The Vids Are Alright

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance.

…Where to start? How about at the end, where Gaga is having a post-coital cig next to the charred skeleton of her ‘highest bidder’ whilst her bra randomly fires sparks, accompanied by a chirpy harpsichord refrain?

Nah - let’s start with those HOOFS in the middle eight (3.27, just after the spinning gyroscope bit). It’s all very well saying “walk, walk fashion baby” but feet are not meant to DO that, dude - I don’t care what Alexander McQueen says.

Then there’s the post-middle 8 bit with her polar bear dress catching fire while she says some words in French then screams “I don’t want to be French!” (or “friends”, whatever). At this point you may end up overlooking the fact that she’s wearing a red belt-based outfit with only one leg. Only Lady Gaga would make a video where this is barely noticeable.

See how many other things you can spot in amongst all the vodka:
- wrinkly cat
- solar eclipse
- Burberry trenchcoat
- sunglasses made out of razor blades
- the Judderman
- gold chin protector

Well done everyone involved in the making of this video.

Royksopp - This Must Be It.

A bunch of Scandinavian semi-naturists come over all Rite Of Spring when a dude with a drumkit turns up. Excellent enough to make me want to go and purchase a) a quad bike b) a drumkit RIGHT NOW. It’s a bit chilly for all the rest of it though (totally SFW).

The Nextmen ft Ms Dynamite - Break You Down.

Ms Dynamite leads a crack squad of animated ninjas in a rooftop fight against some samurais and a robot minotaur (!), and (as far as I know) uses some actual dynamite for the first time in her music video career! The team’s efforts are rewarded with some takeaway Pukka Pies and plenty of chips. Absolutely brilliant.

(h/t @lexpretend)

Pussycat Dolls - Hush Hush.

And here’s the other end of the girl band spectrum: spooky The Shining bathtub sequence morphes into high budget MC Escher staircases and then into a ROLLER DISCO. Staggeringly good - stick around until 3.10 to see Nicole channel the spirits of Diana Ross and Gloria Gaynor.

Britney Spears - If You Seek Amy

Wow. This is such a vast improvement on Circus that I just had to go and watch this again three times! Britters wakes up from a night of orgiastic hedonism and wonders where all these random pairs of knickers came from (as you do). Gradually her memory returns and she gets flashbacks of wild choreography, and by the middle eight she’s sobered up and is ready to face the outside world.

Britney seems to be telling us that she will always be mucky on the inside, and that the medicated knotted-jumper wearing American Mom facade is her clever way of managing the media while she gets on with the important business of Partying On behind closed doors. Unfortunately for Britney we can all see her dark roots glaring out from underneath that platinum blonde wig of hers.

Jazmine Sullivan - Lions, Tigers and Bears

A heart-wrenching ballad like this one deserves a high-impact video to go with it, and Jazmine doesn’t disappoint. I love how the colours gradually waft away - her emotions are involuntarily leaking off her like so much cigarette smoke - and everything not in her immediate vicinity is blurred into monochrome insignificance.

You almost think Jazmine is going to rupture something in the middle eight, but then the tiger leaps up and destroys all the violins so they make a heart shape! Awesome!

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

Some folk gubbins from a dude who did a song for Narnia II: Lion Redux, with an amazing video that I definitely definitely didn’t nick straight off the Graun’s ‘top viral videos of the week’ list. This really is lovely - I wonder if clever tricks with stop-motion will feature heavily in the rest of 2009?

(My favourite bit is where she does a twirl at 2.48.)

Rex The Dog - Bubblicious