Croatian basketball player Danko Cvjetićanin¹), Jure Maček, Kris Guštin, Jan Peteh and Nace Jordan were, even prior to their Eurovision performance they had already published two albums, 'Umazane misli' and 'Demoni', and packed clubs and even concert halls around Slovenia, like Cvetličarna in Ljubljana.

¹Bojan isn't related to him, his parents are Branko and Snežana Cvjetićanin

More popular than Laibach

In the meantime, they gained experience through concerts closer and farther abroad and scored a direct contract with the powerful British Virgin Music. In short, practically nobody from this region has had that kind of start to their European journey ever since Ivo Robić left Opatija, went to Germany and signed with Polydor, or since Laibach signed with Mute, even though Joker Out was far from winning Eurovision, like the more experienced Italian glam-rock band Måneskin accomplished.

Since Joker Out performed in the Stožice Arena in Slovenia, an extensive live album has been published through Virgin Music, which offers practically all of their studio songs in live versions. And that is the most appropriate introduction to Joker Out's music for older folks for whom this young band isn't (or hasn't been) in focus. This craze of the young audience for Joker Out might remind them of the teen ecstasy caused by Plavi orkestar's first two albums. Of course, there are differences, because Joker Out still hasn't reached that level of popularity and they have no connection to Bijelo dugme like Plavi orkestar did, nor do they come from Sarajevo but from Ljubljana. We don't live in the same country anymore either, but because of that it's even more interesting to note that Joker Out is experiencing sucess outside of Slovenia, Croatia included, which is usually not that inclined to like Slovenian musical performers. You can already say that Joker Out has become more famous in Croatia than Buldožer, Pankrti, Lačni Franz or Laibach were during their time.

Even more importantly, Joker Out - enthusiastic and attractive, melodic, and even danceable - offer a possible antidote to the youth's obsession with "turbofolk music" or "estrada(stage) performers"; even with their pop production, which tends to neglect electric guitars, it's clear that Joker Out's songs, sound, instrumentals, image make them equally a rock and a pop band modelled after the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Imagine Dragons, One Republic, the Kooks. Something similar applies to the Serbian band Buč Kesidi, who have gained visible popularity in Croatia as well, and we're still waiting to see if some young Croatian (pop) rock band will see similar success. Maybe one will "emerge" from the praiseworthy festival of Croatian high school bands 'Superval'. As a reminder, Joker Out "emerged" as the winner of the third season of the Slovenian 'Špil liga', a similar festival meant to promote highschool bands started by Kino Šiška in Ljubljana over 10 years ago.

European tour

The problem is that Zagreb doesn't have Kino Šiška as the city's cultural institution, or abundant subsidization of clubs such as Tvornica Kulture, Močvara and Vintage Industrial Bar, so now our jaws are dropping in shock because our youth is caught in the paws of turbofolk music while Joker Out, after a full Stožice Arena, at the beginning of March starts their tour around Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and the Baltic republics. The first two concerts in Helsinski are already sold out.

It's great that a young pop-rock band, which happens to be from Slovenia, but also due to the cultural politics there, became popular in their home country and outside of it. A bonus is that Joker Out shows that new sucessful rock stories are still possible today, which is a paradigm that goes far beyond Slovenian borders. The problem with Croatia is that not a single young (pop) rock band today can hold a concert in Arena Zagreb, let alone set off around Europe. We should look up to Slovenia, with a question if Smrdljivi Martini, a band from Zagreb who recently competed in Superval, could become a Croatian version of Arctic Monkeys?

[sparkles-oflight]

JOKER OUT STOŽICE - REVIEW

Sorry for this review coming out this late. I know the album has been out for me for the past 14 hours, but 1. Fandom is not my life priority and 2. Yesterday I was close to collapsing due to dehydration, hunger, and lack of sleep so I hope you understand why I'm putting this out now (I'm okay)

Sunny Side Of London

I don't have a lot to comment on because we already had this song, but I'll never not say that SSOL live is so much better than the studio version ESPECIALLY because of the ending. We don't get 30 seconds of emptiness but we get a wholeass show!

Gola

The perfect transition???? I didn't notice the song changed.

I love how you can hear the people singing along

ZA NAJYU

I got ads between songs -_- (3, I hate you Spotify)

Bele Sanje

Uuu u uu

Bele Sanje my beloved

no lala :(

guitars :)

THE TRANSITION

IT'S SO GOOD

IT'S LIKE BEING THERE

Plastika

Bojan's interpretation is so good.

He didn't get too invested - which could be bad because he could lose the vocal aspect - but instead he did just enough for us to get the message and keep the quality, which I love(I hope this makes sense)

PLAAAASTIKA

Ads...

Proti Toku

See, I think on this one he was close to cross the line of "too much interpretation".

Kris' voice???? Audible??? 👀

Dopamin

My baby <3

Inject Kris' back vocals in my veins

ZAMEEE

I had to take a break to go groccery shopping and have lunch

Padam

it's so good live...it has no right

It was the best song in the Madrid gig and I can say it sounds just as good here

You can hear the guitars so clearly

Idk if it's just me, but I would think people would be quiet during this song because it's so depressing, but it sounds nice either way.

BOJAN'S INTERPRETATION>>>>>>

FUCKING ADS

Demoni

They still need to make the break between Padam and Demoni longer, imo. We need time to process our feelings.

DEMONI SCREAM

KAD NEMAN TEBE

Katrina

POVEJ MI KATRINA

Don't mind me, I'm just doing a quick google search on how to have JO's discography in my veins

A sem ti povedal

HELLO???? THIS INTRO!???

My mom called me to help with shores halfway through it -_-

The isolation of Bojan's voice IS SUCH A GOOD CHOICE

Bojan stop trying to make me cry

The solo owns my life

I need Kris' voice to be louder for a true duet

ADS AGAIN

Omamljeno Telo

I love you so much

in.my.veins.now

Kot Scre, Ki Kri Poganja

FINALLY ON SPOTIFY

Martin in the credits 🥹

BOJAN SAYING MARTIIIIN

Metulji

6 MINUTES!?

It's such an important song to me, so I don't mind

This song is like a massage in my head. Does it make sense?

KRIS?????

JAN SOLO

ADS, ADS, I'M TOO POOR FOR SPOTIFY PREMIUM

Vse Kar Vem

Live is the only proper way to listen to this song

I really wish Kris mic's volume was just a bit higher

"Brave Oceana"

Ah yes, my favourite Batman In song

I love that a SEA of people sang a part on their own.

Get it? Get i-*gunshots*

JURE MAČEK

ads...

Ngvot

I refuse to spell the whole name and I hate that each word starts in caps

KRIS SINGING ON SPOTIFY IS MY NEW ROMAN EMPIRE

HIS TI PA BARVO LAS

"what brings you to Ljubljana?" IT'S YOU

the fact that yesterday I was even talking about how last year I wanted to do Erasmus this year in Ljubljana and I say "nO, because nobody speaks or knows slovenian"...oh boy (sometimes I'm dumb)

I WAS SO HYPED FOR THIS

FOR TWO FUCKING VERSES

"Ya ya"?

Vem Da Greš

Tbf, it's still the song I probably care for the least. I only listen to it from time to time.

ad...

Ne Bi Smel

Jure's soooooolo

so good

oh, okay, kris? wanna make this a duet?

Ona

HELLO, THE INTRO!? FGWYFJFHWDJL

Petition for Kris' to sing the female Ona voice

omg...what's this? AN AD!?

Tokio

TVOJ KORAKI

Tokio will never not have a special place on my heart

I want whatever universe Tokio is in my life

Umazane Misli

In my veins, nowx2

Oh, someone actually go to sing it?

Also, I love how they still let everyone sing the chorus multiple times

Novi Val

...

Novi Val.

That's it.

I can't describe it.

ONE LAST AD EVERYONE

Carpe Diem

AH-AH-AH

IT SOUNDS SO GOOD

HIS HVALA LEPA LAUGH

IT'S SO GOOD TO WRAP IT UP

I WANNA CRY

DEFINITELY ONE OF MY FAVORITES

<3 hvala lepa fantje for my making my year better

The bass??? hello???

[fuckyeahvanhalen86-95]

Van Halen had more than their share of contradictions.

They began life as a party band but were also home to one of rock's most inventive musicians in guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who spent countless hours toiling in isolation perfecting both his craft and instruments. Their fun-loving music, videos, fashion sense and personalities served as the template for a generation of bands, yet they were also at the center of two of the nastiest breakups in rock history.

So, yeah, things could get weird around Van Halen sometimes. They had an unparalleled gift for blending hard-rock chops and pop smarts and a knack for staying creatively ahead of their peers. Bold and sometimes strange musical experimentation played a role in that success, as you'll note in the below chronological look at the 10 Weirdest Van Halen Songs.

"IN A SIMPLE RHYME/GROWTH" (1980 - WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST)

Van Halen's first two albums were comprised of songs written during their club-performance days. On 1980's Women and Children First, they took advantage of their chance to write new material, expanding their palette and exploring more complex arrangements. One of the clearest and most distinctive examples is the LP's closing track, "In a Simple Rhyme." It's a poppy, progressive and somewhat weird rock song that sounds like Rush attempting to write a romantic ballad. After the song's gentle fade-out comes another surprise: a 30-second instrumental featuring a brontosaurus-sized guitar riff. According to The Van Halen Encyclopedia, the plan was for "Growth" to be expanded into a full song that would kick off the band's next album. That didn't happen, but they would occasionally play the song at their concerts, including a 1986 version featuring both Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar on guitar.

"SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN THE PARK/ONE FOOT OUT THE DOOR" (1981 - FAIR WARNING)

After sneakily replacing his guitar with an electric piano on Women and Children First's "And the Cradle Will Rock...," Eddie Van Halen dove deeper into synthesizers with the following year's Fair Warning, using an inexpensive Electro-Harmonix micro-synthesizer to come up with "Sunday Afternoon in the Park." It's a funky and creepy two-minute instrumental that sounds like George Clinton's idea of a John Carpenter film score. The tempo switches to a hyperactive electro-boogie for the conjoined "One Foot Out the Door," as David Lee Roth tries not to get caught with somebody else's wife. It's all topped with one of Van Halen's fiercest guitar solos, which fades out too quickly.

"BIG BAD BILL (IS SWEET WILLIAM NOW)" (1982 - DIVER DOWN)

One of the main sources of friction between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen was over the latter's use of keyboards. Roth feared it would upset the band's fans, who wanted only to see Van Halen in "guitar god" mode. (As "Jump" and the band's string of keyboard-based '80s hits proved, Roth was wrong.) But it was Roth who suggested that Van Halen's father, Jan, play jazz clarinet on the band's cover of the 1924 Milton Anger and Jack Yellen song "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" on 1982's covers-heavy Diver Down. "He was nervous as shit," said Van Halen, recalling his dad at the recording session. "We're just telling him, 'Jan, just fuckin' have a good time. We make mistakes! That's what makes it real.' I love what he did."

"HOT FOR TEACHER" (1984 - 1984)

The final single of David Lee Roth's first tenure with Van Halen was the sorta weird "Hot for Teacher." How many hit songs can you think of that start with a 30-second drum solo, followed by an extended guitar solo? Roth doesn't appear until more than a minute into the song, speaking to his "classmates," rather than singing, as Eddie Van Halen suddenly shifts to chicken-pickin' rhythms. A traditional verse-and-chorus structure finally appears, but the band never stays in one place for long, blending speed-metal riffs with high school humor and a big Broadway-worthy chorus. It was all too perfect to last: Soon after the song's release, everything went to hell.

"INSIDE" (1986 - 5150)

"Man, what kind of crap is this?" That's the opening question Sammy Hagar asks on the closing track of his first album as Van Halen's new singer. After using the first eight songs on 5150 to establish the new lineup as a commercial and artistic force, Van Halen cracks open the fourth wall and directly if obliquely addresses the controversy that ensued after Hagar was hired to replace Roth. Over a thumping synth-rock groove, Hagar gets meta about what he's learned from his new bandmates: "Now me, look, I got this job not just being myself," he says. "I went out I brought some brand new shoes, now I walk like something else." He gets more serious as the song goes on, hitting some wild vocal heights while singing about feeling the need for "something special, someone new, some brand new group to sink my teeth into."

"MINE ALL MINE" (1988 - OU812)

After proving they could use keyboards to craft hit pop singles and ballads, Van Halen took a more serious step with the opening track of 1988's OU812. Clocking in at over five minutes, the complex "Mine All Mine" treads near jazz-fusion territory and showcases a new lyrical depth that almost drove Hagar past the breaking point. "It was the first time in my life I ever beat myself up, hurt myself, punished myself, practically threw things through windows, trying to write the lyrics," he told writer Martin Popoff in 2010.

"PLEASURE DOME" (1991 - FOR UNLAWFUL CARNAL KNOWLEDGE)

For the most part, 1991's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge marked a return to straightforward guitar rock for Van Halen. The hit single "Right Now" was the only song to feature keyboards; almost everything else follows a Standing Hampton-on-steroids formula. But the seven-minute "Pleasure Dome" takes a weird turn into progressive rock, with the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony daring each other to go deeper into King Crimson-style madness. Hagar's cosmically themed vocals are fine but seem almost beside the point. When the band performed the song live, it was usually instrumental.

"STRUNG OUT" (1995 - BALANCE)

Ever wanted to hear Eddie Van Halen destroy a piano? According to the Van Halen Encyclopedia, while renting composer Marvin Hamlisch's beach home in 1983, Van Halen "threw everything he could find into the piano and raked various items across the strings, including ping-pong balls, D-cell batteries and even silverware." Supposedly, there are hours of tapes documenting this, but Eddie Van Halen mercifully selected the best 90 seconds for inclusion on the band's final album with Hagar.

"CROSSING OVER" (1995 - BALANCE [JAPAN IMPORT])

Van Halen released only one non-album B-side, and it was a pretty strange one. In 1983 Eddie Van Halen composed "David's Tune," a tribute to a friend who died by suicide, handling all the instruments and vocals. After joining Van Halen in 1985, Sammy Hagar was eager to flesh out the track, but Van Halen kept "Crossing Over" in the vaults for nearly a decade, until the death of the band's manager, Ed Leffler. A full-band take was recorded and then blended with the guitarist's original version, which can be heard in the left channel of the released recording. The sonic effect is otherworldly, a perfect match for the song's subject matter.

"HOW MANY SAY I" (1998 - Van Halen III)

Van Halen III is the most criticized album of Van Halen's career, and much of the scorn is directed at the closing "How Many Say I," which features Eddie Van Halen on his only lead-vocal performance. The piano-based track is reminiscent of a late-era Roger Waters ballad and is an odd creative choice for the band, which was in the process of introducing its third singer, Gary Cherone. "They forced me," Van Halen told Billboard at the time. "Don't be shocked when you hear the vocal." "Maybe we were being too artsy-fartsy," Cherone later admitted to Rolling Stone. "But I thought it was great."

[martianarctic]

Devin’s Playlist -2010s Part 1

This is an unfinished retrospective look at what I listened to during the 2010s. This decade was exceptional for me, as it was the first decade where, for almost all of it, I was not a musician myself. 

Being a musician forces you to listen to music like a musician, and being free of that, and able to listen as a listener alone, really made this a spectacular decade for me. I found dozens of incredible albums that were released during the decade, many of which received no significant recognition.

This was a very large project, and I did not finish it. I made it through Retrowave, Shoegaze, and Post punk. If anybody cares, I will finish the entire project, which will add Dreampop (the largest category), Vaporwave, and Dark Ambient.

Retrowave: Retrowave is electronic music that, at first listen, sounds like it may be from the 80s or 90s, mostly because the synths it uses to generate the music are either retro-inspired or literally retro equipment in some of the more extreme cases. It generally features original compositions, often, but not always, is instrumental. Rough vocals would impede the tightness and angularity of the music, so when vocals are used they are often pop produced and highly melodic. This genre gained significant exposure from Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 masterpiece, “Drive”.

Galactic Melt (2011) Com Truise

Electronic artist Com Truise rose to prominence off of this fantastic record, which rallies around the undeniable electro anthem of 2012, “Brokendate”. Starting with some found audio (chopped and screwed found audio becomes a big deal later on in Vaporwave) and then dropping in an absolutely thick beat we’re met with a song that eventually, as layers are dropped on, ends up being meditative, romantic, and melancholy. Emotions to that point, not well associated with dance music, but definitely would come to color the entire decade.

Era Extraña (2011) Neon Indian

Electronic solo bedroom pop was pretty cool at the end of the 00s being pushed hard by guys like Twin Shadow. I am not sure how I got ahold of Neon Indian but this album was, in a lot of ways, the true start of my musical decade. I had not been so excited and enthusiastic about a record since I had retired from making music. It really gives you a new perspective to not feel like you’re in competition with everything and trying to learn from everything- just as a listener, I was enthralled with this entire record.

Visitors (2012) Lazerhawk

I did not get into dark retrowave until after 2013 and thus discovered Lazerhawk and this record after the fact. Visitors is, in my opinion, the best dark retrowave album ever made, more consistent and listenable than competitors such as mega drive or carpenter brut. Also. This album absolutely sticks the landing with the street-strutting powerhouse “Arrival”.

I am the Night (2012) Perturbator

Made famous by soundtracking the indie game hit Hotline Miami (one of the best games of the decade), Perturbator carved a niche for himself with fast, brutal, high energy dark electronic music and absolutely bonkers live shows. Perturbator has a large catalog of content- I am the Night is definitely the starter kit. Starting off with a thick minor chord, a church bell, and a sample of Peter Finch’s speech from “Network” you immediately know what’s in store- dark, dystopian and undeniably French electronic dance music, complete with breathtaking beat breaks, big bass synths, and complex compositions.

Innerworld (2014) Electric Youth

I had mentioned that Drive was a major popularizer of retrowave- and one song in particular, a collaboration between another retrowave artist named College, who created the low fi, catchy bassline for the song “A Real Hero”, and the vocals and lyrics, created by an artist called Electric Youth. Their record, 2014’s “Innerworld”, is one of the best retrowave efforts, with the second track, “Runaway”, even better than the song that made them famous. The pop chorus “Maybe we could just run away for good/cuz we’re both mis understood” soaring over thick, atmospheric synth pads will have you slapping the roof of your car, as you race through the freeways of LA at 3AM.

Atlas (2016) FM-84

Speaking of roof-slapping bangers, “Running in the Night” is probably retrowave’s most popular anthem, boasting one of my absolute favorite vocal performances of the decade. A group claiming rock and roll city San Francisco as their home base (despite being both British), FM-84’s Atlas is absolutely packed with a mixture of the atmospheric instrumental Miami Vice type music suggested by the red and purple setting sun cover as well as vocal driven pop songs such as the single mentioned above.

Hardwired (2018) Mitch Murder

Mitch Murder is a retrowave institution, having made the soundtrack to the viral youtube movie Kung Fury, and also, I suspect, the original music used by twitch personality Dr. Disrespect. However, he almost entirely releases 3-5 song Eps, making it tough to pick out a standout. However that all changed in 2018 with the release of Hardwired, the most accomplished mitch murder release to date. Starting off with the Jan Hammer style “Altered State”, it stays on brand throughout but tells a very unified instrumental story of cyberpunk dystopian adventure. Vangelis-style synths bring in the closer track, “Revision Control”, one of Mitch Murder’s greatest tracks. Evolving through different moods, different scenes, we can imagine the “human” protagonist confronting his cyborg nemesis he has been tasked to execute.

Retrowave Album of the Decade:

Dark All Day (2018) Gunship

As the decade wore on, retro wave slowed down for me. I thought it might be over but- without warning, Gunship, an artist I had listened to but not been completely impressed by, released what is probably the most accomplished album in the genre. Spanning various tempos and musical themes, utilizing several guest vocalists, the scope of “Dark All Day” keeps you listening to the record again and again. This record represents an evolution in a format that was at risk of being just a fad. “Come on lost boys, lets stay alive” over a ripping saxophone lead suggests mere 80s fetishism, but there is more substance than just that. The following track, “When you Grow Up, Your Heart Dies”, takes an upbeat electro jam, and really goes for emotional impact with a series of samples of characters from pop culture saying inspirational things, my favorite being “Everything worth doing is hard” which I think is just Teddy Roosevelt. My favorite track of the record, the slow ballad “Artemis & Parzival”, begins with swooning, Vangelis-style pads and then into guest vocalist Stella Le Page’s gorgeous vocals. This track definitely belongs on anybody’s make out playlist. “Were all gonna die that’s just how it is, there’s no escaping the future, nobody gets what they want in this world, even for you and me” is one of the greatest lyrics of the decade.

 Nugaze/Shoegaze-Adjacent: Shoegaze is a genre of music that features highly layered guitar effects (often run through 10 or more effects, creating a signature “vacuum cleaner” sound with a ton of distortion and white noise) and breathy vocals. Relying heavily on the depth of character of the sound, shoegaze guitar tone and production is a major creative point and almost all of these records are self-produced. Vocal themes are usually depression-inspired and lovelorn meditations, the music sounds, to most, dull and dreary, but to some, it speaks deeply to their feelings about the past and future. Shoegaze is often mixed with other guitar genres on this list, from Post Hardcore(Nothing, Title Fight), Black Metal(Deafheaven), and Thrash Metal (Astronoid).

Road Eyes (2010) Amusement Parks on Fire

Around 2010, I was promoted at my job to a new role that would require a bunch of travel. I was not a big fan of riding on airplanes. Also around that time, my brother had moved into my apartment, then out of it, and I only had a few months left on the lease. My favorite shoegaze band of the 2000s, Amusement Parks on Fire, played a gig at 330 Ritch, a club in san Francisco. I had a fantastic time at the show, and particularly loved their new material, which made it onto a record they called Road Eyes. 2 months later I moved out of my apartment in San Francisco and never would go back to living as a single dude.

Anyways, the travelling. The opening and title track to the record came to symbolize change for me. And it also was the song I would listen to every time my plane would take off. It helped me deal with the fear that something might happen- no matter how insignificant the chance – and if it did, while that song was on, it would be okay. Indeed, this was, and I will warn you I am not qualified to treat mental illness, but this actually really made flying much easier for me and it is a ritual I continue to do to this day, whenever possible.

Pipe Dreams(2013), Sway(2014), Feels like You (2019) Whirr

San Francisco nugaze/dronegaze band Whirr, large and complex, problematic, aggressive, are behind some of my favorite music of the decade. Their three album career reflects to me upon the primary feelings of youth: euphoria, anger, and sadness.

Pipe Dreams is a blissful set of jams, meditative, energetic uptempo and with almost totally co-ed vocals. Noisy production casts a hydrocarbon haze over the songs, raw vocal melodies reach out of the fuzz and suck you in. “Junebouvier” and “Toss” capture the euphoric and  youthful energy of a summer in San Francisco: starting off with breakups May thru July, and hot hookups until September or October when people settle into relationships. Two hungry eyes emerging from straight-bangs to make eye contact with you, and hold it- the exhilaration of touching somebody new.

Sway, the band’s masterwork, starts off with a heavily muff-distorted major 7th chord suspending us until the massive drums, now a hallmark of the band’s sound, kick off the beat into the opening rocker Press. The band switches up rhythms between drums, guitars, and bass to bring rock and roll-type turnarounds and breaks that really keep you on your toes and engaged. The lead guitar is classic legato shoegaze, using delay to achieve a long, sustained scream. Compositions are key on this record- not following just simple A/B patterns there’s some thought to the structure of the songs and record. “Dry”, in particular, demonstrates some of these ideas. A/B sections, underscored with “Drown me everytime… Dry”, give way to breaks, ethereal echo guitar solos, giving a hint of the powerful ending. A 4 chord progression accented by breathtaking drum fills finaly flourishes into a screaming cymbal-laden guitar finish.

Feels like You, the bands purported final album, starts off with some quiet echo piano. The melancholy major 7 chords the band has leaned on throughout their music are laid bare as we press play on the record. Add guitar. At a little after 90 seconds the band jumps in after with a thick blanket of lonesome self-reflection and chemical depression. The bands penchant for composition remains to the end, with changes keeping you engaged as the noise soothes your heart. “Younger than You” is one of the band’s greatest tracks, starting with an almost Smashing Pumpkins/Silversun Pickups esque clean unison guitar/bass into distorted and layered noise, ending with a drum-guided, rock and roll style outro.

 Guilty of Everything (2014) Nothing

One of the things I mention in my preface to this is, for me, the 2010s were the first decade of my life that ended with me not being a musician. And it opened some doors for me, creatively, to be able to hear music and think about it purely as a listener and a person. Something others have frequently described to me, that I had never really done, was just spend an entire weekend listening to an album.

I saw Nothing on KEXP 5 years ago when Guilty of Everything was out and they were on tour. I’ve seen them twice in person since them and bought every one of their records. The weekend that I got Guilty, I was attending a close friend’s sisters wedding, and pretty much was in a hotel room drunk in overcast-as-fuck santa cruz all weekend. And you know what was being played through headphones at practically all times.

Nothing is mostly the musical project of a guy named Dominic Palermo, a punk from the Philly scene that had spent more than a year in prison for a stabbing. He isn’t much of a vocalist or guitarist, but he is a fantastic artist, writer, photographer, and visionary, and the creative force behind what is now a rotating cast of other musicians.

Guilty of Everything is definitely their best record, opening with the massive meditation Hymn to the Pillory, into the definitive single Bent Nail, a perfect marriage of hardcore punk and shoegaze elements, falling apart into the 90mph crash, into a wall, final outro chorus “If you feel like/letting go…” repeated over and over over pure drone guitars, seamlessly flowing into the romantic slow jam “Endlessly” The closing title track is one of the best closers of the decade, perfectly sticking the landing on this brilliant lyric: “My hands are up, I’m on my knees I don’t have a gun, you can search me please. I’ve given up, but you shoot me anyway, I’m guilty of everything. I’m guilty of everything”.

Hyperview (2015) Title Fight

Nothing wasn’t the only Pennsylvanian post-hardcore band to bend their sound a bit shoegaze. Title Fight also sneaks onto this list with their outstanding record Hyperview from 2015. Appealing compositions and melodies combine with harmonized vocals, even some 16 beats on the hats- things we expect from post hardcore, but slowed down and smeared out a bit into the shoegaze aesthetic. My favorite track from the record, “Hypernight”, combines some screamo hype man chorus, math rock inspired guitar and bass lines, and is just all in all one of the most unique tracks to come out of the decade. “I don’t want to see things differently, its what I am taught myself to believe”.

Grandfeathered (2016) Pinkshinyultrablast

I admit that I bounced off of Russian electro-shoegazers Pinkshinyultrablast the first time I listened to them a few years ago. There was just too much going on and I didn’t really have the inclination to jump in and grab on. Operatic female vocals, noisy djenty guitar, shimmery, clean guitar, all swirl together in what is undoubtably a great record for having a tinder date IF, and I say IF, you’re willing to run a musicological acid test on them.

Whether it was listening to a bunch more music, particularly ambient music, or just changing taste now I can’t get enough of this band. They do slam from idea to idea in a song, but it’s a controlled speed- it’s not pleasant to a lot of people, but once you get yourself situated, you’ll wonder how you ever missed this band to begin with, if you’re not one of the people reading this and thinking, naw dude, I got this shit RIGHT AWAY.

The compositions on the record are, in fact, carefully considered and composed, combining noise rock with clean ambience deftly and changing up styles repeatedly throughout each song and the record. Everybody knows we can no longer control dynamics via volume in today’s world of headphone/device listening,  ultramaximizing mastering, laptop speakers, etc. So Pinkshinyultrablast controls it with style. This record is definitely the more guitar-driven of the albums from this decade, with their release 2 years later being more electronic and vocal focused.

Slowdive (2017) Slowdive/My Bloody Valentine (2013) mbv

There are two bands that are credited with creating and or popularizing the Shoegaze movement during the late 80s and early 90s. Those bands are My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive. Both of whom released albums during the 2010s. And frankly, both records are damn good for two bands that have been basically on hiatus for 20 years. Neither has really stood the test of time for me, although I listened to both exhaustively upon release. 

The opening tracks of both records are absolutely mesmerizing, this slow, sexy intro is clearly the part of them that became stronger with age. The manic rock energy of their more upbeat tracks however is absent or at least forced, and I think is what keeps these from being really what I’d call strong records. Nevertheless, both albums belong on any shoegazer’s playlists both for the quality of the music as well as the nod to the progenators of the genre we love so much.

Time n Place (2018) Kero Kero Bonito

KKB was already one of the biggest indie rock groups in the world when they released this their second full-length album. Making a big move sound-wise from super squeaky clean hip hop style production to sloppy shoegaze guitars and drums, they alienated a lot of fans with Time n Place, but I don’t see how. For me, coming in for Time n Place and then going back in the catalogue to Bonito Generation, I see it as a very natural progression. As the artists become more confident and mature, it’s natural they should explore some other emotions and moods.

That said I am not the usual KKB fan. Actually at their show in San Francisco in 2018 I was probably in the top 95 percentile of being an old fart. Around me, mostly twentysomethings on the first half decade, casually doing key bumps right on the show floor, something scared old gen Xers like me, still remembering their friend’s divorced dads in cigarette boats they sold for coke in the 80s, are still too paranoid to do. The crowd definitely starting pogo jumping at the chorus to “Only Acting” a grungy, poppy metaphor between acting on stage, and being young and in love.

Right after that, “Flyaway“ is the upbeat shoegazey manic anthem that really got me sucked into the band to begin with. Combining fuzzy guitars that are more reminiscent of Japanese rock bands of the 00s than shoegaze with a crystalline clear melodic vocal line from Sarah, this is the track where I grab a handful of dirt from my dying hill, and say if you don’t like this song, you don’t like the band, the record, or my musical taste.

Miserable Miracles (2018) Pinkshinyultrablast

Reinventing themselves record by record, Pinkshinyultrablast keeps on the cutting edge and doesn’t make a habit of anything. Miserable Miracles is more electronics driven, lead and pad synthesizers bringing in the music with their trademark soaring, operatic vocals. Guitars are present as well, but heavily stretched with cathedral reverb and long delay. A smoother sound than Grandfeathered, but well-poised to issue a majestic, meditative prayer such as “Find your Saint”, my favorite track. Like walking into a Germanic church on Sunday, the vocals rise to the ceiling forcing you to look up at the light breaking in through stained glass synthesizers. At about 100 seconds, all of the pieces drop in together to lift you into wherever it is you are going. “I used to talk- about it” brings the heavenly outro to bear, one of the most powerful musical moments of the decade.

Astronoid (2019) Astronoid

I am part of a few music groups on Facebook, and one of them mentioned this band, calling them “Dream Thrash”- a combination of dreampop and thrash metal. I’d say its more thrashgaze, with heavy effects/djenty guitar and the more whispery vocals than are a hallmark of the shoegaze genre, not the clear pop produced vocals that are the hallmark of dreampop.

That out of the way, this is possibly my favorite record of 2019. The opening track, “A New Color”, brims with energy and hopeful optimism and replaced Road Eyes as my airplane take off song. Right around 3 minutes in, when the plane is airborne and gaining climbing u to cruise, when we’re often breaking through the clouds, comes in possibly my favorite guitar solo of all time. On this record, Astronoid are unquestionably uptempo metal yet somehow at the same time being slow-changing enough to carry the emotional weight of shoegaze. The second track, “Dream in Lines”, is an aggressive, more metal-informed rocker, and the third is a power ballad that absolutely sealed the deal for me in terms of loving this album.

Other high points include the uptempo thrash jam “Breathe” and “Water”. Again infusing the metal, djenty mute strum guitar with soaring vocals and heavy backing harmonics, this record continues again and again to deliver head-banging jams that touch and heal a deep sadness in the soul. “Water” is a darker exploration, starting with a heavy chunky two-guitar & bass instrumental, virtuous breaks, and expansive echo and reverb. The band sounds like they are playing in the middle of an interstellar arena, fists human and alien in the sky.

The album sticks the landing with the penultimate track “Beyond the Scope”. This incredible song starts slowly, but upon reaching a turn, goes double-time as the melody and music climbs in pitch at 100 seconds in. This transition takes us into a greater urgency, with sustained, over-flying guitar notes keeping the harmony rich and complex.

Then, the beat drops out and a single guitar chord rings- “My hands are on my ears/They won’t stop ringing” smashes into your brain and your heart. Then again, the building section- “Feeble-minded/I can not decide/in my world, now I know/there’s no such thing as dying/so leave with a goodbye” and into another build and back to the chorus-

“My hands are on my ears/they won’t stop ringing”. I don’t think any lyric can better express the decade than that. If it were somehow possible for this album to end on this song, it would be at the head of this category.

Everything Starts to Be a Reminder (2019) Echodrone

As a former musician, I have a lot of friends who are musicians. I am very brutally honest about my feelings in music and that can make it awkward to have to comment on a friend’s hard work. Echodrone’s latest record made this very easy- the record is simply amazing. Echodrone’s earlier records bounced off of me a bit, but this one has just the right mixture of drone-drenched empty space, ethereal vocals, emotional anguish and euphoria, and a strong connection to the last 10 years in my mind. The tracks are named after the four seasons, starting with Winter and ending with Autumn. Interestingly, the tracks do not really stand out as being separate in my mind, much like how you cannot easily separate a season from another season in the same year.

“Winter” explodes with an epic, cymbal-laden meditation, that continues to grow and grow and expand, then finally becomes quieter, more melodic, and less drony in the second half of the 18 ½ minute song.

“Spring” features a finger-pick echo guitar interspersed with a beautiful co-ed vocal line guiding us down a pathway of different melodic and harmonic ideas. It then enters into a several-minutes long jammy contemplation that is utterly ecstatic to me- synths layered with effects-laden bass and more echo guitar into a full stop.

The best song on the record, “Summer”, begins with a vocal sample into a more or less straight-ahead rock and roll jam. This gives way to a downtempo effects section, then at right after 4 ½ minutes, gives way to a sound I can only call Olympian in hugeness. Fuzz bass, echoing guitars, and multilayered female vocals create this trance-like atmosphere that is rarefied and deeply marked with potent and everchanging imagery at the same time, like cream on top of coffee.

The sound continues to change and becomes quiet again once again with echo guitars carrying the music through. Back to a rhythmic return at 12 ¾ minutes. A synth flute melody flies over the whispered vocals, complex drum patterns- an opine to the end of life’s summer, the bitter sweetness of being old enough to not be hurt anymore by unlikely things failing to fly.

 Shoegaze Album of the Decade:

Sunbather (2013) Deafheaven

A single distorted guitar chord progression holding several notes through the chords for changing harmonics, exploding into double kick and even more guitars, into black metal screaming- this is the unmistakable beginning of Sunbather by San Francisco black metal band Deafheaven.

Due to its downtempo sections, overall distorted and layered production, and emotional scope, this album is loved not just by black metal fans but also by shoegaze fans such as myself. It is a perfect example of a successful crossover- not anticipated or forced in any way by the creators- but it just happens to work on so many different levels.

There are really only four songs on this record, the tracks in between them are much needed interludes. Something all Deafheaven songs do very well is compositioning. These tracks play out, in a way, like classical pieces, with many different sections, transitions, themes, changes, openings, closings, callbacks- it’s so incredibly dense and accomplished that you can listen to this album for weeks on end and still be surprised.

“Dream House” is the blazing opener of the record and puts on display everything we love about every song on here. To make this song the first track is insane, simply because of how over-the-top insanely powerful it is. After a brief interlude of just picked echo guitar, a single chord strum, the entire band comes back in a beat later, and this isn’t even the most emotional part of the song. That’s going to be at 7 minutes, 20 seconds in “I watched/It die!!!” screeches the vocalist as a guitar ostinado plays over the key notes that have been presented throughout the song in brutal crystal clarity. Then at 8 minutes- the vocalist and guitar break down, screaming and double picking guitar notes. It is difficult not to cry at this ending- and this is only the first song on the record.

“Sunbather” is both the title track and the album’s dark heart. Thrumming with a complex beat from the start, the other instruments are layered over this like a tangle of vines across an iron fence. Skillful use of double kick and drum fills keeps the band on target as we get to the breaks and turnarounds. The cymbals and guitars swirl creating complex patterns. Listening to this song from far away with extremely poor speakers would sound like static- similar to how Jupiter looks like a pale gold smear- turn up the volume a little, get a little closer, and you see the rich, threatening complexity of the swirling clouds of music and emotion. The song ends with a slow section about ¾ of the way through the 10 minute piece. An unforgettable echo guitar line plays sparsely over drums- invoking a Cure-like gothic sensibility. Then the band comes back in, playing the same melody and expanding upon it, a lighting bolt magnified to a thousand forks and twists going in all directions. It is the melodies at the end of Sunbather that were stuck in my head, unforgettable, after listening to this record. Unlike Dream House, this song ends on a down note, a question- the rest of the album is to give an answer, and incredibly, you will not be disappointed.

“Vertigo” is the longest song on the record at 14 ½ minutes, a blazing, minor key rocker that is meant to emotionally drag us down as far as we can go after Sunbather. The ending of the song invokes the Beatles “She’s So Heavy” before heading into “Windows” an ambient and spoken word piece featuring a drug deal gone bad- unquestionably a node to The Tenderloin, one of the more drug-laden districts in San Francisco and likely location of the band’s rehearsal studios.

Into “The Pecan Tree”, a song that has an seemingly impossible task: To somehow stick the landing of an extremely powerful and emotional record. We are looking for something coming into this track, but we are not totally sure what it is. We need something, but we can only follow the lights. The song opens up with insane double-kick guitar madness, 2 step rhythm, and then at 1:20 we see a glimpse through the storm, a hole of blue, that we can make it to, if we keep on going. Keep on going. Keep on walking. Smashing, swirling guitars and screams return, our view obstructed. Everything seems to be going at maximum at the end of this first section of the song.

At just after 3 minutes, the sonic assault finally begins to slow down, a march tempo into double kick continuous cymbals, back to march tempo, then, at 4 minutes 19 seconds, only picked echo guitar heralds us into the second section. The star of this section is a piano ostinato combined with the echo guitar, with a second guitar playing playful melodies over it. This is the starry night we can now see that the storm has cleared- this is the most optimistic and life affirming music on the record. A found audio recording of a detuned radio signals the ending of this section.

Eventually, this music fades just before four metal beats brings us to the conclusion- an octave-fingering guitar line and screeching vocal that is in my view one of the most awesome emotional turnarounds that I have ever experienced musically. The remaining outro sums up the entire record- life is big, difficult, unknowable, chaotic. Great albums stick the landing- and this ending does so, with incredible energy, on a record that did not even need it. Sunbather. One of the greatest rock records of all time and one of the very few of those albums to come out now, just about half a century after the 60s.

Post Punk Revivalists: The king of indie rock genres in the 00s, post punk was largely set down at the end of the decade with the major acts of the decade releasing milquetoast or downright laughable fare (are we human, or are we dancer?). However, post punk exploded back onto the scene in 2012 with The Money Store by Death Grips. Some returning groups from the 00s did end up releasing fantastic records, Roma 79 and Daughters being my favorites.

Cardinal Star (2014) Roma 79

I discovered north San Francisco bay area band Roma 79 through their single from the 00s, “Gold”, a sort of heavy, post-punk rocker with a few-thousand views on Youtube. I was very surprised when they reunited and recorded this followup album, which was one of my favorite records of 2014. Featuring a good amount of synth and dreampoppy guitar lines, the main standouts are the vocals and the brilliant drumming, which is a hallmark of great post-punk records of the 00s such as Fever to Tell or Turn On the Bright Lights. The strongest single on the record, “Seventeen”, features a complex drum lines, interlaced with vocals and synths. The song slowly builds up in emotional intensity and drops in layers of vaguely Phil Collins-esque drums and backing vocals, blossoming into a powerful meditative love song. “I’ll wait for it with you.” The final song on the record, is almost an answer to this track, closing the record on a strong point.

You Won’t Get What You Want (2018) Daughters

Daughters is another post-punk band that returned to release a followup nearly 10 years later with 2018’s “You Won’t Get What You Want”. Like all great post punk records, there are a number of characters in this room, and they all can be heard, each having their moments in the spotlight and their moments in the shadows.

One such character is the drums. A crushing combination of live and multitracking effects create a rhythm that provides both the constant heartbeat required by driving rock and roll based music, but also the texture, the complexity, that we seek out in the genre. Lots of tom toms used to keep the beat as opposed to cymbals, practically no hat. Invoking Killing Joke, except when they don’t want to right away, but bring it in later.

Another character is the vocals. Spoken word/sing song type delivery, where the mood and the words and more important than the melody. Lyrics invoke isolation, depression, contraction, abandonment, decline. It would almost be enough with just that, these drums and vocals- but this will also be added by another character, the music. The music seems to be generated mostly by guitar and bass, but there are clearly some synthesizer elements as well, used sparingly and to great effect. I can’t really describe the guitar tone, I would say, it shimmers, but not in an enlightening way. It’s like flashes in the dark, disorienting more than illuminating. The sound is like wood coming off a circular saw. It’s definitely this guitar sound that draws people into this record. All elements are moody, dark, aggressive, but it’s the guitar that really lays down flashes over the blackness.

“Satan in the Wait”, one of the best single tracks on the record, features an off-balance drum beat, carried by toms, and an air-raid siren like guitar sound. A throbbing, distorted bassline in time with the kick drum. At 1:30 in we are given a guitar riff that is beautiful and invoking of a banjo, lending a sensation of urban, southern gothic emotions. Horror film soundtracks come to mind, a combination of unsettling ambience and clear, unforgettable melodies. “Their Bodies are open” the chorus goes, making me think of world-ending events, a transformational death as seen in Arthur C. Clarkes Childhood’s End.

Another of my favorite tracks, “Daughter”, begins with a “bela legosi is dead” kick and snare rim drum beat, possibly electronic, along with a shimmery, surf-rock toned guitar riff. As the song proceeds, more elements are dropped in, and the drums are of particular note here, at 1:23 or so, they drop into a complex beat involving toms, cymbals, and snare. At 2:05 they drop in a clear guitar riff on top of raw noise, building to a climax with the vocal “There’s a war!” At this point, the noise drops out, just a clear guitar riff reminiscent of “Satan in the Wait”, drums coming in at 3:15 or so are particularly impactful.

The final track, “Guest House”, opens on a nearly unbearable sonic assault, the lyrics invoking somebody trapped outside of a bomb shelter during an apocalypse. Once again the gap between unbearable noise and beautiful melody is bridged, as the final dissonant chords give way to deep, harmonic, peaceful orchestra swells.

Post Punk Album of the Decade:

The Money Store (2012) Death Grips

The first time somebody played “Get Got” for me, it was during a really chillwave phase in my music taste and I was completely lost, and didn’t really understand what people saw in Death Grips. I was intrigued enough though, and circled back on some tracks from Exmilitary, their prior record. The more laid back tone and empty space present in tracks such as “Culture Shock” kept me interested enough to give The Money Store another shot a year or so later.

As my interest in chillwave started to fade, and I sought more emotional substance to my music, I returned to the Money Store, and was hooked. Each track is a relentless blast of aggressive drum beats, synthesizer driven melodies, and of course the unmistakable rap vocals of MC Ride.

A strong comparison for me, is between this record, and Joy Division’s second and final record, “Closer”. Relentless beats, but never getting boring, always inventing new rhythms to cast a texture over the musical landscape. Short, fast songs, transitioning from one beat and tempo to the other, never giving you a chance to catch your breath.

The music is highly influenced by hip hop, appearing to be a chopped and cut style, with synthesizers combined with production on the vocals, adding vocals, filter sweeps, reverses, etc- so much energy and craft went into creating what is on its surface very simple music- drums, vocals, and production. Standout track “Hustle Bones” does a fantastic job of expressing what is so great about every song on this record. Everything barely makes sense, but then it all comes together in a singular moment that anybody can nod their head to.

MC Ride’s best is on display in the classic hit, “I’ve Seen Footage”. In his relentless, attacking rap style, he tells us the story of watching gore or wtf videos from reddit or 4chan (or Stile Project if you’re really old like me)-  describing what he’s seen, and then underscoring that with the chorus, “I stay noided”- the character Ride creates is deeply anxious and paranoid, while at the same time being insatiable in the quest for knowing more, something I believe is nearly universal to the experience of the internet-informed human, a phenomenon that would later in the decade lead to diseases thought dead brought back by anti-vax movements, and the election of conspiracy theorist and popularizer Donald Trump as president of the united states.

And that’s the formula to each track on Money Store- working around something more or less literal, Ride’s poetry brings us into the dark state the world was only beginning to enter at the start of the decade.

Closing track “Hacker” opens with a recording of Ride, yelling, presumably at a concert “No ins and outs!!! You come out, your shit is GONE”, then into a 4-on the floor dance beat to end the record on an absolute banger. The music, carried by the beat and Ride’s systematic delivery, is left to its own devices, with glitchy, cut-off synth arpeggios, everything getting out of the way of the beat. “Having conversations with your car alarm”, “you speak with us in certain circles, you will be dethroned or detained”, and “Gaga can’t handle this shit” are some of the lyrical gems that Ride has saved for last here, closing out a post punk record that stands alongside Closer or Turn on the Bright Lights as one of the best of all time.

[millie-imber-vibes45]

Week 1: Tues 14th - Fri 17th Jan

On Tuesday, our first course of action was to finalise our setlist, consisting of 6 songs. We have also decided on the order of these songs, deciding to kick off the set in an upbeat way, slowly making out way to a more relaxed pace, before finishing up on a highly recognisable and dance-able song. These songs are as follows:

Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz

crushcrushcrush - Paramore (Replacing Girls/Girls/Girls - Panic! At The Disco)

Sidetrack - Catfish and the Bottlemen

Take It Easy - Eagles

Hey There Delilah - Plain White T’s

American Boy - Estelle ft. Kanye West

With our setlist determined, we then set out some deadlines to keep us on track in terms of rehearsals. This is in addition to the other deadlines that I listed in my previous post. All of the deadlines are now as follows:

Feel Good Inc. - Friday 10th Jan - Friday 17th Jan

CrushCrushCrush - Saturday 18th Jan - Friday 24th Jan

Hey There Delilah - Saturday 25th Jan - Tuesday 28th Jan

American Boy - Wednesday 29th Jan - Friday 31st Jan

Sidetrack - Saturday 1st February - Friday 7th February

Take It Easy - Saturday 8th February - Friday 14th February

TWO SONGS READY TO PERFORM - MONDAY 24TH FEBRUARY

HALF TERM [15th - 23rd February]

FINAL DATE: Sunday 23rd February

These dates are key to stick to, due to only having 5 weeks to perform the gig and complete the task. Providing that we’re able to stick to the schedule, we should be more than prepared for the gig! We’ve made sure to allow at least one week for each song, with the exception of Hey There Delilah simply because it’s a fairly easy song to learn, however we have already discussed changing it to make it our own, which I will mention later...

Feel Good Inc.

With everything set up, we began work on Feel Good Inc.! One of the first things we have chosen to do was to change they key of the song from E Flat to A. This makes it a much more comfortable range for our vocalist to sing, which is the most important thing when it comes to they key we choose. Additionally, we have chosen to shorten the introduction and also the ending. This is because a lot of the song is very repetitive and makes it quite a long track, and by the time we finish, our audience would most likely have gotten bored of it, which happens to be exactly the opposite of what we want. Keeping to the original tempo is our most likely course of action too, as it’s a very upbeat track and a good way to kick off our set.

By Thursday, we were able to complete a full run-through of the song, complete with the transitions from the verse to chorus, vice versa, and the endings. We did encounter a few issues during our rehearsals sessions, both in terms of playing and in terms of the equipment and the technical side of our performance. For me, I initially struggled with the drum beat, as I kept attempting to play with more bass beats than the song requires. For example, a single bar only requires 2 bass drum beats, however, since I was trying to follow the bass guitar riff, I kept putting in way too many. This was fixed by me listening to the track and playing only the snare and bass, then gradually adding in the high-hats again. Eventually, I was able to figure it out, which is crucial because it’s a key component to the song. It also helps me personally with my co-ordination between my hands and leg, because this is something that I can often struggle with. This was also key for the rest of the band, because it meant I could now play the rhythm, and everyone could follow along on their instruments without the use of the original track, in the original key. There, we could identify where we needed to improve and what sounded good.

Our main issues were working out how long the intro had to go on for, which was originally far too long, so we cut it in half. Then, it was working out the small bass riff before the chorus, and then working out the transition from chorus to verse. The Verse-Chorus transition was easy to work out, because it only lasted a bar and was a simple run-down of the notes, while I continued to play my bar, simply removing the high-hats. However, the Chorus-Verse transition was a lot harder because it’s two bars or instrumental following the end of the lyrics, but this was originally hard to pin-point, meaning that we didn’t all know when to come in and we were all guessing. So, we re-listened to the track and worked out that the vocals finished halfway through it’s bar, and then there was two more bars of instrumental after that. In total, it was 2 1/2 bars of instrumental before we went into the verse. From this point, it simply repeats, though the next Verse-Chorus transition is longer, has no bass riff to lead into it, and relies on an acoustic guitar instrumental of two rounds of the chords (8 bars) before the vocals come in. Then, the same Chorus-Verse transition, we do the final verse as the rap, and then end on the final 8 bats of the verse (Same vocals twice, then end).

The only other issue we encountered was our volume/amp/mix levels. We recorded a small snippet of our rehearsals of Feel Good Inc., and when we watched it back, we realised that the lead guitar was way too loud, and the bass and vocals way too quiet. As it would be greatly beneficial for us to be able to hear our individual parts playing all together, we will be making sure that next time, we take this into consideration when setting up our equipment.

In rehearsals, I think we were very productive, as we were able to get all of the song down before our scheduled date (Thursday instead of Friday), which means we’re very much on track so far. The part that took the most time was transposing and then working out the structure, but apart from that, everyone took the time to learn their songs quickly at home, making our rehearsal time in college more productive as we could then get more work done. Making sure that we’re all productive, on task, and even better - ahead of schedule - is part of my role as being the band’s manager, and currently I feel I am carrying out that role effectively, as shown by our current success of our progress with Feel Good Inc.

However, where I lack is in my attendance. Due to an illness, I was unable to attend on Friday, when we planned to have a meeting and begin work on our next song, crushcrushcrush. This was at very short notice, but I ensured to inform everyone the moment I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it, and advised everyone to give the next song a listen to see what start they could make. We rescheduled the meeting for our next lesson. This puts us pretty much back on our original timescale, as we could’ve been a day ahead had I been able to come in, so a personal goal for myself is to make sure I’m able to attend every scheduled rehearsal. This will greatly increase our ability to put on a successful show!

Finally, as manager, I’m responsible for making sure everyone is doing their jobs, from Musical Director to Promotional Material. Currently, everyone is on task with this - Gemma has been in charge of creating and organising the setlist, which has been done. Daizy has been actively using the band’s social media and has also taken charge of contacting venues. We currently do not have a scheduled date or venue yet, however this is being worked on closely. Manis has been taking photos and videos of our rehearsals, ready for us to put on social media for promotional usage, and Sam is working on a list of everything we will need for the gig.

Overall, I think we’re making very good progress, as we’re productive, we’re playing at a good standard and are on track for the final gig. As manager, I’m going to ensure that this continues so that we’re able to put on an enjoyable show for everyone!

More updates on our progress next week!

[rockrageradio]

On this day in Rock music history (Jan. 17th 1994).......Guns N' Roses released the single titled "Estranged". It is from the album Use Your Illusion II. The song reached #16 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. At over 9 minutes long, "Estranged", also known for its music video, is the longest song on Use Your Illusion II and Guns N' Roses' second longest song overall (after "Coma" from Use Your Illusion I). It has many verses, no set chorus, and several distinguished guitar and piano solos. Use Your Illusion II's liner notes thank lead guitarist Slash for "the killer guitar melodies", which captured Axl Rose's vision. Slash has specifically stated that recording the guitar parts for this song was very intensive for him; he recorded it using a Les Paul Gold Top, using the rhythm pickup with the tone turned all the way down. According to Slash, the song was written while the band was rehearsing for an extended period of time in Chicago. Axl revealed that he wrote the song during a more "bummed out" time in his life when his marriage with Erin Everly was annulled.

[violetsforkino]

‘riveriver’ vol. 17 ☾ march '18 ( translated by yutopia )

pentagon violet moment

delicately beautiful heart-broken love song to color the street into violet

the great ambition of self-produced idol

pentagon debuted with 'gorilla’ in japan in march last year recorded a good sales result with their 2nd japan original mini album 'violet’. started with 'violet’, a hit song handled by member kino for the first time, it also included 4 original japanese songs, and shone with the weekly no. 1 ranking in all tower record branches.

the perfect 10 members cherish team work and take care of staff. they will check out videos of overseas artists when they have time, and face music seriously every day. they understand themselves better than everyone else, and the strong ability of members to produce in their own directions is the biggest advantage of pentagon.

which song is your favorite one in the album 'violet’? kino: 'love’, since i feel like it is a song we sing for fans. yuto: me too. it’s a song that’s easy to remember. yanan: should be the title track 'violet’ (japanese version). it’s a song full of kino’s love. jinho: yeah, i think so! it’s also a song written by our adorable brother. wooseok: the melody is good enough to get you goosebumps. shinwon: it’s in a very painful and sad vibe. hui: i’ll choose 'up up up!’. it’s very delightful and i’ll feel better as i sing. e'dawn: me too! i like the song itself, not to mention the performance making it even more enjoyable! hongseok: i’ll choose 'wake up’. i like japanese anime very much. i think it will be very catchy as a theme song of anime.

please appeal to us any point in the title track 'violet’ to listen kino: same as the korean version, that yuto saying 'yuto-da’ before his rap. it sounds very sweet and i’m satisfied. i’ve never thought that this phrase will be so suitable in such a delicate song (laugh). yeoone: it should be the harmony between the sad lyrics and the beautiful melody anyway. i usually like this kind of song. e'dawn: my own part (laugh), because i rap wholeheartedly. yanan: i think so, probably. you can’t be unconfident to your own part. wooseok: no matter how many times kino sings, 'yeah violet yeah,’ at last, i still like this.

korean version is co-produced by kino, e'dawn, yuto, and wooseok jinho: the lyrics are very nice itself, especially kino who is used to reading a lot of books and i think he is emotional. we’ll be happy if you listen to the song while paying attention to the lyrics. kino: i always want to compose a song in the theme of my favorite color purple. but it’s a bit different to express love or emotion with purple… anyway, i wrote the lyrics with the thought of having more people feel empathy. hongseok: it expresses a painful feeling gently. i like this kind of view of the world. shinwon: 'your words are as pretty as a flower’ (korean lyrics). the lyric is a point as well. it sounds very dramatic.

how’s the choreography? hui: in the 2nd chorus, there’s a dance presenting the image of flower. please check out that part!

kino also took part in composition. after it’s finished, who’s the first one to listen? kino: shinwon hyung. he told me that 'it’s a very nice song,’ and i was very happy.

'violet is a kind of flower’ what is your favorite flower kino: digitalis (foxgloves). as i mentioned before, i like purple the best. therefore i think purple digitalis are very good. hui: mine is usnea. i think the color is very pretty. hongseok: mine is hibiscus syriacus (korean rose). it’s the national flower of korea hongseok: yes. flowers in pink are very beautiful. anyone who choose in the reasons other than color? yeoone: rose! since it’s the most passionate flower. e'dawn: camomile. it’s very cute. yuto: i like dandelion. wooseok: my favorite one is saffron. yanan: i prefer trees over flowers. jinho: i’m… not interested in flowers (laugh).

'beautiful’ one of track list is composed, written, and arranged by mr. jung ilhoon from btob in the same company. yanan: he is a senior who always supports us. i learned a lot in the opportunity to spend time with him. wooseok: it’s happy to have a further relationship with ilhoon hyung. hongseok: he also told us that 'let’s compose together if there’s a chance. jinho: he gave us direction nicely during the recording. what advice did he provide at the site? yeoone: he said 'if you sing confidently, it can be conveyed to the fans for sure.’ kino: during the recording, although there’s many difficulties, he praised us, 'you did well,’ and we became more eager to do better. e'dawn: when we are praised, we felt more natural and got more power. hongseok: he praised me, 'your voice is very good.’ hui: these praise gave us a lot of confidence, and he gave us many advices as well. yuto: such as, 'try your best to be aware of the strong and weak of the song. wooseok: 'try to imagine the image of each word one by one,’ he said. shinwon: he gave us detailed direction of the atmosphere of the song, and we could complete the recording safely.

each of you participated in the production including lyrics and melodies. when and how do you usually compose and write? kino: once there’s a melody or lyrics appearing in my mind, i will arrange the compositoin immediately. jinho: when a melody or idea appears, instead of working alone, i will discuss with others when i am writing. hui: i compose songs according to the mood of the day. wooseok: i also brainstorm lyrics in the mood of the day. e'dawn: i’m not the type of 'in the mood of the day.’ i always keep processing composition every day. yuto: when i am producing music, i always have myself bear in mind to explore my imagination broadly. hongseok: i’m not quite used to doing it myself, so i foten do it with kino. i will discuss concept and theme with kino in the process.

which artists or producers are you influenced by?hui: i’m influenced by mr. yoon jongshin greatly. kino: mura masa, a producer from the u.km and a singer-songwriter troy sivan. i feel like i share similar emotion with the two and i am also influenced at the production aspect. e'dawn: i want to produce music that gives others power like michael jackson does. wooseok: for me, it’s american hip-hop artist joey badass! shinwon: i’m much influenced by one direction member harry styles. i’m thinking about trying to compose with guitar like he does. yeoone: i’m not influenced by particular artist. i just listen to new age music a lot.

not only pentagon’s songs, hui also handled wanna one’s 'energetic’ and 'never’, showered in the spotlight in the name of 'composition idol’ in a leap. hui: i am sincerely grateful to the attention towards my music, i feel honored. i will work hard to present music in different genres hereafter.

2017 is a very compacted year. look back then, how do you feel> kino: since we did a lot of things, i think we really worked hard as pentagon. jinho: i feel like all the things i wanted to do were achieved, so it’s a proud year. shinwon: it’s a very good standing point towards 2018. wooseok: but i think we are still at the starting line. e'dawn: i think it’s a year that we have ot be thankful to those who support us.

if you praise yourself at this moment? yanan: we shouldn’t praise ourselves, because we’re still not good enough.

then, if you give yourself a yell, what would you say other than 'what a hard year! fighting for this year too!’? hui: i want to say 'don’t forget your initial resolution this year!’ e'dawn: 'don’t forget your thankful heart’

other than yourself, if you have to choose a member to give out some messages, to whom and what will you tell him? yuto: i want to tell yeoone hyung that 'what a hard work for drama shooting!e'dawn: i will tell yanan that, 'thank you for being the mascot of pentagon’ wooseok: i will say to yanan hyung as well, 'let’s work hard hereafter!’ kino: i will say to hui hyung. although 2017 is tremendously hard year, he put so much effort in for pentagon. 'don’t feel stressful from now, huiting!’ jinho: i want to say something to hui, too. 'for being a leader, and writing songs for us, i am always grateful!’ shinwon: i want to tell hui and e'dawn hyung who participated in triple h that, 'here you have run without any rest in 2017, it’s been really hard!’ hui: i want to tell all the members that, 'you’ve worked hard this whole year. from now on, let’s do our best as happily as we do at this moment!’ yeoone: i also want to say, 'what a hard year,’ to all of us. hongsoek: we have overcme a lot of difficulties in this year. yanan: i want to praise us, but we may have feel self-satisfied, so i chose not to praise! (laugh).

what’s your personal target this year? kino: i want to give out better songs. hui: i want to compose many songs. jinho: i want to compose good songs! yeoone: i still want the group to shine on the 1st place of music program. hongseok: i want to try on dramas, movies, and musicals, etc! yuto: to train up my ability in rap, lyrics, and composition. shinwon: i want to have myself grown more. e'dawn: i want to show a better me! wooseok: i want to work out harder and build up my body. yanan: i want to work hard in order to be able to have promotions in china.

finally we’ll have leader to tell us pentagon’s ambition this year hui: we hope to have more meeting with universe who loves pentagon, and to deliver our music to more people. to get more love, we will do our best hereafter!

after going through mnet 'pentagon maker’, they debuted in 2016. they are a 10-member group with multi-nationalities included korean, japanese, and chinese. they debuted in japan in march 2017. the members share a strong bond with each other, and their biggest charm is that all of them are able to compose and write. the japan 2nd original mini album 'violet’ released on 17 jan became a good start of 2018.

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

Benjamin Koppel: Art of the Quartet (Unit Records, 2020)

Benjamin Koppel: alto saxophone; Kenny Werner: piano; Scott Colley: bass; Jack DeJohnette: drums.

Danish saxophonist Benjamin Koppel possesses a wealth of talent and a huge skill set. He can play anything from soul, funk and R&B as evidenced The Ultimate Soul And Jazz Review (released  as a sister companion album to the present collection) avant garde, and composed pieces. Art Of The Quartet his latest release on his own Unit Records is a stunning double disc exploring both free and more structured (but no less adventurous) playing with an equally stunning collective: Kenny Werner on piano, Scott Colley on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. The group is truly a selfless collective for a variety of originals by Koppel, Werner, DeJohnette, Colley, a standard, and two sprawling free improvisations.

The rapport of the group can be traced back to several associations the saxophonist procured over the years, for example Koppel had played in a group with Kenny Werner, Scott Colley and Antonio Sanchez, and DeJohnette, always up for creative, exploratory music rounds out the project.  There’s a particularly supple connection between the quartet that makes their interaction a joy to hear.  Werner and DeJohnette had previously appeared with David Liebman on Fire (Jazzline, 2018), and the pianist’s own leader date A Delicate Balance ( BMG France/RCA Victor, 1997).  There is a marvelous moment on the first disc’s pace setting “Free I” where the pianist’s abrupt, prodding, jabbing chords are perfectly complemented by DeJohnette’s stuttering, quaking accompaniment, redolent of a fish fighting to breathe out of water.  Koppel enters with a searing late Coltrane ish tone and engages in thrilling four way dialogue, gradually evolving into scattered shapes where Koppel is emulating funk guitar figures and furthering the rhythmic role as he initiates an ostinato as a cue for DeJohnette to explode all over his kit.  “Bells of Belief” is a composition by the saxophonist based on a piece of Gyorgy Ligeti’s that so inspired DeJohnette that a break in the session was called so that he could drive home and pick up a set of bells that would work for the tune.  

DeJohnette makes creative use of the bells, their timbre similar to Tibetan singing chanting bowls and his own resonating bells that Sabian released over a decade ago.  He opens the piece with shimmery, golden melodic tones that blossom into full throated chords.  Koppel offers shades of Jan Garbarek with a deep cry, and as his solo builds over a rubato foundation, the conversation between  he and DeJohnette recalls John Coltrane and Rashied Ali on Interstellar Space (Impulse! rec. 1967/rel. 1973).  DeJohnette reprises “Ahmad The Terrible” from the classic Album Album (ECM, 1984) whereas the original dovetailed into a nice swing section, this fiery rendition takes on a see saw character.

After the first disc closes with the dramatic arc of “Free II” where the saxophonist tonewise hints at David Sanborn and Michael Brecker, disc 2  takes on a more structured song tact with Werner’s beautiful “Iago”.  Koppel’s impassioned testimony is punctuated by DeJohnette’s interjection of reactionary ideas, and the drummer’s trademark half swung straight eighth note feel is broken up by massive fills during Werner’s intense statement.  Colley rounds it out with a concise melodic statement carrying on the huge toned tradition of both Wilbur Ware and Charlie Haden.  “Ballad for Trane” is a perfect example of how musicians can use the inspiration of the mood set by the classic John Coltrane Quartet without mere imitation, and the group smokes through a spirited “If I Should Lose You” replete with a bouncy Colley solo, and DeJohnette barreling through taking turns improvising with Colley.  DeJohnette’s “One on One” originally appeared on Special Edition’s Earth Walk (Blue Note, 1991) and employs a similar compositional device that the drummer and pianist used on his classic “One For Eric” with a portion of the melody in half time before ramping up to explosive swing.  Koppel soars over free time, Werner turns in some of his spikiest playing of the set and benefits from DeJohnette’s swing.  To close the album, Werner’s “Sada” based on a chant from his ashram is a wonderfully reflective piece.  Colley’s bowed E flat pedal point turning into a simple vamp and DeJohnette’s floating pulse bring the tune closer in feel to some of Keith Jarrett’s more ritualistic, groove driven pieces found on many solo concerts and the Standard Trio’s Changeless (ECM, 1987).  In a way given Jarrett’s recent news of no longer being able to play due to two strokes suffered in 2018, though this Koppel quartet was recorded in March of 2015, it ends up being an unintended fitting tribute with the undeniable Jarrett tinge.  Koppel’s playing here is glistening and transcendent.

Sound:

Recorded in March of 2015, Art Of The Quartet was recorded at Clubhouse Studios in Rhinebeck, NY a studio recommended to Koppel by DeJohnette.  The recording, by Julie Last and Bella Blasko is an incredibly detailed, present recording.  It is clear from listening that this was recorded live in the studio with a lot of close miking and subtle hints of reverb added, especially on Koppel’s alto for atmosphere.  The sound of DeJohnette’s bells on a quality speaker like the Focal Chorus 716 must be heard to be believed.  In particular when listening to the CD, there is a palpable sense of glow created by the harmonics of each bell,being rendered in rich detail.  Colley’s bass is natural, gargantuan and full of woodiness, and Koppel’s alto, combined with the Schiit Modius DAC has scale, and an urgency.

Concluding Thoughts:

With Art Of The Quartet Benjamin Koppel makes a real statement.  Though he has recorded a host of records with the biggest names in jazz, the fluency of this group with Werner, Colley and DeJohnette is as if this has been a working unit for years.  While the music isn’t groundbreaking in terms of the next new thing, what it is,  is chancetaking, inspired and taking full advantage of the moment.  Koppel has one of the most distinct alto voices among a generation of contemporary players of a younger generation such as the rising Immanuel Wilkins, and perhaps the imminent most influential alto player of his generation, Miguel Zenon.  Art Of The Quartet is simply, one of the best albums of the year.

Music: 10/10

Sound: 9.5/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Yamaha RS 202 stereo receiver

Focal Chorus 716 floor standing speakers

Schiit Modius DAC

Sony Playstation 3 (for CD playback)

[bakagamieru]

At the end of 2015, One Direction fans around the world were feeling sad and uncertain. It was the beginning of One Direction’s hiatus, and while the guys claimed it would only be an 18-month break, Directioners had a sinking feeling that there wasn’t actually a plan for the guys to come back together in the foreseeable future.

Shortly after that, Zayn Malik (who left the group on March 25, 2015) delivered the first of many One Direction solo projects with the sultry and (scandalous) “Pillowtalk” on Jan. 26, 2016. Although he was already not part of the group, it was the first time fans heard a 1Der do his own thing — and it was just the beginning.

A year and a half later, all five One Direction guys (Malik, Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne) have released solo material, with Horan becoming the third to release a full-length album, Flicker, this Friday (Oct. 20) -- also the same day that Payne released his second official single, “Bedroom Floor.”

When they were a unit, the quintet was able to go in, well, one direction musically. But since they've been given the individual freedom to try whatever genre they wanted, it's been evident that they actually all had very different aspirations for the kind of music they wanted to make — or at least where their voices best fit, whether it's R&B or classic rock.

The first indication of where the guys wanted to take their careers genre-wise occurred before 1D was even a thing, when they each auditioned for The X Factor UK in 2010. As Billboard previously pointed out, their audition songs were comparable to the music they're making on their own -- and without the voices or even just opinions of four other members, each guy has really been able to hone in on their specific sounds and skills.

Inherently, all five still carry a pop influence in their music, but have each found a unique lane. Here’s how all five members have ultimately found their own direction.

Zayn Malik — R&B

Although Malik’s early departure from the group hinted that his music would also be a departure from the pop-rock hits One Direction became known for, the booming bass and NSFW lyrics (like "In the bed all day, bed all day, bed all day/ Fucking and fighting" of his debut single "Pillowtalk" made it very clear that his PG-related days were over. And while Malik’s voice worked flawlessly for the belt-out moments of a 1D classic, doing things his own way resulted on his debut album Mind of Mine in an edge we hadn’t ever seen from him before, especially on the scornful “BeFoUr” and the haunting “iT’s YoU."

Since Mind of Mine, Malik has collaborated with Taylor Swift, PartyNextDoor and Sia, each of whom has allowed him to flex his falsetto, as well as try out different sounds, like the tropical vibe on the PND team-up “Still Got Time.” His most recent release “Dusk Til Dawn” (with Sia) has a building melody and booming chorus that makes for perhaps Malik’s most dynamic release yet, also further showing that pop-influenced R&B is where his voice was meant to be from the start.

Niall Horan — Singer/songwriter

Horan was the most soft-spoken member of One Direction, with his solos providing a sweet, soothing balance to Malik and Styles’ power moments. He honed in on the pleasantness of his voice with his solo debut single, “This Town,” an entirely acoustic track that highlighted just how pure his vocals can be -- and with his new album, Flicker, he ran with that simplicity.

Putting soft guitar behind a voice like Horan’s is exactly the way to help him shine, especially when it involves heartfelt lyrics like "I forget you're not here when I close my eyes/ Do you still think of me sometimes?” Horan has stuck with 1D producer Julian Bunetta for his solo material, which has really helped him highlight the best parts of his voice. But while there are other slow melodies like “This Town” on Flicker (the title track, as well as album-enders “Fire Away” and “You and Me”), there’s also plenty of riskier digressions like the sexy “Slow Hands” — which earned Horan his first No. 1 on the Pop Songs chart — and the country-tinged Maren Morris collaboration “Seeing Blind."

Upbeat tracks like “Since We’re Alone” make it pretty safe to argue that Horan has stayed closest to the wholesome One Direction vibe, especially the material on the group's latter two albums. But rather than trying to achieve every special moment 1D had, Horan has stuck with a tone he can really drive home, creating special moments of his own.

Louis Tomlinson — EDM-pop

Less than two months after Horan surprise-dropped “This Town,” Tomlinson revealed a Steve Aoki collaboration, “Just Hold On” — a song that was almost even more unexpected, simply because EDM was a genre One Direction had never even waded into in their five years. Like Horan, Tomlinson has a bit of a softer tone to his voice, but also has the capability to belt when he wants. His voice pretty seamlessly intertwined with an electronic topline melody on “Just Hold On," and passionate screams in the chorus also allowed him to show off a little.

Tomlinson carried the electronic influence with him on his second single, “Back To You,” enlisting Digital Farm Animals to produce and frequent dance collaborator Bebe Rexha to split vocals. The production is a little more stripped back than Aoki’s thumping track, with the bouncy beat helping to bring more attention to Tomlinson’s voice. He finally got the full spotlight on his most recent release, “Just Like You,” which meets his previous two singles in the middle, showcasing his vocal smoothness over an electro-pop bass line (or drop) — and that that’s where he feels most comfortable musically, at least for now.

Harry Styles — Classic rock

Any Mick Jagger comparisons Styles may have faced during the One Direction era have basically come to fruition, since he debuted with the poignant power ballad “Sign of the Times” back in April. The rock ballad spawned plenty of other classic comparisons, with the climb of the chorus mirroring David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” and Styles’ wailing finale bringing Foreigner’s "I Want to Know What Love Is” to mind. As mentioned, Styles and Malik were the two primary power-moment 1D guys -- and Styles hasn't lost that prowess in his own music, but now it's set to heavier guitar that he matches with vocals more risqué than he attempted in the 1D days.

Harry's self-titled album brings both his vocals and vintage instrumentation to the forefront, yet it feels less kitschy and more raw than any such One Direction track. The classic rock sound makes it possible for him to be more fearless in his delivery, which is displayed in feistier tracks like the thrashing "Kiwi", and more intimate feels like those in acoustic opener "Meet Me in the Hallway." Styles was always a standout vocalist in One Direction, but the rough-around-the-edges sound of his solo material almost feels like he has been reborn into another era -- one he was always supposed to be part of.

And to top off the vocals, Styles sports some seriously rock star suits while performing. Talk about owning the rock vibes.

Liam Payne — Hip-pop

Unlike Tomlinson’s trio of EDM-influenced pop hits, Payne’s three releases are all rather different, so it's hard to tell exactly which direction Payne is going to take musically. But if he wants to use the metrics of his debut single “Strip That Down” to gauge where he should go from his first release, the hip-hop/pop crossover feel isn’t necessarily a bad lane. The Quavo-featuring track recently took over Horan's "Slow Hands" for the top spot on the Pop Songs chart, proving that going in a racier direction both lyrically and musically was definitely not a bad thing for Liam.

"You know, I used to be in 1D (now I'm out, free)/ People want me for one thing (that's not me)/ I'm not changing, the way, that I (used to be),” Payne sings in “Strip That Down” — and actually, the 24-year-old’s subsequent releases hold true to that sentiment. While “Strip That Down” was a bold move into a more hip-hop sound, Payne dabbled in dance on the Zedd team-up “Get Low” and most recent single “Bedroom Floor” highlights his falsetto through a combination of pop, EDM and hip-hop. Payne has the most eclectic solo repertoire so far, and with his malleable vocals, he’s been able to experiment with where his sound best fits. As for where he’ll end up overall, we’ll wait and see, but clearly he’s doing things right for now.

If there’s one thing that the One Direction solo endeavors have done for all five guys, it’s reminding the world that they’re each individually talented in their own right, and there’s a reason they were all part of one of the most successful boy bands of all time. Sure, a group full of young, adorable British men is a big sell in its itself, but it’s ultimately the guys' voices that won people over -- and now, they’re each getting a chance to do what they want with their talents, with their individual styles remaining distinct enough that they really can each have their own direction.

[bcipolla95-blog]

Studio listening and creating our artistic vision - 27th March

This was our first studio session since the hand-in for the development recordings. From the beginning of Jan until the end of March we regularly have been using Studio 2 for other modules and feel extremely comfortable with using the S6 console and various plug-ins. We started the session by listening to a range of artists for developing my acoustic song ‘Yellow Moon’ into a neo-soul, hip-hop track. Here are four tracks which we listened to intensely, to discover what we could incorporate in terms of tonality and instrumentation for our tracks.

Nate Smith – Bounce parts 1 and 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQlpgGoXLc

This track by Nate Smith captures the essence of a drummer who has a very natural feel being slightly behind the beat, which is a typical characteristic of neo-soul and hip-hop. Even though we wouldn’t be using a real drummer, Adam and I discussed how we would manipulate sampled drums for it to sound as real and lively as possible. Our initial intention of making our sampled drums sound like as if we recorded them live would be to use EQ and compression as performance enhancers on each individual element of the drum sequencer.

Bruno Mars – Chunky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oacaq_1TkMU

Adam discovered in this track that there is a snare on beat 2 and then a clap on beat 4, which creates two different beat tones in the chorus. We took note of this technique and began to develop a beta for jewellery lane with different snare sounds on beats 2 and 4.

 Zak Abel – Running from Myself 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_Yg-BOWK4

 In Zak Abel’s “Running from Myself” a catchy countermelody in the chorus stands out from the main vocal line (track). We felt that there was space in the chorus for a countermelody, so Adam recorded a riff with an organ setting on the Nord keyboard. We fine-tuned the tone of the organ by adding a bit of distortion so that it would cut through with intent during the chorus.

 Kendrick Lamar – King Kunta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRK7PVJFbS8

Adam and I particularly like the bass resonance and sub-frequencies in this record, in which we began to emulate in some of our tracks.

Here was our agenda of the day, in which we used for the majority of our future sessions in the studio.

 9 – 10am – Research tracks / intensive listening

10am – 12pm – Beat mapping of Yellow Moon using Boom drum sequencer

1 – 2pm – We recorded acoustic guitar and vocals for Jewellery Lane and Yellow Moon

3pm – Adam and I discussed future dates for the studio and booked them online because we were aware that other groups were beginning to book up studio time

[caseclosedonsilvershore]

A-HA – The Last Hurrah

by

Barry Page

|

posted in:

Features

|It’s hard to conceive it all comes to an end

In October 2009, A-Ha announced they were to split following a final world tour. Here The Electricity Club looks back at the career of the Scandinavian phenomenon, and reports from the Brighton Centre, the scene of one of their final UK shows.

It has already been an incredible year for fans of the Norwegian trio, one that has seen the release of remastered editions of Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days, an updated version of Jan Omdah’s insightful book The Swing of Things, a final single ‘Butterfly, Butterfly’<, a perfectly sequenced compilation album 25 and, finally, a medium where Morten Harket, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen have become increasingly more comfortable with over the years: the live arena. The band officially retired following four nights at the Oslo Spektrum on 4th December 2010.

It’s the first night of the UK leg of A-Ha’s 70-date Farewell Tour, subtitled Ending on a High Note. And the popular Norwegian trio are doing just that, rounding off a memorable career with a tour and setlist that encompasses every facet of their illustrious 25-year journey. “Let’s make it a celebratory thing,” announces keyboardist Furuholmen a few songs into the set.

The build-up to the finale in Norway’s capital is ten dates in the UK; and the British market has certainly served the trio well since ‘Take On Me’ made its global stranglehold on the charts 25 years ago. Of course it was Jennifer Rush’s corny ballad ‘The Power of Love’ that prevented this iconic single from hitting the top of the charts in the UK in 1985, and the history books show ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ as their only number one hit in this territory. It’s this powerful synth-rock epic that they open with tonight. Somewhat surprisingly, it is one of only three songs from their debut album that they will play tonight, and it’s a disappointment not to hear the likes of ‘Train Of Thought’ and ‘Living A Boy’s Adventure Tale’. Those fortunate enough to see them at the Royal Albert Hall in October will have delighted in the fact that they played their first two albums in their entirety.

Scoundrel Days (arguably their best album), is well represented tonight though, and accounts for almost a quarter of the 21-track set. Its brilliant bloodstained title track is given another well-deserved airing, with its bleak, tension-filled verses and a soaring chorus that has become something of a trademark. The south coast crowd are also treated to a rather raw version of the epic ‘Manhattan Skyline’, which is punctuated with some beautiful harpsichord playing by Furuholmen and some unsettling bursts of megaphone singing from reluctant frontman Harket. ‘I’ve Been Losing You’s opening bars still send shivers down the spine after all these years, while ‘We’re Looking For The Whales’ gets a surprise inclusion in the set at the expense of ‘The Swing Of Things’. ‘Cry Wolf’ gets an extended workout with some pounding drums from drummer Karl-Oluf Wennerberg, and Furuholmen even manages to subtly incorporate hints of The Doors’ ‘Riders On The Storm’.

Of course, it was the legendary Californian quartet who were to prove influential on recordings such as the East Of The Sun West Of The Moon album; and on earlier tracks such as ‘Here I Stand And Face The Rain’, you can certainly hear their influence. A-Ha have also been influenced by other 60s luminaries over the years such as The Beatles and The Everly Brothers. Tonight the latter’s ‘Crying In The Rain’ is performed during a momentum-halting mid-show campfire spot alongside swansong ‘Butterfly, Butterfly’ and ‘(Seemingly) Nonstop July’ where the band are reduced to playing a baby grand piano and acoustic guitar.

A-Ha’s 60s influences were certainly more prevalent in the early 90s as the band gradually moved away from the electronics that had permeated their earlier recordings. By 1993’s Memorial Beach album, A-Ha had finally shrugged off their poster-boy image as they adopted a fuller, rockier sound for the American market. From that album they play ‘Move To Memphis’ during a first half of the set that is dominated by hit singles.

Following the Memorial Beach album, A-Ha were placed on hiatus while Harket commenced a solo career, and Waaktaar-Savoy formed the sadly overlooked indie-pop band Savoy with his wife Lauren. Meanwhile, Furuholmen dabbled in soundtrack work whilst continuing to pursue his interests in the art world. Fast forward to the new millennium and the end of A-HA’s so-called ‘seven-year-itch’, and the newly-focused trio were a slightly more democratic affair; less reliant on the tension-fuelled creativity of Messrs Waaktaar-Savoy and Furuholmen, and employing more of Harket’s lighter material. With chief songwriter Waaktaar-Savoy effectively writing for 2 bands, Furuholmen was able to build on his reputation as an excellent songwriter with beautiful compositions such as ‘Lifelines’ and ‘Birthright’. By 2005’s Analogue album, they were once again flirting with a rockier sound. At the Brighton Centre they perform the title track of that album, with its simplistic piano riff and huge chorus, and the laconic Waaktaar-Savoy is given another chance to rock-out. From 2002’s Lifelines opus we get the Harket-penned ‘Forever Not Yours’ and from Minor Earth Major Sky we get the powerful title track and ‘Summer Moved On’, the vocal ‘tour-de-force’ that announced their reunion in 1998. Incredibly, even at the age of 51, Harket can still hit those notes and you soon forget how ropey the sound in the auditorium is.

By 2009, A-Ha were revisiting their electronic roots. Foot Of The Mountain, which easily sits alongside some of their best work, was a solid 10-track album that proved it was possible to be both contemporary and retro. It played to the band’s strengths, with all the material being penned by Waaktaar-Savoy and Furuholmen. Synth Britannia influences such as Depeche Mode can be heard on tracks such as ‘What There Is’. Indeed, in recent years the band have covered ‘A Question Of Lust’, and also Soft Cell’s ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’. Elsewhere on the album, the beautiful epic closer ‘Start The Simulator’ recalls vintage OMD, when the Liverpudlian duo were writing intelligent pop songs about oil refineries and the atomic bomb.

And let’s not also forget that ‘Take On Me’s main synth riff was composed in 1981.

Debut album Hunting High and Low also has another key Synth Britannia connection – the bulk of it was produced by Tony Mansfield who had previously fronted the synthpop act New Musik. Mansfield would later produce the likes of Naked Eyes, whose debut album Burning Bridges is notable for being one of the first albums to significantly feature the Fairlight CMI, an instrument that was to feature heavily on A-Ha’s debut. Mansfield also produced the original version of ‘Take On Me’ that was released in 1984 selling just 300 copies, before Alan Tarney was recruited to produce the timeless version that we all know and love. It’s funny to think that A-Ha’s two biggest hits were helmed by a man synonymous with writing and recording for Cliff Richard, but Tarney’s pop sensibilities were to prove crucial while the band were developing their sound, and his services were retained until 1990.

Unsurprisingly, it is *that* single which is played in a finale that includes a rather overblown version of ‘The Living Daylights’, the James Bond theme from 1987 that indicated just how far this Norwegian export had come in the space of just a few years. At this point in the show, the people in the balconies finally wake up and rise to their feet, but it all feels like an anti-climax as emotion quickly turns to cynicism. Is this supposed farewell tour a shameless marketing opportunity, or will this pop phenomenon reunite again in the future? It’s perhaps too early to speculate at this stage as Harket is expected to resume his solo career, and prolific songwriter Waaktaar-Savoy will be turning his attentions to Savoy in the New Year. They have already released six albums since 1996, including a career-rounding retrospective. Furuholmen, who revealed this year that he has been suffering from a heart condition, has announced his intent to work with members of Muse and Coldplay. As for A-Ha their place in the pantheon of intelligent pop music is already assured, and they leave a legacy of nine albums and some wonderful, melancholic pop songs.

www.a-ha.com

Photos by Lori Tarchala 4th December 2010

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

A deeper look at: The Brecker Brothers- Live and Unreleased (Piloo Records, 2020/rec. 1980)

Randy Brecker: trumpet & vocals; Michael Brecker: tenor sax; Mark Gray: keyboards; Barry Finnerty: guitar; Neil Jason: bass & vocals; Richie Morales: drums

At the dawn of the 80's  Randy and Michael Brecker had been one of the hottest commodities on the music scene.  They initially made a splash in 1970 as part of the horn section  on Dreams (Columbia) the self titled debut album from the studio driven band of the same name.  Dreams, the brainchild of vocalist/producer/composer Jeff Kent is significant because like Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969, rel. 1970) and the Tony Williams Lifetime's pivotal Emergency (Polydor, 1969) it ushered in an amalgamation of jazz and rock that was completely fresh and something that would continue into the decade most notably with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and the Latin driven sound of Caldera.  Dreams, featured luminaries like  Billy Cobham, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Doug Lubahn (who appeared on three of the  Doors' albums) and trombonist Barry Rogers, and with the vocal driven+ horns combination the group entered territory close to early Terry Kath era Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears.  The Brecker Brothers would then move on to join the Horace Silver Quintet-- Michael would only appear on In Pursuit Of the 27th Man (Blue Note, 1972) while the trumpeter would appear on three albums: You Gotta Take A Little Love (1968), The United States of  Mind Phase I , That Healin' Feelin (1970) and the aforementioned In Pursuit Of the 27th Man. As the seventies wore on, the brothers would log valuable time as members of Billy Cobham's group and individually as session musicians running the gamut from Parliament Funkadelic, Frank Zappa, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Michael Franks among others.  

At this time, the Breckers' had found themselves in the midst of something incredibly creative.  As session musicians, there was a movement among several, including vibraphone innovator Mike Mainieri, the late pianist Don Grolnick, David Sanborn and Steve Gadd to fuse the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of jazz,  with funk and other popular music. As a result of the fruits of these musical inventions Mainieri formed Steps, better known as Steps Ahead with Michael Brecker, Grolnick, and Gadd  (later replaced by Peter Erskine) in tow plus bassist Eddie Gomez. The band would record the classic Smokin' In The Pit (Better Days/NYC Records, 1979) Step By Step (1979) and Paradox (1981).  All this music was recorded during the Brecker Brothers' peak, they also owned the storied Seventh Avenue South club, an incubator for like minded musicians who were interested in exploring this unique style.

The recently unearthed two CD Brecker Brothers: Live and Unreleased recorded at the famous club Onkel Po's in Germany on July 2, 1980 features the band in their absolute prime.  The set list consists uncompromising versions of  well known tracks that are mostly drawn from the then recent George Duke produced Detente (Arista, 1980) and their  other Arista recordings, including The Brecker Bros (1975), Don’t Stop The Music (1977) and extended, far superior versions  of  nearly all of the compositions that appeared on  Heavy Metal Bebop (1978).  The album is also the first chapter in a new phase of Michael Brecker's playing with this gig occurring just a month after taping Pat Metheny's 80/81 (ECM, 1980) and album that signaled a marked shift in the tenor man's facility and conception. As the sadly missed saxophone icon said in Metheny's podcast on the making of the album, “there was everything before 80/81 and everything AFTER 80/81”.  This is also the first “new” music heard from  him since the final album as a leader with Pilgrimage (Heads Up, 2007).

Live And Unreleased catches the group absolutely on fire.  The group includes Randy on trumpet and vocals, Michael on tenor, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Mark Gray on keyboards, Neil Jason on bass and vocals and drummer Richie Morales. Over the ten selections which form a nice cross section of their catalog, they take on this spunky, New York rawness that eschews the slick heavier production of the studio albums.  The tunes with their slick, and wry humored harmonic complexity and pounding funk are wonderful blowing vehicles for high octane solos.  The saxophonist's “Strap Hangin'” from the band's yet to be released final Arista recording the next year,  is a portrait in a nutshell  of what this music is all about: fun.  Often, within the problematic linear jazz narrative, upon it's release, outside of serious musician circles at Berklee and local levels where these tunes were oft played, jazz critics derided these albums as empty musical effluvia conforming staunchly to the decade's stylistic and production tropes.  While yes, some of the music on the studio recordings is very of it's time, there is some serious meat on the bone in these tunes.  The tongue in cheek intro conjuring images of the Queen's Guards at the British Royal Palace gives way to the composition's sinewy, tough street  wise melody. The bridge chords allow for both Breckers' to glide with hard swinging, behind the beat phrasing in their solos.  Randy showcases tremendous range and agility with a Freddie Hubbard like bravura, and Michael ravenously eats the changes, unfurling furious cascades that are now much beloved phrases that are much copied by his disciples. “Tee'd Off” is a sultry example of rhythmically driven funk, but the most significant piece on the album,  is the  18 minute plus version of “Funky Sea, Funky Dew”.  Each night, as Randy Brecker alludes to in the liners, the band would leave Michael on stage alone for a lengthy cadenza.  Here, the saxophonist engages in the best solo of the entire set, dipping into gravity defying acrobatics, funky, swinging asides (with Barry Finnerty behind him) and most important, a display of pre EWI electronic experimentation.  Many hallmarks of Michael's EWI approach are found here in this predecessor.  Disc 1 finishes with the explosive “I Don't Know Either”, where Richie Morales is in his deepest Steve Gadd groove mode.

A Doobie Brothers style shuffle is employed on “Inside Out” where everyone lets loose soloing on blues changes for the most part, albeit with a trickier more ornate prelude setting up the blues changes.  Mark Gray soars in particular with his Jan Hammer and George Duke flavored Moog solo, and Michael Brecker displays his affinity for Stanley Turrentine in spots.  “Baffled” features a lengthy drum solo from Morales investigates the Mozambique and bembe rhythms, and an exploratory, angular, Randy Brecker solo in Woody Shaw territory.  “Don't Get Funny With My Money” a Zappa-esque slice of absurd silliness closes the album with vocals from  Randy Brecker.

Sound:

Taken from masters from the NDR Radio vaults, Live and Unreleased is about as pristine as one could get.  Saxophone and trumpet timbres are particularly vivid, trumpet left center and saxophone right center.  The drums, as the recording is from 1980, have that familiar dead punch familiar to the era, Morales’ toms had black dot heads with no bottom head, again typical of the era. Dead, deep snare in the center channel with equally dead toms across the sound stage, and shimmery cymbals.  The sound stage though wide and nicely separated is quite close up. This is very amped up, electric music afterall!

Closing Thoughts

Live and Unreleased is a wonderful addition to the Brecker Brothers discography.  The raw, stripped down nature is a conduit for crackling solos, and lockstep group interplay, with absolutely unhinged Randy and Michael Brecker at their absolute best.  It's a reminder of how sorely missed the saxophonist is, and the towering influence he had on several generations of players that continues to the present.

Music rating: 9.5/10

Sound rating: 8/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Yamaha RS 202 Stereo receiver

Focal Chorus 716 Floor Standing speakers

Schiit Modius DAC

Musicbee (for WAV file playback)

[avaliveradio]

Feed The Kitty's New Single Lost and Found is about coming to terms with addiction

Artist: Feed The Kitty

New Release: Lost and Found

Genre: Rock

Sounds like: : Zak Brown Band, Beck, The Allman Brothers

Located in: : Los Angeles, California

This song is about finding yourself after coming down from a twenty-year party and ultimately coming to terms with addiction. It encompasses our musical brand of back-alley rock n roll influenced by Americana roots. 

It features Duane Betts (son of Dickie Betts) on lead guitar and Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters/ Wallflowers) on the organ. It’s an uplifting, positive yet moody song that will make you feel empowered.

The music...

 we are creating right now is a reflection of our ever-growing inner relationships with ourselves combined with a colorful canvas of the fragile state of the world.

On Jan. 1st, 2020, FTK released an album called “Ain’t Dead Yet” with a song called “I’m Not Scared of Dyin” not knowing what obstacles we were about to embrace upon.

We quickly followed up with the fresh yet nostalgic sound of “Lost and Found” to capture a meaningful message of perseverance and determination.

Moving Forward...

Right now we are recording a new album produced by John Lousteau at Studio 606 in Los Angeles, CA. featuring “Lost and Found” which is the title track and first single released back in April/ 2020. 

We usually play over 250 shows a year, so currently we are writing, recording and rehearsing as much as possible. The outpouring of support during this tough time has warmed our hearts and fueled our creativity.

About the Artist...

Drawing from a wellspring of country and back-alley rock-and-roll, Feed The Kitty cultivates a bounty of neo-retro Southern California sounds.

Rich in the singer-songwriter tradition, modest lament, and polished musicianship, Their newest single ‘Lost and Found’ is grabbing the attention of both industry and music fans.

Girded by the ever-accumulating experience of thousands of live performances, the formidable trio of Jack Maher (vocals and guitar), Jed Mottley (bass), and Jon Shumway (drums) continue to extend their reputation for magnetic concert appearances, empowered with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and genuine self-effacing humor. While these hallmarks still provide a foundational element for the band’s fourth studio set, Ain’t Dead Yet, more prevalent this time around, though, is a matured, reflective approach; introspective, and even, at times, haunting.

Backed by their countless appearances, the self-managed SoCal group boasts, with faux-confidence, a spot in the Top Ten of “Most Shows Ever Played by a Rock Band” (offset, naturally, with an immediate disclaimer: “You know, probably.”). This is an ensemble that averages 300 shows a year ranging from local haunts in Hollywood to famed venues in the Big Apple, across the European continent, and anywhere in between.

Surviving the creative gauntlet of the Los Angeles/Orange County industry grind, Feed the Kitty has persevered, with their singles dotting playlists on 88.5 FM, K-EARTH 101, and the world-renowned 95.5 KLOS radio in Southern California (including an October 2018 “Stay or Go” segment of the Frosty, Heidi and Frank Show on KLOS, during which morning listeners voted to let our heroes ‘stay.’) 

“Whenever I play California Country Girl I can count on listener response,” says 88.5 FM deejay Jim Nelson. “Feed The Kitty sounds great on the air.” 

And, in the three minutes a week that they are not playing a gig or recording an album, this is a group that’s busy making mini-documentaries (well, okay, just one; it’s called Feed The Kitty: The Movie and it’s a lot of fun) or placing songs in films and TV shows, including in the Oscar-nominated, Ryan Gossling vehicle Lars And The Real Girl, or National Lampoon’s Cattle Call, or a live appearance on Fox-11 TV’s Good Day LA morning program, as well as on the police drama, Rogue; the latter utilizing three Feed The Kitty cuts for its soundtrack. 

For Ain’t Dead Yet, the three once again recorded at Dave Grohl’s famed Studio 606 in Los Angeles, with producer John Lousteau (Foo Fighters, John Fogerty, Rush) helming the board. In addition to the group’s original song-crafting, the resulting dozen gemstones comprising the studded set employ, at times, the writing and guitar-playing talents of a friend and frequent live guest, Duane Betts (Allman Betts Band), Grammy-nominated producer, Cisco Adler, and Rami Jaffee of Foo Fighters and Wallflowers fame.

And, because sleep isn’t necessary when you’re young, handsome, and in the self-described ‘hardest-working band ever,’ while ensuring that Feed The Kitty’s music is available on iTunes and everywhere music, and continuing to appear on stages anywhere and everywhere seemingly all the damn time, Jed and Jack also host the popular Feed The Kitty Power Hour podcast, always making certain to keep that kitty well-fed.

LINKS:  https://www.instagram.com/feedthekittymusic https://www.facebook.com/FEEDTHEKITTYMUSIC https://twitter.com/feedthekitty3 https://open.spotify.com/album/4zghVr8syCxpfHqb3T0YbK?highlight=spotify:track:6GTukE2K7zeZR0q56iiiIV

FEATURED ON INDIE MUSIC SPIN:

Feed The Kitty Releases a Song about Finding yourself after coming down from a twenty-year party

MUSIC REVIEWS:

KingZiLLa : Musician Las Vegas wrote:

“Feed The Kitty track is nice feels like something you would hear in a movie very nice.”

Jacqueline Jax : Radio host and music Publicist wrote:

“From the first time I heard this song, this band became memorable. From a grabbing opening line to catchy chorus and inspiring subject, Feed the Kitty is going to make an impact on all of us if they keep writing songs like this.”

[riffrelevant]

Article By: Kira Schlechter, Staff Writer ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway, Owner/Chief Editor

Making Sweden rock since 1993, to swipe a phrase, HAMMERFALL is the standard bearer for all things Scandinavian. Relentlessly prolific, they’ve helped define all that is good about modern power metal. 

In crafting the follow-up to 2016’s ‘Built To Last,’ singer Joacim Cans, guitarists Oscar Dronjak and Pontus Norgren, bassist Fredrik Larsson, and drummer David Wallin wrote a lot of their latest, ‘Dominion,’ on the road, a first for the band, according to a Facebook bio. And indeed it has an immediacy to it that their customary carefully-crafted polish can’t disguise.

“Never Forgive, Never Forget” references the Vietnam War. Cans’ voice aches with regret – the sentiment of the title seems to mean that we will never forgive nor forget the mistake that was Vietnam, rather than acting as some flag-waving braggadocio. Its details are carefully drawn, mentioning “the trail” (the Ho Chi Minh Trail), and “Call for Agent O” (Agent Orange, of course). The same haunting melody that introduces the song also serves as the outro and bookends things very nicely.

“Testify” is firmly anti-religion and pro-self-determination, apparent from the opening salvo (“I’m electric, energetic / Quite high on life’s epiphanies / I don’t need no two-time weasel / To judge my way based on their bigotry“) and it doesn’t let up (“Be the prophet, the creator / And master your own universe“). The title is ground out with vigor and all is set to a pounding, insistent rhythm.

  [spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:album:0GuV3xyGdO8bZ8RepoBV0x”/]

Two midway tracks are real fist-raisers and horns-flashers, definitely inspired by that writing while touring. “One Against the World” is a call to the Templar faithful, exalting the glory of the live show, the defiance of the metal horde against all non-believers, a common theme in their canon.

And “(We Make) Sweden Rock,” the story of their own birth and a stirring tribute to their homeland, is a reminder that band and fans are one. If you don’t spontaneously and helplessly sing along to the chorus, check if you have a pulse.

“Second to One” is an old-school piano-based track with some truly lovely sentiments (“You’re the sweetest sound / The note that explains the symphony”). It’s ok that it gets all big and power-ballad-y in the chorus with the equally big solo – that’s what it’s supposed to do – and it’s not overlong nor overly sappy, which helps.

“Scars of a Generation” is rather like “a how metal saved the world” allegory. There’s a great line, “And the green-eyed monster sang the blues / To choke our flame,” almost saying other genres are envious of metal. It soars with glorious guitars and an especially spectacular bridge.

  Tracklist:

01. Never Forgive, Never Forget 02. Dominion 03. Testify 04. One Against The World 05. (We Make) Sweden Rock 06. Second to One 07. Scars of a Generation 08. Dead by Dawn 09. Battleworn 10. Bloodline 11. Chain of Command 12. And Yet I Smile

    “Dead by Dawn“ is the supernatural story of a demon summoning during a seance, all in good catchy, punchy, driving fun. “Bloodline“ brings, right on cue, the Norse mythology, retelling the fall of Asgard, the home of the gods, during Ragnarok, that the gods must die in order to be reborn. It’s laden with imagery (“By blood we are unified / By fire we will rise again“) and ends with a hopeful resolution – “And now we are free at last / Counting the stars up above / One for each brother who’s fallen from grace / Giving our bloodline a face.”

“And Yet I Smile” is a stirring note to end things on, of positivity and finding your own way (“in the end, we only will regret the things we did not do,” they note), and adding that in adversity, we often find our true selves (“My star cannot shine / Without darkness around”). How great is that and how true as well.

HAMMERFALL tours the U.S. starting in October with fellow power Swedes Sabaton in a bill that can’t be less than a blast. They’ll head back to Europe in the new year to headline, bringing Battle Beast along.

HAMMERFALL on:

Facebook | Web | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp | Spotify

Order ‘Dominion‘ from Napalm Records [link]

– HAMMERFALL Tour Dates –

– w/ Sabaton – 2019 –

Oct. 04 – Ft Lauderdale, FL, Revolution Oct. 05 – St. Petersburg, FL, Jannus Landing Oct. 06 – Atlanta, GA, Center Stage (sold out) Oct. 07 – New Orleans, LA, Southport Hall ^^ Oct. 08 – Dallas, TX, House of Blues (sold out) Oct. 09 – Lubbock TX, Jake’s ^^ Oct. 10 – Phoenix, AZ, Van Buren Oct. 11 – Los Angeles, CA, The Wiltern Oct. 12 – San Francisco, CA, The Regency (sold out) Oct. 13 – Reno, NV, Virginia Street ^^ Oct. 14 – Portland, OR, Roseland Ballroom (sold out) Oct. 15 – Seattle, WA, Showbox Sodo (sold out) Oct. 16 – Vancouver, BC, Vogue Theater Oct. 18 – Edmonton, AB, Union Hall Oct. 19 – Calgary, AB, The Palace Theater Oct. 21 – Salt Lake City, UT, The Complex Rockwell Oct. 23 – Denver, CO, Ogden Theater (sold out) Oct. 24 – Kansas City, MO, Riot Room ^^ Oct. 25 – Minneapolis, MN, Skyway Theater Oct. 26 – Chicago. IL, The Vic Theatre (sold out) Oct. 27 – Cleveland, OH, The Agora Ballroom (sold out) Oct. 29 – Toronto, ON, The Danforth Music Hall (sold out) Oct. 30 – Montreal, QC, M Telus (sold out) Oct. 31 – Ottawa, ON, Maverick’s ^^ Nov. 01 – Worcester, MA, Palladium Nov. 02 – New York, NY, Playstation Theater (sold out) Nov. 03 – Silver Spring, MD, The Fillmore (sold out) Nov. 04 – Charlotte, NC, The Underground ^^ Nov. 05 – Charleston, SC, Music Farm ^^ Nov. 30 – Monterrey, Mexico, Metal Fest

^^Headline Shows/No Sabaton

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  – Hammerfall Europe 2020 –

Jan. 30 – Bremen, Aladin Jan. 31 – Hamburg, Sporthalle Feb. 01 – Osnabrück, Hydepark Feb. 02 – Oberhausen, Turbinenhalle Feb. 03 – Nijmegen, Doornroosje Feb. 05 – Antwerpen, TRIX Feb. 06 – Saarbrücken, Garage Feb. 07 – Munich, Tonhalle Feb. 08 – Kaufbeuren, All Kart Halle Feb. 09 – Milan, Live Club Feb. 11 – Langen, Stadthalle Feb. 12 – Leipzig, Werk 2 Feb. 13 – Prague, Forum Karlin Feb. 14 – Bamberg, Brose Arena Feb. 15 – Ludwigsburg, MHP Arena Feb. 16 – Pratteln, Z7 Feb. 18 – Warsaw, Progresja Feb. 19 – Krakow, Studio Feb. 20 – Budapest, Barba Negra Feb. 21 – Graz, Orpheum Feb. 22 – Wien, Gasometer Feb. 23 – Berlin, Huxley’s

  HAMMERFALL ‘Dominion’ Album Review & Stream; Tour Dates Article By: Kira Schlechter, Staff Writer ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway, Owner/Chief Editor Making Sweden rock since 1993, to swipe a phrase, …

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Best Music Videos of the 21st Century: Billboard Critics Pick 100

At the dawn of the 21st century, the music video was in a boom period: The TRL era was still at its zenith, CDs were flying out of the stores, budgets for music videos were still regularly in the seven-digit range, and MTV was the place you turned to in order to see the latest clips from pop's best and brightest.

Flash forward to 2018, and none of those things are true anymore. Album sales have been depleted by the rise of downloading and then streaming, MTV has been supplanted by the Internet as the video's primary home, and attempts to reboot TRL only prove how different times are now than when Backstreet and Britney ruled the world. But with all that's changed, the music video still reigns paramount in the pop world, as a conversation-starter, as a starmaker, as a cementer of legacy. Though the ways we consume music videos in 2018 would've been almost unthinkable at century's start, the impact they have on our lives and pop culture remains relatively similar. 

But of course, it's been an interesting ride for the music video to get to this point: From the tail end of MTV's peak to the introduction of YouTube and the minting of the viral star to the rise of social media and the countless different forms the video can now take in 2018. This week, Billboard is reflecting on the evolution of the music video with a week's worth of content about the form's past, present and future -- starting, today, with a list of our staff picks for the 100 greatest music videos of the century so far, essentially telling the story of the form during its middle-age period, and a potential crisis ultimately averted. 

See our staff favorites below, with a YouTube playlist of all available clips at the bottom, and get lost in the recent greatest hits of an artform that continues to be among popular culture's most vital.

100. Fall Out Boy, "Sugar We're Goin Down" (dir. Matt Lenski, 2005)

From Under the Cork Tree’s lead single was much of the world’s introduction to these former hardcore punks from the Chicago burbs, and for their first video with a big ol’ Island Records budget, they indulged their mission statement: a full-on underdog’s folk tale. Our small town teenaged protagonist is a sort of Napoleon Dynamite with -- get this! -- deer-like antlers, an effective stand-in for just about any condition that could have left a young Fall Out Boy feeling socially alienated. His love interest’s shotgun-wielding father doesn’t approve, but in the end, let’s just say he’s behooved to sympathize. -- CHRIS PAYNE

The video for Shakira’s first English-language hit is not her most seen; those honor belong to the Maluma-featuring “Chantaje" and World Cup anthem “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)," both with around two billion YouTube views. But “Whenever, Wherever” was the video that introduced Shakira’s swiveling hips to the world, as well as her “small and humble” breasts. The minimalist production, which memorably featured Shakira dancing alone without props, musicians or other dancers, was enough to catapult her to international stardom. -- LEILA COBO

Ana Matronic, Jake Shears, and the rest of the crew served up a brilliant DIY instructional dance video for their unlikely viral hit, which became their third No. 1 hit on the U.S. Dance Club Songs chart in 2012. The smartly staged and creatively choreographed one-take clip is as unpolished, campy, and full of energy as the Scissors themselves. -- PATRICK CROWLEY

The room full of glasses of water gently quaking to the bass drum heartbeat of "Rolling in the Deep," like Jurassic Park to the tenth power, was appropriately foreboding for what Adele's 21 ended up being, a commercial behemoth the likes of which was supposed to have long gone extinct. It all starts here: Director Sam Brown capturing the once-in-a-generation vocalist at simultaneously her most vulnerable and her most powerful, unclear if the wreckage surrounding her is representative of her internal turmoil, or a direct result of it. -- ANDREW UNTERBERGER​

96. Frank Ocean, "Pyramids" (dir. Nabil Elderkin, 2012)

Opening with color bars, liquor shots, and gun blasts, this Nabil-directed 8-minute odyssey follows a zonked-out Frank Ocean as he zips across the desert on a motorcycle, giggles his way through a strip club, and runs into John Mayer in the middle of nowhere for a woozy, bluesy guitar solo. Landing somewhere between Lost Highway and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, "Pyramids" is a dusty, neon-drenched vision quest that's hard to shake. – JOE LYNCH

Music videos can sometimes feel unimaginative when they simply translate a song’s lyrics into a four-minute clip, but for the Avalanches’ “Frontier Psychiatrist,” the literal approach also happened to be the wildest one. The Australian electronic group’s mishmash of vocal samples is acted out as theater, with dueling therapists, chattering dentures, an old guy with a turtle body, and a ghost chorus comprising a visual representation both surreal and enduring. -- JASON LIPSHUTZ

94. Ariana Grande feat. Zedd, "Break Free" (dir. Chris Marrs Piliero, 2014)

“Brace yourself for something so fantastically fantastical that you’ll soil yourself from intergalactic excitement" reads part of the tongue-in-cheek Star Wars-style scroll that introduces Ariana Grande’s video for “Break Free." The stakes in this outer space-based video are as high as Grande’s ponytail, as she uses her blaster to shoot down guards and free prisoners. But wait! Ari herself has been taken captive! Will she... break free?! Yes, and then she will board a spaceship where Zedd is both captain and DJ. Phew. -- CHRISTINE WERTHMAN

The video for Aaliyah’s sinuous “Rock the Boat” might have easily gone down as just one of the many examples of the beloved singer’s preternatural cool and low-key sex appeal, featuring Aaliyah leading an all-female ensemble in understatedly sexy moves mirroring the song’s hypnotic, undulating melody. But it’s impossible to watch without feeling a deep pang of sadness: Directly after filming this video, Aaliyah and eight others were killed in a plane crash over the Bahamas. “Rock the Boat” begins with an in memoriam of sorts, and as the video starts, Aaliyah walks on a deserted beach beneath a sky so beatifically sunlit, it could very well be heaven. The video ends with a gorgeous shot of her swimming alone, trailed by billowy silk, toward a surface that seems contiguous with the clouds. In between, we’re reminded of an artist who was an effortlessly entrancing dancer and singer, a happy young woman with so much ahead of her -- before she floats off to somewhere else. -- REBECCA MILZOFF

92. Girls' Generation, "Gee" (dir. Cho Soo-hyun,  2009)

One of the biggest K-pop hits ever, Girls’ Generation’s saccharine electro-pop anthem “Gee” was key to making the nonet one of South Korea’s biggest pop acts, largely thanks to its video’s living mannequins, viral “crab” dance, and  brightly hued outfits. The success of it led to the group releasing further videos that rank among K-pop’s all-time most recognizable, including “Genie” and “I Got A Boy,” but nothing will ever replace this 2009 music video for its critical spot in the genre's history. -- TAMAR HERMAN

It would have been understandably tempting to make a video that interpreted the song as literally as songwriter Lori McKenna intended: As a message to her children. But instead, the clip -- with assistance from OWN’s series Belief (thanks, Oprah!) and McGraw’s understated delivery -- turns the tune into a grander prayer that celebrates our universal humanity and diversity through scenes of people from all ethnicities and religions. -- MELINDA NEWMAN

90. Marina & The DIamonds, "How to Be a Heartbreaker" (dir. Marc & Ish, 2012)

Six years ago, Marina Diamandis gave us a video with six showering Calvin Klein models juxtaposed with a clothed woman, gloriously flipping what is unfortunately still the modern standard. (Each guy is wearing a Speedo, mind you.) As she sings about her guide to breaking you-know-whats, Marina alternates between cozying up to different gentlemen, dancing in the shower, and presenting a severed, bloodied mannequin head on a platter to the camera. It’s hard to know who you’re supposed to be drooling over in this visual -- Marina, or the male models? -- and that’s the whole point. -- GAB GINSBERG

Mitski’s songwriting is often spiked with a dark, sharp sense of humor. The visual for her shrugging, contemplative Puberty 2 single “Your Best American Girl,” directed by longtime collaborator Zia Anger, brings that wit to the forefront, trapping the Japanese-American artist in a love triangle with an all-too-familiar cute white hipster and his Coachella-ready girlfriend as the song’s lyrics muse on cultural clashes and ethnic identity. It’s hard not to roll your eyes as the couple cuddles naked under an American flag (seriously, guys?), leaving our heroine to make out with her own hand like a lovesick middle-schooler, channeling rage into electric guitar. Not too much subtlety here, but the video’s almost uncomfortably on-the-nose references are exactly what make it so brilliant, with just the right dose of funny. -- TATIANA CIRISANO

Kanye West would be the first to tell you he’s more than just an artist -- he’s an innovator, on the same intellectual playing field as Walt Disney and Steve Jobs. And when it comes to visual manifestations of or companion pieces to his music, well, he’s not always totally wrong. The video for “Flashing Lights” isn’t as dazzling or frenzied as videos for hits like “Gold Digger” and “All of the Lights,” but the tension between the thump of the song and the slow-mo, one-shot portrait of a beautiful woman committing heinous acts of violence makes the clip as unsettlingly hypnotic as the trance-like intonation of its chorus. -- STEVEN J. HOROWITZ

87. David Bowie, "Lazarus" (dir. Johan Renck, 2016)

Shortly after David Bowie succumbed to liver cancer on Jan. 10, 2016, his longtime producer and friend Tony Visconti wrote in a Facebook tribute, “His death was not different from his life – a work of Art.”  He most certainly was referring to “Blackstar” and “Lazarus,” the haunting and bleak final two music videos that the legend left behind. Both are rich with references to Bowie canon -- Major Tom, Station to Station -- and optimally should be seen in tandem. But “Lazarus” delivers the bigger gut punch because it is Bowie’s acknowledgement that he is not long for this earth, a video cut with scenes of the gaunt artist writhing on what could be his deathbed, his head wrapped in a bandage with buttons for eyes. Watch the video, then venturedown the rabbit hole of Bowie-ologists deconstructing the video’s meaning: The Starman may have left the building, but he did so in a way that insures his artistic immortality. -- FRANK DIGIACOMO

"Lazy Sunday" has the distinction of being the only video on this list to originate from television -- the historic first official Digital Short on SNL, preceding future classics like "I'm On A Boat" and "Dick in a Box," and setting the template for the first wave of YouTube viral videos. "Lazy Sunday" lives on in infamy because of the sheer ridiculousness of their investment in the song's mundanity: Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell rap about going to see The Chronicles of Narnia, but not before "macking on some cupcakes" from Magnolia Bakery and shouting out answers to movie theater Matthew Perry trivia. Part of the video's allure is its low-production quality -- it looks like it was shot by high schoolers in an afternoon -- going to show that you don't need a million-dollar budget to make a classic music video. Perhaps all you need is a camcorder and smartly dumb lyrics. -- XANDER ZELLNER

Grimes made all our cyberpunk dreams come true with the “Kill v. Maim” video. The singer previously explained that the song’s inspiration was for a fictional movie that was “a mixture of Godfather and Twilight,” but the video itself transports the viewer into a wild post-apocalyptic world: Imagine if Final Fantasy took place in the Mad Max universe... but was also shot in Harajuku in the ‘90s. And what better way to end this giddy mix of cult-film homages than with an ode to Blade’s bloody rave scene? -- BIANCA GRACIE

It's as vivid a straightforward rendering of song narrative as 21st-century music video has produced, with Alicia Keys and fictional love interest Mos Def acting out Keys' Songs in A Minor melodrama as a brilliant blur of fantasy and reality. Director Chris Robinson's sumptuous New York visuals make the theatrics pop with both pleasing familiarity and near-uncomfortable intimacy, lifting you into Keys' daydream -- right up to the crushing ending, when it turns out that Mos never will know just how different she looks outside of her work clothes. -- A.U.

Residente -- and prior to him, Calle 13 -- has long been known for his gritty, graphic, often violent video material. But his softer, romantic side is even more compelling, and the second video from his 2017 self-titled solo outing is drenched in love, the kind that sends shivers down your spine. Filmed in Paris' iconic Crémerie-Restaurant Polidor bistro and starring Charlotte Le Bon and Edgar Ramirez, "Descencuentro" (directed by Residente himself) is a mini-film about a man and a woman whose inevitable encounter inside the restaurant is delayed by a string of happenstance that goes from accidental to comical. “I wanted to stay away from clichés, but stay close to hope, to what motivates you to keep on trying in the midst of so many setbacks,” Residente told Billboard. The end result is breathtakingly (and unexpectedly) lovely. -- L.C.

If a music video can leave you with one indelible image, it’s done good work. The video for “Papi Pacify" is one of the most erotic clips in recent memory, opening with a silent shot of a tall, brawny man with one hand around twigs' throat and the other curling at her mouth. “It’s meant to ask questions of the viewer,” co-director Tom Beard told The Guardian. “Who’s got the control in this relationship? Who’s got the power?” There’s no unbraiding the sexual charge from the discomfort, just as there’s no forgetting the shot at 2:23, when twigs holds your gaze as the man takes his fingers from her mouth and pulls her into his chest as she continues to stare, looking nothing if not serene. -- ROSS SCARANO

81. A$AP Rocky, "Peso" (dir. Abteen Bagheri, 2010)

The low-budget street video, shot in the artist’s neighborhood, is a hip-hop staple, and one of the best 21st century entries in the genre drops you in Harlem for an annunciation. Is there a more invigorating entrance in contemporary rap than Rocky busting through a sticker-covered bodega door wearing a black baseball cap that reads FUNERAL, while rapping, “I be that pretty motherfucker”? The money spent shows up in the form of Rick Owens, Raf Simons and Supreme, but the swag is priceless. -- R.S.

80. Miley Cyrus, "We Can't Stop" (dir. Diane Martel, 2013)

There’s tiptoeing into a new era, and then there’s diving in headfirst: Following her underperforming Can’t Be Tamed album, Miley Cyrus chose the latter in 2013, reinventing herself in the first video from the Bangerz campaign and boldly kickstarting her adult career. The “We Can’t Stop” video features a house party full of debauchery and twerking, but for all of the hip-hop excess Cyrus was clearly cribbing from, Diane Martel's clip also provides several uniquely off-kilter set pieces, from the giant-teddy-bear-backpack dance sequence to the game of kick-the-french-fry-skull. -- J. Lipshutz

79. Madonna, "Hung Up" (dir. Johan Renck, 2006)

Faced with relationship trouble, a pop queen doesn’t cry it out -- she dances it out. Madonna’s ‘80s-infused video for the ABBA-borrowing Confessions On A Dance Floor smash “Hung Up” turns the star’s sweaty, solo aerobics workout into a therapy session where all you need to squelch anxiety is a pink leotard and a boombox. The visual only gets better as it expands to scenes resembling a Los Angeles street corner, a subway car, and a Chinese restaurant, where crowds of all ages, races, and ethnicities erupt into fiery dance battles of their own. Meant as a tribute to John Travolta’s ubiquitous dance roles in film, the whole thing ends (how else?) with Madonna breaking it down on an arcade Dance Dance Revolution machine -- not bad for a star who broke several bones in a horseback-riding accident just weeks before shooting. -- T.C.

These days, it might be hard for many viewers to get past the first word of the title when watching the video for Toby Keith's highest-charting, least-resistible Hot 100 hit, especially considering the cameo-strewn close featuring fellow Red-alligned rocker Ted Nugent, among others. But the 2011 clip is such a clever and pure distillation of the forever unpartisan joys of filling your cup, lifting it up and proceeding to parrr-tayyyyyy that it'll make you seethe with nostalgia for a time, perhaps only imagined, when a superior brand of kegger supplies was all you needed to reach across the aisle for. -- A.U.

Behold one of the few instances in which a music video helped launch a relatively unknown act to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Gotye's haunting "Somebody That I Used to Know" visual shows the frontman and duet partner Kimbra naked in front of a blank backdrop, then slowly painted over via stop-motion animation, a living artifact of what used to be a relationship. The design, inspired by an actual work done by Gotye's father, Frank De Backer, took 23 hours and helped the video surpass the 1 billion-views mark on YouTube. -- X.Z.

ANOHNI’s 2016 solo debut Hopelessness combined dazzling experimental pop with the sort of radical social activism most prominent musicians are too timid to approach. For this Hudson Mohawke- and Oneohtrix Point Never-produced song, ANOHNI sings from the perspective of a nine year-old Afghani girl whose family has just been killed by a drone bomb, her despair sending her atop a mountain to demand she be taken next. In the gripping, exquisitely produced video (bankrolled by Apple in a move ANOHNI later regretted), a teary-eyed Naomi Campbell gives a sublime performance, lip-synching and tantalizingly dancing along to the this glistening dirge while a team of dancers contorts around her.  -- C.P.

75. Kendrick Lamar, "i" (dir. Alexandre Moors, 2014)

If this video had come out even two years later, the dance that Kendrick rolls out throughout the visual might have spawned enough challenge/meme copies to send it all the way to the top of the charts, rather than the mere No. 39 it topped out at on the Hot 100. As it stands, the video is a clever nod to both the song's influences -- sampled artist Ronald Isley is in on the party throughout, while George Clinton makes a nonchalant cameo reading a copy of his own autobiography outside a club -- and to the darker forces underlying the song's self-love ethos. -- DAN RYS

74. Dua Lipa, "New Rules" (dir. Henry Scholfield, 2017)

Some new new rules: 1. Launch a thousand Pinterest boards with a beachy pastel color scheme and an enviable hotel slumber party. 2. Take unlikely inspiration from the animal kingdom with head-bobbing choreography meant to evoke the fidgety movements of a pack of flamingos. (No, really!) 3. Embrace the storytelling power of repetition for a dance routine whose third-act twist still delights as much as it did the first time. Follow those steps, and you'll earn admission to YouTube’s billion-views club — and maybe fast-track yourself to a level of international superstardom that half a dozen prior singles couldn’t snag. -- NOLAN FEENEY

73. Janelle Monáe feat. Big Boi, "Tightrope" (dir. Wendy Morgan, 2010)

To those who are just discovering the genius of Janelle Monae with her Dirty Computer rollout: Where have you been? From her futuristic "Many Moons" video to her uncomfortably direct "Cold War" clip, Monáe has consistently delivered on the visuals. "Tightrope" showcases Monae's swagger-for-days as she gyrates through an insane asylum, rocking her early-career androgynous style and delivering some impressive soft-shoe. -- P.C.

72. Sum 41, "Fat Lip" (dir. Marc Klasfeld, 2001)

From its opening beatbox freestyle to its closing tongue wag, "Fat Lip" couldn't have been a better encapsulation of the pop-punk '00s if it had been directed by a sentient Hot Topic bracelet: It's all shaved heads, half-pipes, convenience stores, and four-star frosted tips, as the snottiest bunch of snots that ever snotted perform from a literal pit of dirt. For extra flat-sole kicks, check the hair-metal-homaging "Pain for Pleasure" outro that often played with "Fat Lip" on MTV, proving that adolescent rawk brattiness knows no generation gap. -- A.U.

No music video director works sleight-of-film better than Michel Gondry, the guy who turned a countryside train voyage into Chemical Brothers sheet music or a theatrical Björk drama into a cinematic matryoshka doll. But his greatest cinematic achievement may remain Kylie Minogue's four-lap trek around the streets of Paris, with Kylie and her universe's neighbors somehow layering on top of themselves each time she passes Go. It's a marvel that remains magical 16 years later -- though one that might make you reticent to accept her titular invitation, since it seems like her World barely has room for one of you, let alone four. -- A.U.

70. Ozuna, "Se Preparo" (dir. Nuno Gomes, 2017)

Ozuna is Latin music’s current master of the video universe: The Puerto Rican reggaeton/trap star has so many great videos to his name, it’s hard to settle on a favorite. But “Se Preparo,” with its mix of whimsy and edge, is as fun as the song is compelling. Directed by Venezuelan video master Nuno Gomez, who delights in storytelling, it sets the stage for the wronged girl, who, to forget her boyfriend’s infidelities, preps for a night on the town with the girls. Except it’s actually an elaborate ruse to get even -- one that keeps you watching till the hilarious end. -- L.C.

A theme of Jay's work of late has been taking stereotypes and tropes about the black community and forcing them right in front of his audience's faces. Seldom has that ever been more clear than in the "O.J." video, which lifts its inspiration from a set of racist Looney Tunes cartoons from the '40s, casting himself and others in blackface and hammering home the message of the song's lyrics through the visual. It's among the best examples of this in his catalog. -- D.R.

68. Kesha, "Blow" (dir. Chris Marrs Piliero, 2010)

"She was adamant you can't back away from the crazy" was how director Chris Marrs Piliero summarized the Artist Formerly Known as K-Money's approach to the "Blow" video, which sounds about right: Lasers, unicorns, muenster cheese, no-soap-radio jokes, a pre-meme James Van der Beek, and a whole lot of glitter (natch) combine in the "Blow" video for a visual of singular early-'10s lunacy. That the era's cheekiest director and most game pop star only worked together once remains a bummer, but their sole collab remains a slice of pure lactose gold. -- A.U.

“Blood, Sweat & Tears” is the thesis for BTS as a K-pop group whose work is rich for interpretation. The grab-bag of high-art references makes this music video ripe for fan theories. Cut to a museum filled with European Renaissance replications: Michelangelo’s Pietà explodes! Van Goghian sky swirls abound! V jumps off a balcony in front of a painting of the fallen Icarus! Amid this lavish portrait of BTS at the height of their game, one thing is clear: the septet makes K-pop for the thinking fan. -- CAITLIN KELLEY

66. Ludacris feat. Shawnna, "Stand Up" (dir. Dave Meyers, 2003)

The clip for Luda's first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 is more bizarre than it has any right to be. A kiss from 'Cris makes a woman's ass expand to cartoonish size, after which Luda puts on a Sideshow Bob-sized sneaker to start stomping the dancefloor and bring the house down (literally). At the end of the video, Luda and Shawnna's faces are superimposed onto baby bodies, and we're treated to Baby Luda dancing Ally McBeal-style, before an unlucky woman changes his soiled diaper. Why? Who knows! But when he moved in 2003, we followed, just like that. -- J. Lynch

65. Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Californication" (dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2000)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' video for "Californication" features the quartet navigating everything from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and movie studios to San Francisco and the Sierra Nevada Mountains -- only as avatars of themselves in an imaginary video game, racking up high scores and eventually meeting at the center of the earth. As fun as the stunning and innovative visuals are, it's the juxtaposition with the song's melancholy lyrics that still lingers well after it's Game Over. -- DENISE WARNER

Most everything seems a whole lot more fun in the crazy-colorful, twisted realm of Missy music videos: Even the gossip-fueled, bully-ridden hallways of high school. Back in a pre-social-media 2002, Elliott heard all the whispers about her recent and somewhat drastic weight loss, her sexual orientation, and more, so she channeled her frustration into an eminently danceable track and classic video. Ludacris and Ms. Jade make stellar guest appearances; Tweet, Eve, and Trina keep score as the coolest clique ever in the cafeteria scenes; even Darryl “DMC” McDaniels shows up for a late cameo as a school bus driver.  But then there’s the real stars of the video -- three little girls with better moves than most grown-ups (including now-pro Alyson Stoner), and a closing image that might be Elliott’s most brilliant touch of all: a mural depicting the late Aaliyah, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez, and Jam Master Jay, reminding her audience that, just maybe, the industry could focus on more important things than gossip, folks. -- R.M.

63. Ciara, "Promise" (dir. Diane Martel, 2006)

Ciara has spent much of her videography trying to defy gravity — consider the Matrix-style back-bend she first debuted with “Goodies” and later honed in clips like “Gimme Dat” and “Like a Boy.” But with a little movie magic, Ciara actually pulled it off for 2006’s “Promise,” turning a microphone stand into a worthy dance partner through a G-rated pole workout that shook its butt in the face of laws of physics. Ciara’s legacy as an artist is as much about her dancing as it is her music, and “Promise,” with its magic mic and the sheer athleticism of Ciara’s hypnotic hip rolls, is the most entertaining distillation of all her talents. -- N.F.

Dougal Wilson directed this single-shot video in which Natasha Khan takes a late-night bike ride with some of her best pals, a foreboding brood of hoodie-wearing guys in creepy animal masks, a la Donnie Darko’s Frank. According to a 2009 interview, Khan wanted the director to model the video after films like E.T.,The Goonies, The Karate Kid, and even the aforementioned Gyllenhaal cult classic, movies that she dubbed “hoodie movies,” because they featured boys wearing hoodies and riding bikes, “a symbolic reference to breaking out of their suburban trappings and going on this journey of self-discovery." Wilson nails the sentiment, only this journey comes with more sick bike tricks. -- C.W.

A year before labeling herself a savage, Rihanna had already proved she was the baddest gal in town with 2015’s “Bitch Better Have My Money” video. The murderous affair, co-directed by the singer and Megaforce, is a menacing “don't fuck with me” message to her real-life former accountant, portrayed here by Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen. Rihanna and her badass female sidekicks play the stars of their own revenge fantasy film as they torture his rich white wife, and the final scene is nothing short of chilling, with a blood-soaked Rihanna lighting up a joint while resting in a trunk full of cash. -- B.G.

60. Justice, "D.A.N.C.E." (dir. Jonas & Francois, 2007)

Who knew that the video for a song called “D.A.N.C.E.” could be built around two guys… walking… for the entire video… and still be a huge win? Justice’s Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay stroll through the duo's most popular clip as their t-shirts morph into mesmerizing pop-art displays, capturing the crossover hit’s effervescence through a series of slogans and cartoons. “D.A.N.C.E.” was nominated for video of the year at the 2007 MTV VMAs, turning Justice into dance headliners (pun intended) years before EDM took over every American festival. -- J. Lipshutz

In one continuous three-and-a-half minute shot, Robyn manages to hold your attention in the music video for "Call Your Girlfriend." The video simply shows Robyn dancing and singing in an empty soundstage, wearing a furry top and looking like her own heart has just been shattered, but it feels impossible to look away. The clip was often parodied and recreated after its release, most notably by former SNL cast member Taran Killam, in which he filmed a near-perfect recreation of the video in the show's writers room at 4:00 a.m. -- X.Z.

58. Christina Aguilera, "Beautiful" (dir. Jonas Åkerlund, 2002)

Christina Aguilera eloquently touches on insecurity in the Jonas Åkerlund-directed “Beautiful," as the dark-lit scenes underscore the decimation that occurs when someone is ostracized for being less than perfect: too fat or skinny, ugly, gay. Alone in a sparsely furnished room, Aguilera zeroes in on songwriter/producer Linda Perry’s affirmation that everyone is beautiful, no matter what people say. “Words can’t bring me down,” she sings as the video’s characters conquer their insecurities: one woman bashes in her mirror, another tosses beauty magazines into a fireplace while a gay couple publicly kiss and hold hands. The video won a GLAAD Media Award for its positive portrayal of gay and transgender individuals. -- GAIL MITCHELL

In the pantheon of music videos capturing some sort of ceremonial celebration, UGK’s “Int’l Players’ Anthem” stands as one of the all-time best. The absurdity of it the clip -- including André 3000 in a kilt, a wedding party that counts Lukas Haas, and some of the best wedding outfits of all time (including Pimp C in head-to-toe white fur) -- is nothing compared to how seamlessly the video captures the ebullience of the accompanying song. -- S.J.H.

56. Beyoncé, "7/11" (dir. Beyoncé, 2014)

As we all know in 2018, The Carters love a production -- but travel back with us to a Friday night in November 2014, when Beyoncé proved that she could go low-budget and still make a high-quality music video. The grainy, iPhone-looking footage of “7/11” features Beyoncé and her dancers goofing off in their underwear in various hotel-room settings. They twerk. They drink from red plastic cups. They turn hair dryers into props. Beyoncé uses someone’s butt as a surface for throwing dice. Quick-cut edits and scene jumps give the video a playful, frenetic energy, while choreography and costume changes make it pro without being overly polished. It’s safe to assume that the peak into this informal world is highly curated, but “7/11” has the intimacy of a selfie: Even though it doesn’t look like anything you've actually ever shot on your phone. -- C.W.

55. Justin Bieber, "Sorry" (dir. Parris Goebel, 2015)

The Bieb brought choreography -- and women -- to the forefront of his "Sorry" visual, with the singer enlisting New Zealand’s all-female troupe ReQuest Dance Crew to bring his upbeat Purpose chart-topper to life. The colorful visual immediately racked up millions of views, with the wildly funky outfits inspiring Halloween costumes (just one week after the vid’s Oct. 22, 2015 release) and the ReQuest girls' impressive moves sparking plenty of twerk-filled tributes across the Internet. Nearly three billion views later, “Sorry” proved that the heartthrob doesn’t even need to make an appearance to make one of his videos special. -- TAYLOR WEATHERBY

54. Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX, "Fancy" (dir. Director X, 2014)

For Iggy Azalea’s biggest pop moment, the ‘90s throwback love of the 2010s was in full swing, with the Australian rapper and her hook-slinging co-star traveling back to the set of classic teen comedy Clueless. Iconic scenes -- the classroom debate, the house party, the near-car crash on the freeway --  are reproduced with no-expense-spared flair, the cinematic set design and hordes of in-costume extras vaulting this 2014 good-life anthem straight into 1995 and all its plaid-clad pizzaz. Millennial Mean Girls babies nodding to their era’s spiritual forerunner — it’s game recognizing game in a music video that should similarly endure. -- C.P.

53. Bruno Mars & Cardi B, "Finesse" (Remix) (dir. Bruno Mars & Florent Dechard, 2018)

Everyone loves a good dose of nostalgia, and Bruno Mars served up a giant splatter-painted platter of it with his “Finesse” video. Recruiting Cardi B for a remix of the high-energy 24K Magic track, Mars emphasized the song's punchy ‘90s-style hip-hop beat with an homage to the era’s sketch-comedy classic In Living Color, using smooth moves and neon outfits to create an awesome spitting-image tribute. And the shout-outs were reciprocated: “Finesse” immediately drew praise from show stars Damon, Marlon, and Kim Wayans, and even sparked a reaction out of Jennifer Lopez, who got her start dancing as a Fly Girl on the show. Just as ILC was a cultural moment of the ‘90s, “Finesse” helped Bruno Mars and Cardi B solidify their place as icons of 2018. -- T.W.

A pivotal video in Taylor Swift's pop mythology, "You Belong With Me" saw the burgeoning superstar still playing the underdog, whose cartoonish glasses, school-pride wardrobes, and goofy dance moves made her the idol (and/or go-to Halloween costume) for a generation of unsatisfied overachievers. But don't forget she plays the bad girl in the video, too, and with equal aplomb; listen closely as she marks her territory with the boy next door in her red convertible, and you can hear the snakes from the Reputation Tour hissing impatiently in the distance. -- A.U.

All of Lana Del Rey’s music videos are cinematic -- it’s kind of her thing -- but “National Anthem” has a movie-quality plot to boot. Del Rey stars first as Marilyn Monroe in a reimagined staging of the icon’s 1962 performance of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," then as Jackie Kennedy alongside A$AP Rocky’s suave, handsy JFK. Through Del Rey’s eyes, we see familial scenes unfold between one of the most fascinating couples in American history, culminating in a re-enactment of the Kennedy assassination. When Del Rey’s castle crumbles, you feel it in your chest, too, and her monologue at the end never fails to bring chills. -- G.G.

50. The Diplomats, "Dipset Anthem" (dir. N/A, 2003)

Twenty-plus Harlemites in their baggy, early-2000s best rocking at canted angles away from the camera, arranged on courtyard steps -- this is a movement. This is what power looks like. This is what’s really good. That image primes you for Juelz Santana’s opening line: Today is a new day. And if you haven’t got the message, the beat shifts midway through the video into the magisterial “I Really Mean It” to drop an immaculate Cam’ron into your living room, stepping out of an Escalade in custom pink Dipset Timbs. Truly, did we dream this? -- R.S.

One of the most memorable and instantly accessible tracks in Snoop's extensive oeuvre got a similarly delectable video to match, shot in black and white on a blinding background with Pharrell supportively in tow as his head-nodding sidekick. The video's sleek and casually surreal aesthetic was as ubiquitous at the time as the song itself, and now 15 years later it remains a blast to re-watch, particularly for its cameos by the similarly-ageless Pusha T, Chad Hugo, and Lauren London, not to mention Snoop's young sons at the time. -- D.R.

Orange Caramel have never been bound by K-pop conventions, and “My Copycat” represents the pinnacle of the trio’s out-of-the-box thinking with its interactive game. The full visual experience requires repeat viewings to scope out all of the Easter eggs hidden in each frame, as the sweeping Where’s Waldo shots turn a simple concept into a grandiose design. So this is what Orange Caramel meant when they sang, “Play games with my heart tonight.” -- C.K.

47. Drake feat. Lil Wayne, "HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right)" (dir. Director X, 2012)

More than any of us Jewish kids would have ever dared daydream about during Hebrew School: the biggest rapper in the world documenting his own adult Bar Mitzvah, replete with the requisite torah reading, hora dancing, and ever so many popped bottles of Manischewitz. Did three-and-a-half minutes of Drake and Lil Wayne going HAM -- err, going smoked salmon -- on the former's special day do more to get kids to their local congregations on Saturday morning than every rabbinical sermon this century combined? Impossible to say for sure, but chances are the JTS wouldn't wanna see the box score of that showdown. -- A.U.

46. Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink, "Lady Marmalade" (dir. Paul Hunter, 2001)

This clip from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack was more than a music video; it was a pop culture event. And while several groups of lady titans have recently tried to recreate the magic (see: "Girls" and "Bang Bang," to name a few), none have come close to conjuring up the spectacle that was "Lady Marmalade." With Mya's hyper-feminine feathers, Pink's rocker-chic top hat (a possible nod to Slash?), Kim's blinged-out statement necklace, and Xtina's ginormous, crimped mane, the video let each soul sister showcase their own personality without stealing the attention from the ensemble. -- P.C.

45. Tierra Whack, "Whack World" (dir. Thibaut Duverneix and Mathieu Leger, 2018)

Philly rapper Tierra Whack’s 15-track, 15-minute debut is the perfect example of what a full-length visual can, and more importantly should, do for an audio body of work. She delivered a multi-part video so striking it demands attention be paid to the music, and vice versa. Each colorful and often jarring clip -- one (literal) minute she’s getting a manicure with a brutally busted face, and the next she's kicking back in a pet cemetery --  shows the ingenuity of an artist unfamiliar with boundaries. Let’s hope she never finds them. -- LYNDSEY HAVENS

This 2015 remake of Vives’ original video and recording from 1995 is an achingly beautiful love letter to Vives’ native Colombia, where he enlisted help from multiple fellow Colombian stars -- including Fanny Lu, Fonesca and Maluma, each hailing from a different region in the country -- for a stunning, sweeping trip through his homeland. Meanwhile, the evocative lyrics and melancholy, yet danceable melody, bring to mind memories of Gabriel García Marquez. -- L.C.

43. Johnny Cash, "Hurt" (dir. Mark Romanek, 2003)

Whether you knew that country Jesus was knocking on heaven’s door in 2002 or not, this 2003 Mark Romanek masterpiece hits like a slow-motion mule kick to the gut. With his Mt. Rushmore face ravaged by time and hard living, Cash plucks a black guitar in a baroque living room overstuffed with the junk of life, as a montage of snapshots from his younger, hell raisin' years flash across the screen. The devastating, funereal cover of Nine Inch Nails' '90s hit about decay oozes over the unshakable image of a frail Cash pouring out wine at a Last Supper and quick-cuts of Jesus being nailed to the cross. If this final reckoning doesn’t give you shivers, maybe you’re already dead inside. -- GIL KAUFMAN

Intended as his pre-retirement swan song, JAY-Z’s 2003 opus The Black Album gave fans several striking visuals, from “Change Clothes” to “Dirt Off My Shoulders.” But Hovito’s most visceral clip came when he and director Mark Romanek conjured up the black and white video for “99 Problems.” With "Problems" producer Rick Rubin riding shotgun, Jay masterfully illustrates his volatile relationships with the New York streets, the boys in blue and, ultimately, his own demise, as he is violently gunned down at the end of the video. Though Hov never really “faded to black” and continued to release more albums, the video for “99 Problems” had every rap fan petrified at the sheer thought of losing the culture’s most revered hero. Luckily for us, Superman is still taking out rap villains for a living. -- CARL LAMARRE

“Dude, you wanna crash the mall?” 

--Avril Lavigne, in the first ten seconds of her first music video for her first single

Can you and your skateboarding friends/bandmates who look like a generic-brand Sum 41 (Sum 31?) really “crash” a mall if it’s daytime and already open? The premise is shaky, but whatever: From her first moment on MTV screens, Avril Lavigne established her extraordinary brand of PG-13 coming-of-age tomfoolery with a music video that’s almost too 2002 to function. The ties! The food court! The Jackass-style stunts! Life gets complicated when your friend starts getting all two-faced and trying on NFL jerseys and jewelry store bling, but finally, suburban early-'00s teens had their keeping-it-real heroine. -- C.P.

40. Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi" (dir. Jonas Àkerlund, 2009)

With the music video running double the length of the song, Gaga's Jonas Åkerlund-directed "Paparazzi" covers a lot of ground: Attempted murder by Alexander Skarsgård, the successful murder of Alexander Skarsgård, old movie homages, Mickey Mouse-esque flip-up glasses, and some of the fiercest looks from Stefani's early avant-dance diva days. The image of crutch-bound Gaga staggering across a purple carpet like Evil Robot Maria from Metropolis -- while her dapper backup dancers vogue behind her -- made it clear that unlike most pop stars on the planet, Gaga was here to get weird. And in 2009, we devoured it like the fame-obsessed monsters she was sending up. -- J. Lynch

39. Kanye West feat. Pusha T, "Runaway" (dir. Kanye West, 2010)

More short film than music video, the genius of "Runaway" comes from its stark simplicity, and the meaning seemingly imbued within it. After the solo repetitive piano note that opens the song summons a troupe of black-clad ballet dancers, West begins to deliver each line with an increasing look of urgency and desperation on his face, ultimately climbing on top of the white piano before giving way to Pusha T's verse and the dancers' graceful stoicism. After building the song to its highest intensity with almost Christlike posture, West then cedes the floor to a ballet showcase as the song's coda wrenches to its conclusion, ultimately ending with the rapper placing hand over heart, somber in one of the most quintessential images of his career. -- D.R.

Ah, “Hollaback Girl:” a video that contains multitudes. This is prime Love.Angel.Music.Baby content, which means the Harajuku Girls -- Stefani’s “super kawaii” but disturbingly silent Japanese girl squad -- are front and center, riding through Van Nuys and Reseda in an Impala behind fearless leader Gwen, twerking, and (quietly) helping her spell “bananas.” The minimalist-meets-marching band sound, courtesy of the Neptunes, is in nearly every frame -- along with Pharrell himself, blessing Stefani with a brief cameo and his ineffable brand of cool. But this video, in the end, is really all about Stefani and the charming ball of contradictions she has increasingly revealed herself to be: a magnetic-enough presence to make us consider her motives, and then abandon any semblance of logical thought to scream “This shit is bananas!” at the top of our lungs. -- R.M.

37. Nicki Minaj, "Anaconda" (dir. Colin Tilley, 2014)

The Sir Mix-a-Lot sample "Anaconda" is built around may have been met with a collective eye roll for its obviousness, but Minaj fully redeemed herself by pairing it with her most memorable visual to date. Between a bikini-clad aerobics session and an unforgettable lap dance (one that Minaj bragged left guest-star recipient Drake, ahem, "excited like hell"), the colorful clip solidified Minaj's superstar status, helping "Anaconda" slither to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, still the rapper's highest peak yet. -- P.C.

36. Rihanna feat. JAY-Z, "Umbrella" (dir. Chris Applebaum, 2007)

A waterfall of sparks, umbrella-based choreography and -- best of all -- an iconic silvered silhouette of one of the biggest pop stars both then and now makes the recipe for this timeless video. It’s the perfect blend of sexy, playful, and artistic -- risqué without being raunchy, thematic without being tacky. But the video’s biggest feat of all is proving that, even if only for Rihanna, it is possible to look that good with an umbrella. -- L.H.

Starring a blonde Lauren Holly as the badass Mary Ann, pre-30 Rock Jane Krakowski as the helpless Wanda, and NYPD Blue star Dennis Franz (outfitted in a purposefully terrible wig) as the title villain, "Goodbye Earl" is a delightfully campy and colorful video from the Dixie Chicks about "the best of friends" who poison the titular character after he beats up Wanda. It's a tale that highlights the power of the female bond, without making light of its serious subject matter. Yes, "Earl had to die," but the clip shows us just how sweet revenge can be -- and by video's end, even a zombified Earl has joined in on the hoedown. -- D.W.

Like the song itself, the 2002 music video for “Without Me” is a fragmentation grenade of rapid-fire images designed to level Eminem’s critics -- most of which he plays in the video himself. The rapper uses battery cables to fry a quasi-mechanical Dick Cheney lookalike and flips off his mother Debbie (Em in a blond metal wig, natch) as she appears on a When Sons Go Bad talk show. And Shady Records lieutenant Obie Trice, in a cameo, body slams Em-as-Moby, who called Shady’s music homophobic and misogynistic. But the real thrill of this clip is watching Shady and partner-in-crime Dr. Dre dressed, respectively, as comic-book characters Robin and Blade, head-bouncing with abandon as they rush to save a minor from purchasing a copy of The Eminem Show, which carries a Parental Advisory sticker. -- F.D.

Think of another outfit that’s had such decades-long legs. Everyone who's seen this spacey Nigel Dick-directed mini-space epic -- the follow-up to the equally one-of-a-kind “… Baby One More Time” -- can instantly picture Brit’s second-skin red pleather catsuit (which was her idea, as was the concept of dancing on Mars). The whole experience is a crash course in Britney 101: seductive, if a bit wooden, group dancing; hard-core eye contact with the camera; requisite bare mid-riff squirming; and a silly comedic bit, all of which remain key parts of the star's rust-free brand blueprint to this day. -- G.K.

32. Tyler, the Creator, "Yonkers" (dir. Wolf Haley, 2011)

Tyler, the Creator had a vision: “‘I’m sitting on a chair rapping, I’m playing with a bug, I eat it, I throw it up, my eyes go black, and I hang myself.’ That was his treatment,” explained director Anthony Mandler (Beyoncé’s “Get Me Bodied,” Rihanna’s “Man Down”) in a 2011 interview. Mandler, along with director of photography Luis “Panch” Perez, gave Tyler the guidance and equipment he needed to self-direct the black-and-white, tilt-shifted video for “Yonkers." In the breakout clip, Tyler does exactly what he outlined: He sits in a chair, lets a giant cockroach crawl over his hands, appears to take a bite, pukes, blacks out his eyes, and hangs himself. Effective enough to make stomachs the world over turn -- and earn Tyler one of the all-time least-likely nods for a Video of the Year VMA. -- C.W.

Fittingly, one of the century’s most beloved No. 1 hits arrived with a timeless visual. Carly Rae flips the male gaze of voyeuristic videos past and becomes the behind-the-blinds observer snooping on a backyard hottie, her giddy enthusiasm matching the lyrical tone perfectly. She’s fanning herself from the heat of the shirtless car-washing hunk a little too vigorously, fantasizing herself into the cover of the kitschy romance novel that’s sitting on her coffee table. She eventually musters the courage to make it out of the living room and into the steamy driveway scene, where the iconic “here’s my number” exchange leads to one similarly expectation-subverting final plot twist. -- C.P.

30. Fountains of Wayne, "Stacy's Mom" (dir. Chris Applebaum, 2003)

"We looked at a lot of treatments and some directors were trying to be kind of arty and subtle with it, but Chris Applebaum went completely for the jugular,” Fountains of Wayne guitarist Adam Schlesinger said of the Applebaum-directed “Stacy’s Mom” clip in a 2004 interview. In retrospect, there was no better approach for the surprise pop smash: the broad, brightly colored comedy here -- driven by model Rachel Hunter in the titular role -- accentuates the song’s storytelling while mixing in some fantasy elements and highly appropriate Ric Ocasek references. Special kudos to Shane Habouca as the teen protagonist, so nimbly capturing the weird, confusing wonder that is male puberty. -- J. Lipshutz

29. Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee, "Despacito" (dir. Carlos Peréz, 2017)

The most-watched video in YouTube history, directed by Carlos Perez, is an unabashed celebration of all things Latin, from the opening guitars and the vistas of Puerto Rico to the brightly painted homes of La Perla with their religious icons and chickens on the porch. And finally, there’s the dancing. Clichéd? Maybe, but totally real, and so expertly realized, we couldn’t help but watch. Ultimately, 5.3 billion viewers can’t be wrong. -- L.C.

You can ask Kendrick Lamar, and he'll tell you that one of his early inspirations was Missy Elliott. In the late '90s and early 2000s, Elliott bloomed into a music video savant because of her audacious attempts to do the impossible in under five minutes. In '01, Elliott wiped the competition with her Dave Meyers-shot visual for "Get Ur Freak On." The funky track included a starry cast, with appearances by Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, and Eve. Meanwhile, Missy rhymes inside of an underground sewer, glides on top of a chandelier -- and just when you thought the fun was over -- she even sneaks in a quick verse from her Miss E LP highlight "Lick Shots" to restart the party all over again. -- C.L.

27. Charli XCX, "Boys" (dir. Charli XCX & Sarah McColgan, 2017)

If you came for “Boys,” it’s boys you’ll find in this genius self-directed visual by Charli XCX -- approximately 60 of them, in fact, from Diplo bench-pressing puppies and Joe Jonas seductively feasting on pancakes to Charlie Puth hosting a car wash. Did we mention the whole thing is bathed in millennial pink? The idea, Charli told BBC Radio 1, was to reverse traditional music video gender roles, making dudes do “all the sexy things that girls usually do in videos.” Whip-smart, thought-provoking, and fun as hell -- not to mention providing fans with enough GIFs to last a Twitter lifetime -- “Boys” set the Internet into mayhem, and left it with a message. -- T.C.

26. Christina Aguilera feat. Redman, "Dirrty" (dir. David LaChapelle, 2002)

In the world of pop divadom, frequent reinvention isn’t just a choice, it’s practically a rule. But back in 2002, Christina Aguilera, loathful of her prefab pop princess persona, committed to one of the most explosive image resets in history with a red thong, a pair of chaps, and a dance move that would come to be known as “the slut drop.” You can only imagine the kind of language her critics used against her, and, indeed, there was plenty of outrage, vitriol, and mean-spirited mocking flung her way. Still, Aguilera seemed to weather the attention like a pro, and outlets that gave the young singer a chance to explain herself were treated to a brief lesson in sexual agency that was years beyond the general public’s understanding back then: “I may have been the naked-ass girl in the video,” she told Blender in 2003, "but if you at it carefully, I’m also at the forefront. I’m not just some lame chick in a rap video; I’m in the power position.” Guess Bionic wasn’t her only work ahead of its time. -- N.F.

What better way to play up the youthful sensation of a first love than with LEGOs, a classic toy for a classic rock song. The toy of choice works in a surprising way here, as the figurines capture the similarly unclear mindset of a boy so confused by love he believes “the two sides of my brain need to have a meeting.” But, most impressive of all is how the video turns something seemingly so simple into something much more complex -- reportedly, the video was shot frame by frame, requiring the LEGOs to be rebuilt each time -- a situation that anyone who has ever fallen in love is likely all too familiar with. -- L.H.

There’s a long and tired history of Justin Timberlake using Britney Spears as a punch line, and, sure, the concept of of a disgruntled ex breaking into his former girlfriend’s house and lurking menacingly while she showers hasn’t aged well. But the kind of pettiness on display in the captivating “Cry Me a River” is an extinct breed: a revenge fantasy that doesn’t bother with plausible deniability or subtle shady references, and instead lets its darkest impulses curdle in the open for all to see. It wasn’t pretty, but it swung big -- and everyone grabbed the popcorn and gave in to the twisted voyeurism of it all. -- N.F.

A bold, candy-colored cornucopia of delectable delights from start to finish, the 2010 Mathew Cullen-directed clip features Perry -- sometimes covered only in strategically placed cotton candy, other times in a whipped-cream exploding bra, and always in a day-glo wig -- as a pawn in Snoop Dogg’s Queens of Candyfornia board game, though of course she escapes Snoop's clutches to lead a dance party on the beach. The only way the video would be better were if it were actually edible, especially Snoop Dogg’s army of bird-flipping gummy bears. -- M.N.

M.I.A. and director Romain Gavras had already proven that they could make an unforgettable video with 2010’s highly controversial “Born Free" -- and two years later, they did it again with “Bad Girls.” Shot in Morocco, the video depicts Saudi drifting, where cars ride on their sides on only two wheels. Scenes of stunt men and women sitting on the outside of the tilted rides are juxtaposed with shots of M.I.A. and a glam posse of women covered in animal prints and metallic fabrics. Not one to be a bystander, M.I.A. even gets in on the drifting action, as she’s filmed lounging on the passenger door of a white BMW, filing her nails as the car cruises along sideways. How could the duo top that? “The next video needs to be shot on the moon,” Gavras mused in a behind-the-scenes video. “With hookers.”   

This is a boy band video with a complex dramatic setup: We open in a dimly lit vaudeville theater, where the boys of *NSYNC hang from strings, manipulated from above by a diabolical but very pretty lady, who then cuts each of said strings to set one beautifully-coiffed *NSYNC member at a time on his very own mini-action adventure, racing cars through the desert or running across the top of a locomotive, Bond-style. But let’s be honest: That’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to see baby-faced J.T. mean mug for the camera! We’re here to see J.C. torturously belt his “Byyyyye baaaaby!” ad-lib. And above all, we are here to see the dance moves --- the steps that would go on to be repeated at countless school dances and house parties, and that will certainly go down in music video history as some of the most classic choreography ever captured. Even if they were doing it in some sort of intergalactic vacuum, as *NSYNC appear to be in the “Bye Bye Bye” video, it was impossible to look away -- and easy to imagine, as we followed those moves in our living rooms, that we could transcend the screen and live in their magical world, too. -- R.M.

20. OK Go, "Here It Goes Again" (dir. Trish Sie, 2006)

In 2006, long before Kim Kardashian broke the Internet, this Chicago band went viral with what is otherwise known as “the treadmill video,” a self-choreographed DIY affair -- with the help of lead singer Damian Kulash’s sister Trish Sie, who was working as a ballroom dancer at the time. The clip features the band executing a series of (mostly) precision dance moves on six moving treadmills, and if you’ve ever fallen off one of those things, the video is as thrilling as it is entertaining, helping it rack up a reported 900,000 views in a single day. It wasn’t the first ambitious video the group had recorded -- see 2002's “C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips” -- nor would it be the last, as the band would only scale up with subsequent visuals, most recently culminating in 2016's “Upside Down & Inside Out,” shot in a plane that simulated zero gravity. How they’ll top that one remains to be seen, but we'll probably find out soon enough. -- F.D.

19. Miley Cyrus, "Wrecking Ball" (dir. Terry Richardson, 2013)

“Wrecking Ball” was not the lead single for the all-grown-up coming-out party that was Miley Cyrus' Bangerz, but nothing from that era, not even her controversial MTV Video Music Awards performance, forced viewers to recognize Cyrus on her own terms more than this Terry Richardson-directed clip. In it, Cyrus doesn’t push buttons -- she, well, uses a sturdy tool often found at constructions sites to smash them, doing whatever she can to inspire feeling, any feeling, in those watching. There’s the raw play for emotion with the tearful close-ups, which Cyrus has said were meant to evoke Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U." And then there’s the more polarizing attention-grabs -- Cyrus licking a sledgehammer, appearing naked atop the title object as it swings around. Cyrus did whatever she could to get a reaction, and she didn’t care what kind she got as long as people were looking. “I think people are going to hate it,” she told Rolling Stone at the time, “and then when we get to the bridge, they’re gonna have a little tear and be like, ‘Fuck you!’ … It’s something that people are not gonna forget.” -- N.F.

18. Sia, "Chandelier" (dir. Sia & Daniel Askill)

Ever the elusive star, Sia opted to sit out the videos for 2014’s 1000 Forms of Fear. It yielded some of the most exhilarating visuals of the time, with a notable assist from then-pre-teen dancer Maddie Ziegler, then known for starring on Lifetime’s Dance Moms. Clad in a white, tight-cropped wig that resembles Sia’s signature coif, Ziegler stepped in for three of the videos from the set, most notably “Chandelier,” a clip with over 1.5 billion YouTube views, which tracks her as she dances through a dilapidated apartment, breathing life into the drab and mundane surroundings around her -- and making a star out of its absent singer. -- S.J.H.

17. My Chemical Romance, "Helena" (dir. Marc Webb, 2005)

It wasn't supposed to rain on set, but of course it did: My Chemical Romance and Marc Webb brought the emo downpour for "Helena," and the elements simply responded in turn. One ofthree brilliant video collaborations between band and director for MCR's starmaking Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge album, "Helena" was both the simplest and the most affecting: Its balletic funeral proceeding made for the best high-concept rock melodarama since Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were doing feature-film dry runs with Smashing Pumpkins a decade earlier. But for all the elaborate choreography and staging, the most indelible moment remains the curl of lead singer Gerard Way's lower lip as he sings the final tearjerking chorus -- a reminder that the song was inspired by Gerard and bassist brother Mikey's late grandmother, and thus the video held far more weight than just the prop coffin they were carrying. -- A.U.

16. Drake, "Hotline Bling" (dir. Director X, 2014)

The dorky dad moves, the Sean Paul references, the pastel lighting reminiscent of artist James Turrell, the slightly passive-aggressive lyrics, the D.R.A.M. "Cha Cha” controversy, the parodies, the endless memes! There was no way that anyone could escape the pop culture phenomenon that was Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video. Helmed by Director X, the video catches you off guard by beginning with a bunch of Drizzy-approved women working at -- what else -- a call center. As the camera zooms into the water cooler just 20 seconds in, the dancing that sparked a thousand GIFs begins. No matter how hard you try to look away, Drake keeps you lured in with every corny salsa step, cell phone-imitating hand wiggle, and agonized facial expression. Being the cultural mastermind that he is, Drake had to have predicted the video’s outcome. And somehow that makes it all the more brilliant. -- B.G.

15. Kendrick Lamar, "HUMBLE." (dir. Dave Meyers & The Little Homies, 2017)

Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning video for “Humble” is a lesson in irony: While the song is a finger-wagging anthem about modesty, the video itself is overflowing with wealth -- both physical and metaphorical. Opening with Pope Lamar in a vacant church, the video rapidly shifts through scenes of the rapper playfully toying with a money machine, enjoying Grey Poupon, and teeing off atop a car’s roof. But the more memorable parts highlight black-centric symbolism. With Lamar recreating Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper with all black men and and a woman fearlessly displaying her stretch marks, the video becomes yet another celebration of the culture in the rapper’s visual armory. -- B.G.

14. Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé, "Telephone" (dir. Jonas Åkerlund, 2010)

What happens when you pair up two of the most influential female pop stars in recent history for a music video? That would be “Telephone,” the gloriously ridiculous, nine-and-a-half-minute spectacle from director Jonas Åkerlund that involves a women’s prison, Beyoncé (ahem, “Honeybee”) feeding Lady Gaga a pastry, a murder at a diner, a poison sandwich-making tutorial, Quentin Tarantino references aplenty, and a dance sequence that has spawned dozens of YouTube tutorials. If all that’s not enough to make “Telephone” an instant classic, consider that the video is actually a continuation of Gaga’s “Paparazzi” video from the year prior, with the same director -- which ends with Gaga in the can -- and let your mind be blown. Could a third installment be in our future? We can only hope. -- T.C.

13. Taylor Swift, "Blank Space" (dir. Joseph Kahn, 2015)

After years of receiving criticism for writing songs about her exes, Taylor Swift stuck it to the haters with a visual portrayal of just how “insane” she seems to former suitors and critics alike. The result is the singer’s best video to date, as “Blank Space" makes a mockery of the crazy-ex persona while entrancing viewers with imagery that’s both fanciful and harrowing. The video sets up a classic romance with a handsome guy, a breathtaking mansion, stunning gowns, and white horses (plus a cameo from her celebrity cat Olivia Benson), turning the seemingly perfect relationship on its head once infidelity and jealousy strike. Swift’s acting is brilliant as she takes a knife to painted portraits of her beau, chops up his clothes, and sings with mascara streaming down her face — almost making it believable that she’s as crazy as naysayers make her out to be. Whether you think she loves the drama or it loves her, Taylor Swift always makes sure her videos tell a story, and “Blank Space” could be its own damn novel. -- T.W.

12. PSY, "Gangnam Style" (dir. Cho Soo-Hyun, 2012)

It's hard to believe that it's been over half a decade since the satirical dance track "Gangnam Style" took the world by storm to become the first-ever video to be viewed over 1 billion times. With its over-the-top antics aimed at mocking the denizens of Seoul's Gangnam neighborhood, numerous cameos from local comedians and pop stars, and its easy-to-learn equine choreography, PSY’s video became a surprise global sensation that turned all eyes to South Korea’s music industry. Though it’s no longer the world’s most-viewed music video, the legacy of “Gangnam Style” remains. -- T.H.

11. JAY-Z & Kanye West, "Otis" (dir. Spike Jonze, 2011)

What part of 2011's impossibly joyful video for "Otis" feels the least likely in 2018? That it had a world premiere on MTV (like, MTV the cable TV channel) with a rebroadcast on MTV2 a couple hours later? That the most controversial thing about it -- the thing that necessitated a disclaimer at the end -- was that the needless deconstruction of the vehicle used for the clip's joyriding would be seen as financially irresponsible? That the big celebrity cameo comes from a silent Aziz Ansari? That Kanye appears to be having an absolute blast? That Jay and Kanye act like they genuinely love each other? Or is it that there's a gigantic American flag plastered on the wall behind the duo, with no message seemingly attached to it except to ask, "How could you not love a country where we get to do shit like this?" At the time, the point felt like a strong one. -- A.U.

10. Childish Gambino, "This Is America" (dir. Hiro Murai, 2018)

We get the music videos we want, but also sometimes the ones we need. Amid racial strife stirred up by a president who blames “both sides” and endless uniformed violence against minority men and women came actor/rapper Donald Glover’s funky, neck-snapping surprise statement. As Gambino, Glover -- dressed in Confederate Army grey pants and no shirt in a possible nod to Afrofunk godhead/provocateur Fela Kuti -- busts hip-cracking African Gwara Gwara dance moves while shooting a hooded black man and striking a pose straight outta Jim Crow imagery. Yes, it’s a lot. Released as Glover rebooted intergalactic schemer Lando Calrissian in Disney’s Solo, the sight of the Atlanta star grabbing his suddenly global platform and gunning down a church choir with a machine gun (à la the Charleston church massacre) then sprinting away from the Sunken Place tells you everything about the current state of the nation. -- G.K.

9. Fatboy Slim, "Weapon of Choice" (dir. Spike Jonze, 2000)

"Weapon of Choice" predicted the viral video as well as any other clip released in the pre-YouTube era, down to the fact that a lot of the people who remember the video probably couldn't name who its song was by: Undoubtedly, at least half of the clip's Internet traffic comes from "Christopher Walken hotel dancing" searches. "Choice" was a good song but a sensational video, one that brings the aforementioned four-word concept to such improbable three-dimensional life that it remains compulsively watchable even after the 57th time you're seeing the guy who played Max Shreck doing the hands-in-pockets shimmy. The key? Those beginning and closing shots of a silent, still Walken seated in deep contemplation, with only the whirring sounds of hotel maintenance showing signs of life around him, as existentially haunting as anything Beckett ever staged. -- A.U.

8. Beyoncé, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" (dir. Jake Nava, 2008)

Kanye West nearly committed career suicide when he crashed the MTV VMAs stage in 2010 to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video: “I’ma let you finish,” he infamously commented, “but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!” He wasn't wrong, though -- directed by Jake Nava, the stunning, breathless visuals for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” marked a turning point in Beyoncé’s career: She had proven herself so talented, so enrapturing, that all you really needed to pull off a milestone video was to simply train the camera on her in an empty room and let her handle the rest. The resulting clip is an unstoppable assailing of the senses: Bey, clad in an over-the-shoulder leotard, is joined by two backup dancers, all in heels, hitting a for-experts dance routine and making it look simple. As the background gradient shifts colors and the cameras circle her, she never breaks focus for even a split second, keeping the energy on full throttle. It’s no wonder West put his name and rep on the line for the sake of the video -- Beyoncé earned it. -- S.J.H.

7. Britney Spears, "Toxic" (dir. Joseph Kahn, 2004)

Britney Spears gifted the 21st century with a number of indelible looks, and the "Toxic" video boasts an embarrassment of them: Britney the Mile High Club-bound stewardess whose kiss turns a schlubby passenger into a stunning model; Britney the laser-tripping secret agent with fire engine-red hair; and of course, Britney in the buff, covered in diamonds and writhing around the floor like the Bond Girl to end all Bond Girls. Whether prancing down the aisle of an airplane or poisoning her boyfriend (five years before "Paparazzi") and jumping off a balcony into the night, "Toxic" Britney wiped clean the schoolgirl imagery and set the tone for the next 15 years of her career: Breathtaking, flawlessly executed camp that was closer to drag culture than fashion week. -- J. Lynch

6. Rihanna & Calvin Harris, "We Found Love" (dir. Melina Matsoukas, 2011)

Anyone who wondered if pop stars had lost their ability to excite, to surprise, to unnerve with their music videos had to feel the "We Found Love" clip like a bolt of lightning to the chest. Melina Matsoukas' dizzying visual for Rihanna's career-recalibrating smash Calvin Harris collab was a tale of a toxic relationship starring RiRi and a pouty, peroxide-blond gentleman who looks a lot like oh-take-a-guess, edited like a light-speed four-minute relationship montage that recreates the shock all music videos must've delivered to fans of classic Hollywood back in '81. Like Trainspotting, what makes "We Found Love" really frightening is how palpably electric the highs are, enough to make it plausible that its star would do what it took to feed her addiction initially. But that doesn't mean you don't still breathe a sigh of relief when she decides to choose life at the end instead. -- A.U.

5. OutKast, "Hey Ya!" (dir. Bryan Barber, 2003)

Coming up on the 15th anniversary of its release, “Hey Ya!” remains an infectious slice of pop culture -- as does its video. A twist on the Beatles’ own era-defining appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, “Hey Ya!” finds OutKast turning the British Invasion on its ear, complete with black & white footage, a screaming female audience, a black family viewing the momentous TV performance at home, and Ryan Phillippe in the guise of host Sullivan. Speaking of guises, Big Boi acts as the band manager, while André 3000 portrays all eight band members, including background group The Love Haters -- all garbed in eye-catching green finery. During the two-day shoot in Los Angeles, André reportedly performed “Hey Ya!” 23 times. Beyond introducing the phrase “shake it like a Polaroid picture” into the pop lexicon, OutKast also single-handedly revitalized the camera company’s public image. The Bryan Barber-directed video later won a bevy of awards, including video of the year at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards. -- G.M.

4. Beyoncé, "Formation" (dir. Melina Matsoukas, 2016)

Beyoncé stopped the world for the umpteenth time when she dropped the explosive song and video for “Formation," just a day before performing the anthem at Super Bowl 50. Frequent collaborator Melina Matsoukas may have shot the video in Los Angeles, but every second is deeply rooted in Louisiana and its Creole background -- the ancestral origin of Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles Lawson. The historical references are overwhelming: the Antebellum-style houses, Beyoncé’s Victorian hoop skirts and petticoats, the now-legendary wide-brimmed hat suitable for American Horror Story: Coven, Blue Ivy happily rocking her fluffy afro, the singer being submerged underwater while on top of a police car as a nod to Hurricane Katrina , the inclusion of New Orleans stars Big Freedia and the late Messy Mya. At one point in the video, a young boy is seen dancing in front of a line of gun-clad officers, who respond by putting their hands up. In a time where racial tensions were climbing to new, uncomfortable heights, “Formation” served as an active reminder that black people could not be silenced. To top it all off, the “Formation” video dropped just a few months before the singer’s second Super Bowl halftime performance, which further shoved its socio-political message in the face of America. -- B.G.

3. D'Angelo, "Untitled (How Does It Feel?)" (dir. Paul Hunter, 2000)

Naked as the day he was born, save for a gold chain and bracelet, D’Angelo is the entirety of the simple, single-take video for “Untitled.” The song asks how does it feel. and the video attempts to answer what it looks like, and it does so with such candor that the song and video have become inseparable. You see parts of this man’s body move, tense, and ripple in ways that must’ve been previously only available to his romantic partners. From the vantage of 2018, the self-scrutinizing gloom that it cast on his career, the way it fueled his performance anxiety as fans showed up to the post-video tour dates expecting total access to Adonis each night, feels safely in the rearview. D’Angelo returned in 2014 with Black Messiah and toured successfully after its release, allowing us to once again to just admire the physicality and emotion of one of the greatest sex jams ever made. -- R.S.

2. Missy Elliott, "Work It" (dir. Dave Meyers, 2002)

While most of her contemporaries settled for music videos that made them look tough or sexy, Missy Elliott got strange with hers, and "Work It" is a perfect distillation of her idiosyncratic vision of warped world. From upside-down dance moves on a post-apocalyptic playground to Missy swallowing a Lamborghini whole and donning a dunce cap for the deliciously goofy "why you act dumb?" segment, Elliott pushed imagery into the mainstream that most rappers, rockers, and pop stars wouldn't dare go near in an era before being "weird" or "nerdy" had cultural cache. Sure, someone else might have a Prince parody or a split-second Halle Berry cameo in their clip, but would they also have a U.S. Marine mouthing "give you some-some-some of this Cinnabun" or the lead artist lip-syncing to camera while bees swarm their face? Like its forward-thinking Under Construction parent album, Missy's "Work It" video made it clear that what was normal was boring, and the future belonged to those who weren't afraid to defy expectations, conventions, and even gravity on occasion. -- J. Lynch

1. Lady Gaga, "Bad Romance" (dir. Francis Lawrence, 2009)

By the time she crawled out of your mom’s Volvo roof box to deliver her first rah-rah-rahs, Lady Gaga had already hosted a poolside orgy, transformed the subway into her debaucherous lair, and sought poisonous revenge on Alexander Skarsgård for throwing her off the edge of a castle. Her ideas were big; her budgets were catching up. But the video for “Bad Romance,” the lead single from 2009’s The Fame Monster, went beyond the kind of spectacle that rising superstars like her had the resources to pull off. It offered a glimpse into an entire cinematic world that thrilled and disturbed in equal measure, expanding the possibilities of what a music video could achieve -- and challenging other stars to step their game up at the same time.

“Bad Romance” features some of her most gorgeous music-video looks -- as silly as it seems now in the post-Joanne era, the video was praised by some critics for the “stripped-down” and “normal” makeup on display -- as well as her most unsettling. The white crowned bodysuits look like Max from Where the Wild Things Are hit up a fetish club. The bathtub-bound Gaga with CGI-enlarged eyes beckoned to the uncanny valley. And despite all the glossy, sterile exteriors abound, an element of body horror lurks underneath the surface, from shots that linger over dancers’ exaggerated bony spines to the emaciated Gaga-monster hiding in a cage during the second verse. Pause the video at any moment and you’ll probably find yourself starting at something worth dissecting; even the briefest scenes and cutaways -- Gaga suspended in a cloud of diamonds, Gaga covering her face with razor-blade sunglasses, Gaga stomping around in alienesque Alexander McQueen heels -- could have sustained their own storylines as standalone videos.

Those mini-moments were mostly in service of a bigger story, one in which Gaga gets kidnapped and drugged by models, sold into some kind of sexual slavery via an ominous pack of Russian men, and eventually enacts a fiery revenge plot. Considering how “Bad Romance” cemented the branding and iconography of her “Little Monster” fanbase -- witness the birth of the monster claw! -- it’s a little ironic that Gaga has described the video’s plot as an allegory about the entertainment industry, one that asks viewers to examine their relationship to their idols, what they ask of them, and at what cost they get it.

Of course, Lady Gaga would go on to make more elaborate music videos than “Bad Romance” -- the mini-movie that was “Telephone,” the space opera that was “Born This Way,” each weaving in social commentary in both obvious and subtle ways. But more than providing any one look, dance move, or message, "Bad Romance" was a supernova reminder that there was still so much room to push the art form -- and that no one was more game to lead the charge than the free bitch herself, baby. It’s fitting that the video ends with the singer torching the place and everything in her path, lying among the embers and shooting sparks out of her pyro-bra. With “Bad Romance,” she took the old standard for great music videos and set it aflame, then got to work building a new one. -- N.F.

This content was originally published here.