Top 10: Music Videos by Spike Jonze
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Now that the World Series is over and the Yankees have won their 27th World Championship life around these parts can get back to normal. No more scheduling things around game time, waiting till the last out to go out, and missing everything I hope to see! That means this weekend I will finally have a chance to see Where the Wild Things Are my second most anticipated movie of the year (The Road is first) three weeks after it came out! At this point everyone's probably seen it so don't spoil it for me! Anyway, since I'll be seeing the movie I thought it was a good time to look back on the career of the movie's director Spike Jonze, specifically the amazing music videos that helped to kick start his ascent to fame! Jonze has worked with some of the best bands throughout the last two decades, putting an emphasis on dancing and movement in his videos and they are a spectacular collection of the best in all genres - rock, hip hop, dance, you name it he's probably dabbled in it. He's won tons of awards from MTV, has a DVD collection of most of his videos, and has pretty much done everything he could to push the music video into a new direction all of his own making. It was tough to narrow it down to 10, there are so many great ones, so feel free to chime and let us know what you think we left out! Enjoy!10.
Dinosaur Jr. - "Feel the Pain"; Playing golf in New York City is normally reserved for the outer boroughs where there's more space and green, but Spike and Dinosaur Jr. collaborated to turn Manhattan into one giant golf course for this video. The highlight, beating down the three business men in the park who try to pick up their ball where it lay. Don't they know that's against the rules!
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Daft Punk - "Da Funk"; It may seem like the start to a bad joke, a dog with a broken foot walks through the city and...yeah. It's not a joke though instead it's a fantastic tale of dog that's left a bit down on his luck. Whatever your take on it there's no denying how awesome this simple video is.
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Fatboy Slim - "Praise You"; The Torrance Community Dance Group worked for five weeks to put together this wonderful public performance of elegance and grace. A motley crew of middle ages dancers prances around the in front of a movie theater interpreting the song their own brilliant way. It's an amazing show of what small bits of talent and determination can create and it is definitely a top notch music video.
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Ludacris - "Get Back"; Guys, please don't talk to other guys while you're taking a piss. It really is the wrong time to do anything but focus on what's coming out of you. We're not women, we don't go to the bathroom in groups, we don't need that shit. If you wanna do that some dude with Popeye arms may just knock the shit out of you.
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Kanye West - "Flashing Lights"; In 2;46 seconds, Spike Jonze and Kanye West manage to captivate our attention with a beautiful woman, a beautiful scene, and some traumatic, unexplained violence. It makes for a video you cannot turn your eyes away from.
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Bjork - "It's Oh So Quiet"; Choreography has often gone ignored in music videos of the late 20th century. More people focused on shaking booty and live performances rather than letting an artist truly let loose to their song. Amazingly it was Bjork who decided to don the dancing shoes in the gorgeous video. The dancing, the colors, the sounds all flow so brilliantly together to create a wild dream like music video.
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Fatboy Slim - "Weapon of Choice"; Speaking of odd dance choices, who thought Christopher Walken could move like that before seeing this video. Sure, some of the moves are done by stunt doubles, but this video is absolutely incredible almost solely for the performance Walken gives in it. When you consider his most recent film work this might just be the best thing he's done in the last 15-years!
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Wax - "California"; There's a good chance you don't remember Wax and their one big hit, but chances are also pretty good that you remember the image of the man on fire running in slow motion down a California street to catch a bus. It's an indelible image for anyone who was brought up on MTV during the 90's.
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Beastie Boys - "Sabatoge"; Along with choreography and movement, Spike Jonze is amazing at turning music videos into mini-homages to some of his favorite TV shows and movies. "Sabatoge" manages to wrap just about every 70's crime drama into on 4-minute long video. It works amazingly well with the music of the Beastie Boys, almost too well, to the point where we can't hear the opening guitar riff without picturing the mustachioed guys of the band running around and posing for the camera.
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Weezer - "Buddy Holly"; The Happy Days inspired video that launched Spike Jonze into the public eye. Before this Spike had done a number of solid videos, but this was the one that got him on MTV and pushed him to scale the heights he has. There is no doubt that you know every second of this video by heart and remember the days of waiting for it to come on MTV every half hour. Simply put this may just be the best music video ever made.
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