10 Great Music Videos from 2004

Words: Sandy Hunter

While many public bodies create the "top" lists based on tired concepts such as airplay, sales or popularity, this list is based on some of the favorite work that we saw this year from a largely new list of music video operatives around the world. They are listed in no particular order and in general all fall under the category of extremely hot shit! Most have appeared (or will) on one of the presenting tentacles of the RES (RESFEST, RESDVD or our new RES Screening Series) and are likely relatively unknown in the mainstream, but when has that ever stopped us? So thanks for the great clips! In the new year, please remember to send in your work for consideration to RES (email sandy.hunter@res.com to find out how).

Jason Forrest "Stepping Off"
Directed by Jon Watts
This amazing video touched a nerd-meets-decadence nerve that is too often overlooked, fusing Tolkien-esque imagery with Zeppelin style '70s rock excess. We first showed the video at our May 2004 LA screening, where it attracted the attention of some of the UK's top music video commissioners. From there, its director, Mr. Watts, was commissioned to shoot not one, but two videos for the legendarily creative video patron Fatboy Slim. In Slim's "Wonderful Night," a jaunty New York night on the town gets hairy when a man about town in spats and a tuxedo goes lycanthrope. The second Fatboy video, a rendition of Steve Miller's classic rock high school stoner anthem "The Joker," features a posse of newborn kittens on a trip to the big city to catch one of Slim?s shows. Expect big things from Watts and his New York-based cohorts at Waverly Films in 2005.

Prodigy "Hot Ride"
Directed by Daniel Levi
To be honest, when "Freak," Daniel Levi's first video for Warp Records act LFO, was released, its twisted choreography and evil-tempered children seemed to be drawing just a wee bit too close to the style of Chris Cunningham for me to accept. But when "Hot Ride" for Prodigy came out, I started thinking that Daniel Levi was on to something. He is a South African making extremely dark electronic music videos starring Asian children in a variety of pre-apocalyptic settings. In this case, a band of young toughs (we are talking, like, 10-year-olds here) ravage a neighborhood, beating down grown-ups and even doing a carjacking. Now, I am not saying that we at RES condone this behavior, but if Levi's next clip completes some sort of "evil young children from Asia up to no good" trilogy, then it will all, apparently, make sense.

Dizzee Rascal "Dreamtime"
Directed by Dougal Wilson
And just because evil kids aren't all that, Dougal Wilson's latest video for Dizzee Rascal is quite rad. It features a female 1960s era British kids TV host playing the piano and introducing her new little friend Dizzee Rascal. Atop the table, a pint sized Dizzee lays down a grimy narrative, sharing the stages with bizarrely round-headed ghetto puppets drinking 40s, committing crimes and generally doing the sorts of things that would make Peter Jackson's "Feebles" proud. Technically innovative, fun to watch and just the sort of highly creative ideas that made Dougal Wilson one of the best UK music video directors in 2004.

Eric Prydz "Call On Me"
Huse Monfaradi
OK, so this is a very low-brow video in many ways, but in the same way as Benny Benasi's "Satisfaction" video from 2003 (incidentally, directed by the above mentioned Wilson) was a pop hit driven by a core ironic and comedic spirit, this aerobics-inspired video demanded rewatch for at least two reasons! OK, so maybe it was all of the extreme close ups on the nether regions of the overly exuberant house meets jazzercizers who flex, grimace, smile and ultimately bear their barely clad, Spandex-encased bodies to the rhythm of a sample that I think is from either Phil Collins or Don Henley, but there is something pure about this video. Oh, the smut!

Faithless "I Want More"
Directed by Dan Gordon
This epic video was cut down from a documentary that director Dan Gordon shot while traveling in North Korea. But damn, it really does work, featuring thousands of Korean athletes showing their acrobatic stuff in a giant stadium while a massive crowd of the people (and a phalanx of generals) look on. Repurposed reality, but with a funky beat that you can dance to as well!

The Streets "Blinded By The Lights"
Directed by Adam Smith
This video really blew me away -- it takes a musical lament about a confusingly drug-besotted night at a club and spins the context to place Streets man main Mike Skinner at an equally unhealthy wedding reception. Shot in full, sweaty, documentary style, Skinner spends the night at the reception getting sidetracked from hunting down his absentee girlfriend (who meanwhile, is getting way too personal with another bloke in the toilets) with enough pharmaceutical input to make Pfizer mail him their annual report. Skinner really proves his chops as an actor (he was acting, none of that could have been real -- right?), and "Blinded By The Lights" is shot well enough that in no way does it come across as a pro-drug romp. He even gets his head kicked in by angry wedding goers at the end.

Chromeo "Needy Girl"
Directed by Tomorrow's Brightest Minds
This video is really quite simple. When they jam out, Chromeo's two dorky yet somehow streetwise members are transported from their dingy basement studio to a magical white world of croquet, milk martinis and sexy mannequins. Unfortunately, the titular needy girl pulls them away from all of this with her incessant, well, neediness! Girl, chill for a minute so the breaker with the white plastic hair can lay it down!

Danger Mouse, Jay Z and the Beatles "Encore"
Directed by Anonymous
This hilarious video works perfectly for the Jigga-Fab Four mash-up that had everyone talking in the first half of the year. Set at black and white televised Beatles gig, the control room goes wonky and all of a sudden, Jay Z joins the Beatles on stage and starts laying down rhymes. The Liverpool lads don't take long to adapt to hip hop; soon enough Ringo replaces his skins with decks and Lennon even breakdances. A great display of digital trickery that is really quite hilarious. We don't promote copyright infringement here at RES, but the Internet sure does have it all, don't it?

Buckethead "Spokes On The Wheel Of Torment"
Directed by Syd & Eric
RESFEST veterans Syd & Eric got medieval (or at least mid-Renaissance) with this animated video for that strange metal guitarist with the bucket on his head, delving deeply into the troublingly hellish artwork of Hieronymus Bosch as inspiration. Actually, forget inspiration -- they plunge Buckethead into the darkest recesses of the abyss, where he and all the sinners of humanity are tortured, picked apart, punished and generally made to feel sorrow for their unrepentant lives, all in scenes and scenarios directly lifted from that long dead painter's various works. This is the sort of work that makes you realize some headbangers have art history degrees and are not afraid to use them.

Eurostar "Ye Ye"
Directed by Gabriel Malaprade
So, this video really was one of the best of the year, and in the time-honored RES tradition, both artist and director were news to us! The song, a smooth French dance track with a seductive female vocal and the slightly slower house beat, proved a fertile editing inspiration for Yellow House director Malaprade. Brilliantly simple, the video is cut into a variety of scenes, each of which plays into the next. For example, the video shows a rock band riding their instruments before cutting to the next scene where a pair of equestrian enthusiasts walk down the aisle, nuptial style, before cutting to a scene with a newly wedded husband lifting his new bride above his head before cutting to a body builder, and so on and so on. An amazing execution for a catchy song that was definitely one of the standout videos of RESFEST 2004.

So those are some of the best videos that come to mind. Obviously there were lots more great ones out there, but these just burrowed into my mind and laid eggs, you know! I love eggs.