Top 10 Music Videos: September 2015
We’ve combed through hours of footage and gathered the most eye-catching visuals and unique storylines to bring you the best music videos of the month. Happy watching.
10. PJU ft. Josh Caffe & Robert Owens “Give It to Me”
Some people admire the old school, some people emulate it, and some people simply live it, baby. This ‘90s house-inspired jam gives more than lip service to its godfathers. For starters, it features vocals from Robert Owens, a man who sang on tracks with Frankie Knuckles and Mr. Fingers in 1987. It ups the ante with the visual, which pits Owens in a throwback mirage of night drives, VHS track marks, and floating zebra prints, à la old footage of Detroit’s classic public access dance programs The Scene and The New Dance Show. If you ever wondered what it was like in the golden era of house, now you know.
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9. Nadus “Nxwxrk”
Jersey can get a bad rap, unless we’re talking about its music, and then everyone wants in. New Jersey gave us Jersey club, it gave us Fetty Wap, it gave us DJ Sliink, and now it gives us Nadus. The bedspring boss knows where he comes from, and he won’t let you forget it. Compiled from 450 shots of his city, the video for “Nxwxrk” (Newark, as in the city. Get it?) is Nadus’ love letter to the place you see as a cheap flight in and out of New York. Sure, it’s dirty, and yes, it’s not the place where hip-hop was born. But it’s beautiful and it’s culturally rich, and it’s coming to take the crown. Put it on your back, and then put your back into it.
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8. Prefuse 73 “Still Pretending”
Enough with the storylines! Give the kids something they can vibe to. Prefuse 73’s got your back. The video for “Still Pretending” is almost like staring at an M.C. Escher sketch. The whole world keeps feeding in and on itself. The colors change so smoothly, you hardly notice. The music and the picture take you on a destination-less journey to the inside of your own mind. We suggest staring right at the middle until the world around you seems to melt away. This is some serious chillin’-with-the-homies material. Break it out next time your friend needs something to sit and stare at for three minutes two hours.
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7. Club Cheval “Discipline”
It takes Club Cheval exactly one minute and 40 seconds to drop your jaw. At first you’re like, “All right, this is a really dope house party. Everybody’s got moves. Cute video.” Then, the French electro outfit cuts the boom and it hits you: This is the dopest game of musical chairs you’ve ever witnessed. Suddenly, you’re thinking, “Why doesn’t every house party include a round like this? Why can’t we have an epic, large-scale version at the next big summer festival? What in the freakin’ world have we been doing with our lives?!” It’s all wasted time. You’ve seen the light. There’s no going back. Losers in the pool.
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6. Getter “Head Splitter”
You are what you eat, and OWSLA’s Getter eats a lot of grime. The monster beat-maker teamed with some equally gnar visual artists for his “Head Splitter” video, lending the already-dirty tune a trippy, messy, eye-popping counterpart. All the slime comes courtesy of California’s Deladeso. The wild grids and phantasmic rip-aways are the work of Argentina’s Kid Mograph. Other animation, designs, and visual effects are credited to L.A.’s VisualCreatures, and the whole thing was directed by Liam Underwood (Major Lazer, Knife Party). Of course, it would be nothing without Getter’s own head-knockin’ beats. Don’t forget to praise the bass lords for his nasty ass.
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5. Felix Cartal ft. Nikki Yanofsky “Something to Live For”
How much did you miss on your way to the office? What about on your trip to the grocery store? When was the last time you walked five blocks without checking your Twitter or Facebook messages? Felix Cartal shows just how much of the world exists outside our periphery in his clip for the super catchy “Something to Live For.” Dude never looks up from his screen and therefore never enjoys some sick sidewalk art, sexy girls playing with water guns, and a full-on color war. We’re all guilty of it, but we can all make the decision to be more aware. Whatever Rachel posted on Instagram, it couldn’t have been that freaking amazing.
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4. Rashid Ajami ft. JAW “Night Prayer”
We are a generation of over-sharers. We broadcast every banal moment of our existence through Vines, Instagram pics, tweets, snaps, and Facebook statuses. But what about all the parts of our lives we’d rather brush under the rug? Secrets still exist in 2015, though the lines are ever blurring. Every day, we head out into the world with our cameras in our hands. The more we share, the more we flip our camera on others, and the more our secrets find their way into the mainframe. Every silly meme is someone else’s embarrassing moment. Is it time to live like someone’s always watching? Maybe they are.
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3. Steve Angello ft. Mako “Children of the Wild”
It’s easy to dehumanize the terrors of war when the battle is boiled down to headlines. Most of us are lucky enough to live far away from the front lines, though many of us are touched by the loss of loved ones on the ground. It’s harder still for those innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. The heart-tugging scenes of this video, directed by Guillaume Panariello (Benga, Skrillex), bring much-needed context to the true cost of political violence, specifically as seen through the eyes of a child.
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2. Alison Wonderland “Games”
It may not be high-contact, but EDM is a male-dominated sport, and it takes a heavy game face to meet these demands. Our ladies have to rush the field with more energy, more gusto, and more headstrong attitude than the dudes at their sides. You’ve got to calculate your moves like chess. Every little detail of your image, your direction and your career can be a sparring match. In this video, Alison Wonderland gives literal play to such metaphors, and when she betters her competition, they just tell her “to stop acting tough.” She won’t be a cheerleader on the sidelines, and neither will this new generation of empowered females. Neither should you.
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1. Avicii “Pure Grinding” and “For a Better Day”
Most mainstage performers bring a cinematic element to their music, but leave it to big daddy Avicii to translate that grandeur to your mobile silver screen. Both “Pure Grinding” and “For a Better Day,” from his recently released second album Stories, go above and beyond the call of duty. The first dissects the economic trials of our time via two disparate narratives. Where one man struggles to pay his debt through honest work, another flourishes at the expense, and sometimes the lives, of others. In the end, neither man comes on top, leaving us to ask, “What is it all for?”
The second tells an even more harrowing tale of two broken souls taking their revenge. Why are they brutally murdering older men? More importantly, why are they branding their flesh first, and what does the marking say? You have to watch for yourself. It’s too gnarly for us to say.
A mature departure for his own artistic direction, both videos mark the directorial debut of 26-year-old Avicii with Levan Tsikurishvili. To the music and the visuals, all we can say is, “Wow.”
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