Hall of Awesome: Five More Best Music Videos of the Decade

I thought I would kick off this year's Hall of Awesome with my favorite music videos of the decade, but Pitchfork pretty much beat me to it with their Top 50 Music Videos of the 2000s, a list so well-conceived and compiled that all I can do is simply present to you five more music videos I thought should have made their list. As usual, all the videos are compiled in a single YouTube playlist, viewable at the bottom of this post.

Supergrass, “Low C” (dir. Garth Jennings/Nick Goldsmith; 2005)
This decade, the documentary music video became a go-to style for bands wanting to stand out from the crowd. Most recently, the genre has been picked up by Massive Attack, whose video for "Paradise Circus" features an elderly woman reminiscing about her days as a porn star, intercut with definitely-NSFW scenes from one of her films. This 2005 effort from Supergrass finds the band reteaming with "Pumping On Your Stereo" directors Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (a.k.a. Hammer & Tongs) for a nostalgic visit to Weeki Wachee, where a group of women are trying to keep their mermaid-themed tourist attraction from going under. It's a rare chance to see the usually SFX-heavy directors deliver a simple story with a minimum amount of style, but with a lot of heart.

Wintergreen, “Can't Sit Still" (dir. Keith Schofield; 2007)
When television stopped being the preferred delivery method for music videos, bands soon realized that in order to get people watching, they were gonna have to come up with something that fell into one of three categories: bizarre, hilarious, or controversial. And by the end of the decade, no one was doing it better than Keith Schofield. Every video of his falls into one of the three categories, and oftentimes he covers all three in one clip. Case in point is "Can't Sit Still" by Wintergreen, an elaborate little video that he posted on YouTube with the sure-to-score-a-ton-of-hits title "How to Make Meth". While the video didn't go batshit viral, it did ruffle the feathers of some people who were afraid kids would actually try to make the harmless concoctions the band ingests in the clip, and Keith eventually had to admit the thing was satire after YouTube threatened to pull it from their site. As usual, this video has embedding disabled, so click on the link above to watch it. As a consolation prize, I've included in the playlist below Keith and the band's less controversial (but equally informative) video for "When I Wake Up".

Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood” (dir. Jamie Hewlett/Pete Candeland; 2001)
This decade proved that a band can not only sell an image, the band can become the image. Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett long-shot concept of an animated rock band turned out to be a worldwide success. And while the songs are top-notch, they wouldn't be half as good without their accompanying videos, animated by Hewlett and his team at Zombie Flesh Eaters.

The Strokes, “Last Nite” (dir. Roman Coppola; 2001)
I can't really explain what I thought of The Strokes' and their video for "Last Nite" when I first came across it one night on MTV (surprisingly, MTV was still showing videos back in 2001). The video's concept is almost insultingly simple: The Strokes, on a soundstage, performing the song live, under a sheen of '70s gloss provided by director Roman Coppola. The video is fun because of its sheer "fuck it" attitude, as Julian Casablancas throws his mic stand offstage like a javelin, and Fab Moretti's drum mics keep falling down. As a result, the version of "Last Nite" they perform is unique from the version that actually appeared on Is This It.

Aphex Twin, “Rubber Johnny” (dir. Chris Cunningham; 2005)
Technically, this is not a music video for Aphex Twin (although the song is taken from his 2001 record Drukqs). It's a short film by music video extraordinaire Chris Cuningham, one of only two videos he made this decade (not counting his commercial work). It's a disturbing and darkly humorous experiment, where Cunningham himself plays the titular character, who has the ability to morph into increasingly erratic shapes as the music of Aphex Twin pumps out of the speakers. It pretty much encompasses the definition of "WTF?" and is a fitting calling card for one of the least prolific, but certainly most watched, music videos directors of this decade.