2006 Videos Thread #3

This was a very good year for videos. It was difficult, but we were able to pare the nominees down to 30. Each of us then chose what we thought were the Top 5.

Some of the videos were easy to remove - Blue October's "Hate Me," Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," and Kasabian's "Shoot The Runner," for example - and a few were very difficult.

In the end Disturbed's "Land Of Confusion" won, which makes sense to me as I think it was the only video on which everyone who voted was able to agree.

I personally wouldn't have picked "Land Of Confusion" as the top video. Here were the Top 5 as I saw them:

01. Fort Minor - "Where'd You Go"
While many videos deal with the Iraq war and loneliness on a large scale, Fort Minor worked on a more personal scale. To take it above and beyond, they made almost a mini-documentary, using real stories of real people. The video has brought me to the edge of tears every time I have seen it, more than footage of war ever could. It was a very mature move and one I have not seen from most artists. The song fits well with the project and keeps its integrity.

02. OK Go - "Here It Goes Again"
If nothing else, this song wins for sheer originality. The band pulled off a completely unique stunt (and outside the realm of this video, have performed it live), used a unique media (YouTube) to promote it, and have seen themselves catapult from obscurity because of it. Prior to "Here It Goes Again" I had never heard of OK Go. The choreography is solid, the song works with the video, and it was done on a minimal budget.

03. Disturbed - "Land Of Confusion"
This video almost was not considered because it is very similar to the idea of Eminem's "Mosh". However, the video is simply amazing. It has a very strong and pointed story and has the ability to rile as much as the motion picture V For Vendetta. The idea of the people having power is also a great one to see.

04. Stone Sour - "Through The Glass"
It's just a well-crafted indictment of Hollywood and the effort it took for the actors to pose and for the propsmen to make cardboard cutouts of them is very impressive. I just thought that the video was incredibly well put together and I had never seen this concept used before. Props to Corey Taylor and the boys in Stone Sour.

05. The Killers - "Bones"
This video is done in true Killers fashion, mixed with some very interesting special effects. The video definitely portrays the song and is done in a classy manner. It's not the first time I've seen skeletons used (I think Korn used X-Rays in "Make Me Bad" and I know that Kaiser Chiefs used skeletons as a motif in their 2005 video "Everyday I Love You Less And Less"), but it was done incredibly well. The special effects are amazing, the song is good, and it has the makings of a great video.

The #5 position was hotly contested. I had considered Matisyahu's "King Without A Crown," Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," and People In Planes' "If You Talk Too Much" for this position, but ultimately had to give in to The Killers.

We were allowed some special awards and so I had to come up with some. And so our inaugural awards:

Snoopy Award
For the bravery of fighting the proverbial Red Baron (in this case Bush), I award Neil Young's "Living With War". While the concept is similar to APC's "Imagine," that he had the gall to put up the Iraq death count gains major awesome points in my book.

Carl Jung Trophy
For an awesome show of pop psychology, I award Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy". It was the best use of a Rorschach test I have ever seen.

Unique Message Award
Because we were flooded with videos relating to Iraq and the war, I chose to give this to a video with a different moral. People In Planes' "If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode)" deplores modern methods of "communication" and speaks in favor of actually communicating, something we can all learn from.

And finally,
The SJC (Shark Jumping Championship)
Fergie takes it hands down with "Fergalicious". Go back to singing hooks, because otherwise you're in a long line of sinkers.

Those are my awards for the year. Congratulations to Disturbed! My next post will be a review of The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife". Stay Tuned!

AtD Announces: The Notable Music Videos of 2006: Official Results Thread I

And now that moment you've all been waiting for, the results of our 2006 music video awards ! Before we get to that, however, here's how the whole shebang went down. I asked my fellow editors, RyTunes and Doughnutman, to pick their five favorite videos among all those that were nominated. Oh yeah, I picked mine too. Then we used a weighted scale system that gave our top choices more points than our bottom choices. The scale worked like this: 3 points for the number 5 video, 5 points for the number 4 video, 10 points for number 3, 25 points for numero dos, and a wallopin' 50 for first. Well, the math is done and AtD is proud to declare a winner in our first ever Editor's Choice Music Video Award:

Disturbed - Land of Confusion (click on the link for the YouTube video stream)

Disturbed's roaring cover of the 80's Genesis hit powered into first place with 65 points (1 1st place, 1 3rd place, and 1 4th place finish). This animated spectacle, which is directed by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, serves as an appropriate and more brutal follow-up to its Reagan-era predecessor, serving as a commentary on current politics that is more shocking than satirical.

The runners up for our Editor's Choice Award:

Fort Minor - Where'd You Go (featuring Holly Brook)
30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill (Bury Me)

Each totaled 50 points with two individual first place finishes. The Kill also won an award at the MTV VMA's this past year, taking home the MTV2 Award at that ceremony. Finally an honorable mention to our 3rd place finisher:

OK GO - Here It Goes Again

The video that needs no introduction. It changed the rules for how music videos are marketed and shared. Another fine example of the Web 2.0 in action. What else can we say about the landmark success of this video? Over 9 million views on YouTube, Grammy nominated for Best Short Form Music Video, featured on the Colbert Report, performed live without error at the 2006 VMA's, and parodied in a Cingular Wireless commercial. (Source: Wikipedia)

But that's not all! There's a lot more comin' your way before we wrap up the year that was in music videos. Next, RyTunes and Doughnutman (not necessarily in that order) will share with you their thoughts and comments on the videos mentioned here, plus a few more that weren't. After that, I'll close it off with a few personal whimsies on what struck me and why, while also welcoming the next cadre of music videos that will blow our minds and destroy worlds in 2007. It should be a wild ride, don't go anywhere!

Music Video Update, News Roundup, BlogTrax

I would like to start with an apology to Doughnutman for preempting his last post of the year. It was an unfortunate miscalculation on my part. My bad, D! Now that we're all back on track and ready to ingest this new year like a five star buffet, let's get down to business.

An update on AtD's Notable Videos of 2006: Thanks to some great feedback, the criteria for evaluating nominated videos will be modified as follows (for the original criteria check here):

1) Originality and 2) A/V Congruity will remain as they are. However, 3) Coherence is being restructured and divided into 3) Message - the idea, plot, or theme being communicated and 4) Medium - the method/style/means of communicating said message. 5) Integrity is untouched.

Any questions? Hit the comments. Meanwhile the noms have been pouring in (big thanks to Doughnutman and RyTunes for their outstanding suggestions) and it's almost time for the big ceremony. But are we missing anything? It would be a true crime and tragedy to leave a brilliant video out just because it flew under our radar. So I'm setting the deadline of 12 midnight tonight (January 3, 2007 EST) for all potentials to be in. After that the judges will use a progressive point system spread out amongst themselves to weigh out the winners and the not-so winners. (We should note that every video nominated assuredly deserves the praise and adulation that merited its recognition.) Stay tuned!

Meanwhile around the biz, there's some big time stuff going down. Here is what you might have missed:

- Humanitarian, rock star, Irishman Bono has given us some early insight into the new U2 album, tentatively expected sometime this year:

Asked by interviewer Jo Whalley if that might mean a move away from rock'n'roll, Bono replied, "We're gonna continue to be a band, but maybe the rock will have to go; maybe the rock has to get a lot harder. But whatever it is, it's not gonna stay where it is."

He went on to reveal he'd like U2 to explore compositions featuring just voice and acoustic guitar. "I would like to do a couple of tunes in that direction, with just a lot of space around the voice," he said. "I'd like to strip things down; that's something I'd be very interested in at the moment."

- The ever prolific will.I.am, fresh off of his Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year, is lending his talents to Michael Jackson's hugely anticipated new album, Billboard reports:

will.i.am tells Billboard.com he has been doing "a lot of talking on the phone, a lot of brainstorming" with Jackson so far. Their conversations, he says, involve more than just music but also figuring out how Jackson can use new technology, particularly social networking sites and download outlets, to his advantage.

But Jackson's next musical direction remains a primary concern. "Man, he still sings like a bird," will.i.am says. "He could go anywhere. I think we have a real opportunity to do something here. It's either gonna be really big or nobody's gonna care. Ain't no middle ground on this one."

- Both Rolling Stone and Stereogum report on the newly leaked Modest Mouse track "Dashboard," featuring new guitarist (ex Smiths axe-man) Johnny Marr. Check out the link for more info, including how to grab an early listen. "Dashboard" is set to appear on Modest Mouse's new album, of which there will be a preview on AtD in the near future.

- Finally, Scott Weiland rules in the possibility of an eventual STP reunion, according to his MySpace blog. No clues as to when this might happen as Weiland is busy with Velvet Revolver and the DeLeo brothers just released their first album with Filter frontman, Richard Patrick, as Army of Anyone.

And in anticipation of a more stripped down U2, I present a brand new feature here on AtD - BlogTrax. BlogTrax will be individual songs discussed here on the site that we will be providing for your listening pleasure. Of course we're not lawbreakers so there will be rules governing what can and can't be shared, and official requests to remove the songs will be adhered to. But enough of that, let's get to the goods!

U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday (live acoustic)

AtD Announces: The Notable Music Videos of 2006: Official Nominating Thread

As 2006 draws to a close and we reflect and resolve in anticipation of a new year, new hopes, and dreams yet to be fulfilled, I thought we'd take a moment on the old 'log to visually look back at the year that was, with the best music videos of 2006! Now this is by no means a new idea, but thanks to the advent of YouTube and Digital Democracy, we can go about this in an entirely new and interactive way. Before we get to the good stuff I thought it would be useful to talk about what actually makes a music video one of the 'best'. There is no real SOP here, so let's improvise:

Criteria for evaluating the quality of music videos:

1) Originality. Art eternally strives to reinvent itself in a world with finite tools in which to create it. The struggle to be fresh and different among legions of influences and imitations is ultimately a large part of what defines it's place in the grand scheme of things. No one really enjoys seeing arbitrary shots of a band performing against interspersed sprinklings of bad dancing or pretentious non sequiturs, do they?

2) Audio/Visual Congruity. If you're going to bother putting the time and energy into developing a visual medium to convey your musical message, wouldn't you say it ought to be appropriate? Although the utterly irrational and absurdest vid can be fun and humorous, it's generally aimless and unwelcoming. Go for the themes, the style, the flair; let the pictures carry the notes on wings of glory and not on broken backs up a mountain of defeat.

3) Coherence. Sometimes it's good to blow people's minds. Most of the time. however, it's good just to be understood. While the occasional foray into the experimental realm of existentialism and atmosphere sometimes make a powerful statement, it should meet the fundamental expectation of narrative; that is, it should weave a story or a unified idea in some way. Even Tool's infamously bizarre visual constructions contain a sense of character movement and purposeful events. The simple goal here is to not try too hard to be the Pablo Picasso of the music video world.

4) Integrity. Not all bands, in fact a good number of them, probably cannot afford to make a professionally scripted, shot, and edited video. That's okay. What's not okay is throwing together some loose ends into an imploding bomb of sloppiness and carelessness. Much effort with little to fund it does not necessarily spell logistical nightmare. One only need look at OK GO's instantly cult classic "Here it Goes Again" for proof of the fact that rudimentary can go a long, long way.

I don't portend to be an expert of the directorial and production world who is readily qualified to speak to the inherent objective characteristics of a given video. So if you want to disagree, agree, add your own thoughts and comments, or slap me across the face, you can do all but the last (I'm behind a computer screen and therefore inevitably distantly removed from you). So while you're debating the merits of that, what were the standout, provocative, sexy, innovative, and intense videos of 2006? Alternatively, and perhaps more amusingly so, what were the most atrocious, banal, preposterous, and unwatchable videos of the year? Let's do it all. We'll use the comments as the official nominating thread. The contributors of the site (as well as any of our faithful or new readers) are welcome to throw their ingredients into the pot and then we can soufflé the sucker and see what turns out at the end. Ultimately we'll chose the ten best, because our opinions rock, and we'll also chose the worst. We might even choose to give some videos their own made-up honors such as 'Best use of the color brown.' You never know.

In the end we'll have some kind of list-thingy with YouTube links, and commentaries, and maybe even some other fun goodies. Think of it as the VMA's (without MTV) meets the Mystery Science Theater 3000 of musical motion pictures. Or something like that.

As this will be the last post of 2006 to this site (as far as I know...), May you all have a Happy, Safe, Blessed, and Inebriated New Year. We'll catch you bright and early in 2007 on the flipside of this post. For now on to the comments, nominations, and flame-wars!