Awesome! I adore this topic, as there are just so many fantastic music videos out there.
1 - The Avalanches
A group of friends who decided they wanted to form a band went to a bunch of different shops, but couldn't find instruments they wanted. Instead, they found a bunch of boxes of vinyl albums (around 3000). So, they proceeded to take sound clips from the albums, the bass lines, the vocals, and manipulate them, and stack them atop each other to make entirely new music. Their album has been a pretty good success, with a new album having been on the way for a decade and a half now.
The single best music video ever is
The Avalanches - Since I Left You. It is such a pretty song, and such a fantastic video, but ultimately very bittersweet at the end. This is definitely a video to watch twice.
You can also find a video that has identified some of the audio files sampled for the making of the song.
Also see
The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist sampling heavily from the comedy stylings of the legendary comedy duo,
Wayne and Schuster. You can hear the samples
here.
2- Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd is widely known, so no introduction is necessary to their incredibly powerful and bitchin' music video for
Goodbye Blue Sky from The Wall, animated by Gerald Scarfe. And who can forget the notorious
What Shall We Do Now? that featured music only in the film, that was not on the album itself.
3- Little Dragon
No biography that I could write would be sufficient. Those of you who are fans of The Gorillaz will know Little Dragon from her work with Gorillaz on their album Plastic Beach in the song Empire Ants.
Nevertheless, the music videos are fascinating.
Crystalfilm is a peculiar video that comes across as a bit unsettling. Along with this, and a bit more depressing,
Twice is a music video featuring shadow art to tell the story, rather than the lyrics.
4- Massive Attack
Massive Attack is a musical group to come out of Bristol, incorporating traditional psychadelic rock with some more new age styles, to create a music style often referred to as "trip hop" or "acid jazz", although the lead singer, Robert Del Naja ("3D" for short), dislikes the categorization. Their work covers a vast array. Awarded numerous times, they directly trace their earlier styles back to Pink Floyd, as well as numerous other great artists.
Perhaps their most famous individual song to date is
Unfinished Sympathy, which features a music video which was ripped off of by The Verge for Bittersweet Symphony. Additionally, through the song, you can see the band members in the blurred background.
Their second album features a drastic change in musical style from the first, with the best in my view being the title track,
Protection.
Their third album was the height of the band, and has plenty of songs you all will know. Teardrop was used as the introduction music to the TV show House, and the song Dissolved Girl can be heard in Neo's headphones at the beginning of the Matrix. The most interesting music video on this album likely goes to the first track,
Angel, the music of which tragically was not used for the TV show Angel, but was used as the main title screen music for the popular video game Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. The music video is fascinating to think about.
5- Gorillaz
Gorillaz is a widely popular, although currently former, animated band run by Damon Albarn (music) and Jamie Hewlett (art). Known for mixing electric style prog-rock styles with hip-hop traditional to artistic duos such as Deltron 3030, Gorillaz has numerous music videos that contain a story that goes behind the music into the chaotic and dangerous world that the band itself are surviving in while making their music.
Featuring the vocals of the great Bobby Womack who was convinced to come out of retirement by his daughter, who loved the Gorillaz,
Stylo features a car chase as 2D (the lead singer of the band, named after Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, aka 3D) is being brought by Murdoc (the bassist) and his mechanical copy of their guitarist, Noodle, to the Plastic Beach, the new home of the Gorillaz. However, they have a hit out on their lives.
Why a mechanical version of their guitarist? Because in their second album, Demon Days,
Noodle was shot down and presumed dead in El Manana. Noodle was presumed dead until
awoken upon a ship as Murdoc leads his army of musicians to the Plastic Beach. Adrift at sea, she encounters Russel, the band's drummer, who has become irradiated and made into a gargantuan.
Regardless if you like them or not, you should give them props for being interesting in regards to weaving a narrative through all their work to date.
6- Royksopp
Last, but in absolutely no way least, Royksopp is a musical duo from Sweden that has made a number of successful songs in the past, with as creative and interesting music videos as one can imagine. Compared to the other bands, Rokysopp is more party themed, based on being more groovy than unnerving.
Although many people know the music to their most famous song, Remind Me, it was earlier on that album that one of their most interesting music videos appeared,
Poor Leno.
For all you old school gamers, this music video will be particularly attractive,
Happy Up Here from their album, Junior. Don't know why at first glance? Watch it, and I assure you you'll see why.
And in conclusion for Royksopp, and in a sharp turn away in overall sound,
What Else Is There displays a great deal of haunting, dark sounds relative to their other songs, with an equally dark music video. Interesting fact, the creepy Elizabethian lady in the music video is actually the singer, and the woman flying around as a ghost is just a model.