Like others around here, I don't particularly follow new music and rarely if ever know about newer videos. So here are some mainstream videos from the last few years that I've recently encountered:
Oh baby (LCD Soundsystem) - A sci-fi love story directed by Rian Johnson and starring Sissy Spacek and David Strathairn that addresses old age, death, existence, and what lies beyond. It works as a beautiful short film with predictably great work from the leads.
Elastic Heart (Sia) - This one elicited controversy when first released for what some perceived as uncomfortable sexual vibes between adult Shia LaBeouf and the child dancer. It's actually not meant to be sexual at all, but is rather an illustration of Sia's "warring" emotional state. While I can understand people jumping to that conclusion based on the intimacy of their dancing and the skimpiness of the costumes, I found the emotional force of the video by turns too anguished and tender for such a reading.
Two videos from last year engage directly with the impact of gun violence on the black community. One of these is also certainly the most talked about video of recent memory,
Childish Gambino's This is America. Depicting two shootings with unflinching bluntness, the video is mesmerizing, filled with symbolism that has led to various interpretations and choreography seemingly designed to distract us from the violence surrounding it. Taking a different approach, the video for
Prince's Mary Don't You Weep focuses on the aftermath of a shooting, showing the loss and mourning of the victim's family as his spirit watches helplessly from the sidelines. I was familiar with
This Is America since it's premiere, but the (posthumous) Prince video was new to me. They definitely make interesting companion pieces.
Miss Atomic Bomb (The Killers) - A sequel to The Killers' earlier hit
Mr. Brightside that imagines Brandon Flowers as an old man reminiscing on what was and what could have been had he not lost his girl to a greasy Eric Roberts. Mixing animation, live action and CGI (Flowers and the lead actress's faces look more like animation than their animated counterparts), this is a frothy piece of high-concept sentimentality.
Speaking of Brandon Flowers, his solo effort
Can't Deny My Love is a straightforward adaptation of Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," with Evan Rachel Wood as his wife and Psychedelic Furs' frontman Richard Butler as the devil. I like the slightly updated setting of this story to what looks like the 19th century, with the witchery set against rocky hills instead of the deep woods.
