The music video has changed a lot since the turn of the century. Labels are no longer spending millions of dollars to trap Michael and Janet Jackson in an anime-playing spaceship, and just as video killed the radio star, so, too, have YouTube and social media replaced MTV. But with lower budgets and less of a reliance on a corporate entity comes higher creativity and the ability for artists to release music videos on their own terms.
With the century a quarter of the way completed, let’s take a look back at 25 of the most inventive music videos since 2000, arranged chronologically.
Two notes: the 21st century technically didn’t begin until 2001, but come on; 2000 videos are allowed. Also, artists and bands were only eligible for one video. Same with directors, with one exception. With that out of the way, these are the videos that will still be remembered in the 22nd century.
“Untitled (How Does It Feel)” by D’Angelo
Directed by: Paul Hunter
“Untitled (How Does It Feel)” came out on New Year’s Day in 2000 (a present for surviving Y2K?), and honestly, the year may have peaked there. The video for the sultry track is an intimate one-shot that slowly admires D’Angelo’s impossibly sculpted body.
“I wanted him to bare his soul to the world,” director Paul Hunter said during a “Making The Video” interview. “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” came out during an era of flashy music videos, but it’s the lack of opulence that makes the strongest impression 25 years later.
“Stan” by Eminem
Directed by: Dr. Dre and Philip Atwell
One of the only music videos on this list with a Mubi listing, “Stan” plays out like a horror movie. Fittingly, Final Destination star Devon Sawa (not Macaulay Culkin) was cast as the titular character, whose name would later become a catch-all term for overly enthusiastic fans. In fact, Eminem doesn’t appear in the full-length video until past the two-minute mark; the pre-pencil-scratching intro is a disturbing argument between Sawa’s Stan and Dido as his pregnant girlfriend. It’s so effective at conveying the song’s dark tone that you can understand the story even with the video on mute.
“Since I Left You” by The Avalanches
Directed by: Rob Leggatt and Leigh Marling
The Avalanches have only released three albums since 2000. This is unacceptable for many reasons, not the least of which is because they’re really good at making music videos. “Since I Left You,” the title track from their cult-favorite debut album, is about a pair of unassuming miners who emerge from the black-and-white underground into a dance studio during an audition with two gorgeous female dancers. One of the miners, the Paul Walter Hauser-looking one, impresses the judges and the ladies with his unexpectedly lithe moves, while the other fails to embrace this rare moment of joy and fades back to monochrome. In less than five minutes, “Since I Left You” tells a better take-a-risk story than most two-hour movies.
“Weapon Of Choice” by Fatboy Slim
Directed by: Spike Jonze
To a younger, post-“Standing” generation, Christopher Walken is more meme than man. But that’s not giving him enough credit: The actor is an Oscar winner, plus a trained dancer. He showed off both talents on Saturday Night Live, which inspired director Spike Jonze to cast him for “Weapon Of Choice.” The video begins with Walken sitting in a hotel lobby chair before Fatboy Slim’s groove kicks in and he feels a primal urge to begin dancing. It’s an extraordinary physical performance from the Severance star as he makes full use of his surroundings. Fred Astaire, a hero of his, would be proud.
“Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz
Directed by: Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland
How did a bunch of cartoon characters — with vocals from the guy from Blur — become one of the biggest rock bands of the 2000s? The video for “Clint Eastwood” is a big reason why. It’s a forward-thinking mix of distinctive 2D characters in complex 3D environments. Plus, a bunch of gorillas do the “Thriller” dance, which is fun.
“I have a big issue with over-acting and over-animation, so I would play it the other way — I’d under-animate everything. Make it as simple but as cool as possible,” co-director Pete Candeland told Animation Obsessive. “It started to become a signature for Gorillaz.”
“Pagan Poetry” by Björk
Directed by: Nick Knight
It’s not immediately obvious what’s happening in the “Pagan Poetry” video. But then you realize: It’s abstracted footage of Bjork, shot by the Icelandic singer herself, in the throes of passion. We also see pearls being sewn into skin with needles. In the video’s second half, as she grapples with the conflict between sexual vs. emotional fulfillment, Bjork wears a wedding dress that’s literally attached to her body.
“She approached me with the idea,” director Nick Knight explained. “She wanted to show her sexuality.” The music video was banned from MTV and to this day, it’s still not available on YouTube.
“Fell In Love With A Girl” by The White Stripes
Directed by: Michel Gondry
It was tough to pick only one video from ever-imaginative director Michel Gondry, but it has to be the one with the Legos — even though the brand wanted nothing to do with The White Stripes (and not because of the siblings vs. married couple myth). “Lego the company refused to endorse the video or help us,” the Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind filmmaker explained. “We had to pay for every single box we used, because they thought the music of the White Stripes was not matching their image.” It was money well spent on a video that, like Legos themselves, appeals to kids and adults alike.
“Work It” by Missy Elliott
Directed by: Dave Meyers and Missy Elliott
The “Work It” music video is one iconic moment after another. The bees. The backwards footage to match the accidentally reversed hook. The tributes to Aaliyah and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. The tracksuits. The dancing little girl. But most iconic of all is the connection between the legend Missy herself and “Work It” co-director Dave Dave Meyers.
“When I was living it, it was just that I was having fun. Each video was like, ‘Oh Missy, let’s pull your head off, oh Missy let’s do this,'” he shared. “It was just sort of a riff session between artists, what they were about at that time and how I was able to respond to that.”
“Hey Ya!” by Outkast
Directed by: Bryan Barber
Pure joy. How else to describe “Hey Ya!”? The music video for the wedding reception staple pays homage to The Beatles making their US television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show some 40 years earlier. André 3000 had never seen the footage before, but after watching it a half a dozen times, he pitched a tweak on the concept to director Bryan Barber: “Let’s make it seem like the Americans invaded England.” Dre portrayed all eight members of The Love Below, Klumps-style, meaning he had to perform the song roughly two dozen times during the shoot. But the studio audience made up of over 100 screaming female extras kept the energy up. Their energy is palpable enough to make you want to shake it like a Polaroid picture.
“Get Back” by Ludacris
Directed by: Spike Jonze
The big arms in Ludacris’ “Get Back” music video are so iconic, he brought them out of the storage to throw out the first pitch at an Atlanta Braves game in 2024. What do the Popeye-esque limbs mean, though? I’ll answer that question with another question: Does it matter? The inherent comedy of “arms… but big” is reason enough, and Ludacris and director Spike Jonze fully embrace the absurdity. Sometimes bigger really is better.
“Helena” by My Chemical Romance
Directed by: Marc Webb
I’ve been to enough Emo Nights to see the effect My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” music video had on a generation of Hot Topic-raised misfits. There will always be at least one person (usually the one with the most eyeshadow) who will dance along with the dead lady tip-toeing down the church aisle.
The video, which was choreographed by the legendary Michael Rooney (“Praise You,” “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,” the dance scene from 500 Days Of Summer), plays out like an old-school Hollywood musical. There’s even umbrellas being twirled, a la Singin’ In The Rain. “Helena” is a morbid delight, a song about death that makes you glad to be alive.
“Only” by Nine Inch Nails
Directed by: David Fincher
David Fincher was one of the most in-demand music video directors of the late 1980s. But once he started making full-length features, he would only return to his former profession occasionally. One of those times was the highly-digital music video for “Only,” which Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor called “a technical exercise.” You can understand why the guy who made The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button might be interested. It was Reznor and Atticus Ross’ first time working with Fincher, but not their last: they composed the chilling scores for The Social Network, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl.
“Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” by Beyoncé
Directed by: Jake Nava
By 2008, Total Request Live — once the epicenter of music videos — was fading in influence, so much so that in September of that year, MTV announced that the show had been canceled. But TRL had one more ace up its sleeve: On October 13, exactly one month before the finale, Beyoncé premiered the music videos for “If I Were A Boy” and “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).” The former was meant to be the main attraction, but it’s the latter — a “down-south” spin on a Fosse and Verdon routine — that became a cultural sensation.
Not everyone can be as technically precise in their choreography as Beyoncé, but one of the keys to the music video’s virality is its accessibility. “Certain movements, anyone can do — anyone can move their hand back and forth,” one of Beyonce’s backup dancers, Ebony Williams, theorized in an oral history. “That is what people are searching for.”
“Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
One of pop’s most visual-minded artists, Lady Gaga has multiple music videos that could have made the cut, including (speaking of Beyoncé) the cinematic “Telephone” and the proactively autobiographical “Marry The Night.” But let’s give it to her best song: “Bad Romance.”
Gaga emerges from a pod in a futuristic bathhouse, struts in impossibly expensive shoes, and poses in bed next to a recently charred skeleton while wearing a pyrotechnic bra. The high-concept video is directed by future The Hunger Games filmmaker Francis Lawrence, who enjoyed collaborating with Lady Gaga “because it’s always fun to work on videos with artists who love the art form, and she loves the art form and she was down.” Gaga’s music videos continue to be an event to this day.
“Lotus Flower” by Radiohead
Directed by: Garth Jennings
“I’m never confident about how I look, but I’m always into being shocking and visually interesting,” Thom Yorke once said. It’s this dynamic — an awkward attraction to the spotlight — that makes the music video for The King Of Limbs cut “Lotus Flower” so riveting to watch. The Radiohead frontman admitted that he felt “deeply uncomfortable” with having to flail about, comparing it to “paparazzi footage of me naked or something. It was f*cked up.” But that was also the appeal: “If it’s a risk, that’s probably a good thing.”
“Yonkers” by Tyler The Creator
Directed by: Tyler The Creator
The hype around Odd Future was never higher than it was during a three-month span in 2011, when Frank Ocean released Nostalgia, Ultra in February, followed by Tyler The Creator’s Goblin in May. Both are considered classics, but only one features a music video involving a cockroach being ingested.
Tyler had a succinct concept in mind for “Yonkers,” his grimy breakout single: “I’m sitting on a chair rapping, I’m playing with a bug, I eat it, I throw it up, my eyes go black, and I hang myself.” He’s the first to admit that there’s no deeper meaning to the video; Tyler did it because it looked “really cool” and knew that it would get him attention. He was right on both accounts.
“Oblivion” by Grimes
Directed by: Grimes and Emily Kai Bock
Grimes has lived many lives in her 37 years on Earth (and possibly other planets, too). But let’s focus on her most acclaimed era, when she sounded like an android who was programmed to make chillingly good electro-pop. Yet the music video for “Oblivion” is exceedingly… human.
Shot in a single weekend, co-director Emily Kai Bock keeps Grimes’ attention on the camera “against a typically male crowd,” which makes her appear to be the “most [dominant] thing in the frame while at the same time surrounded by men twice her size.” A fitting choice for someone at her (creative) peak.
“Wyclef Jean” by Young Thug
Directed by: Ryan Staake
Ryan Staake’s first idea for the “Wyclef Jean” music video was to have Young Thug light $10,000 on fire. The concept was discarded when the rapper’s label objected, but in a way, it’s exactly what happened. Young Thug never showed up to the set of the video; the only time he even appears is self-shot footage of him eating a single Cheeto. This required Staake to get creative, so he turned “Wyclef Jean” into a Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse-style meta-narrative “where we talk about the video itself in the video,” he explained. “We talk about what a disaster production was.” Staake (and a bunch of models and kids dressed as cops) turned a debacle into a spectacle.
“This Is America” by Childish Gambino
Directed by: Hiro Murai
Released at the same time as Childish Gambino’s season-best performance on Saturday Night Live, the “This Is America” music video remains shocking seven years later. A spiritual-sounding intro is interrupted by Gambino taking out a gun in a cavernous warehouse and unceremoniously firing a bullet into the back of a guitar player’s head. Shot on film, the music video tackles gun control, racism, and systemic violence. It’s heavy stuff.
But what keeps it from being overwhelmingly bleak is the technical skill involved, and what director Hiro Murai described as “Looney Tunes logic” to the brutality. Childish Gambino wanted “This Is America” (which started as a Drake diss track) to “feel like a moment.” He succeeded.
“Pienso En Tu Mirá” by Rosalía
Directed by: Nicolás Méndez
“Pienso En Tu Mirá” blurs the line between music video and short film. It begins with an unbroken shot of a flamenco dancer ornament dangling on the rearview mirror of a vehicle as it crashes into a wall; later, Rosalía is decorated with jewelry and gets surrounded by a group of men threatening her with guns, knives, and baseball bats. “Pienso en tu mirá, tu mirá clavá es una bala en el pecho,” she sings (which roughly translates to “I think of your gaze, your gaze nailed like a bullet in the chest”) as we see blood soak through once-clean shirts. It’s startling imagery that matches the song’s tale of “toxic love.”
“Lucid Dreams” by Juice WRLD
Directed by: Cole Bennett
Lyrical Lemonade founder Cole Bennett is one of rap’s foremost music video directors, and “Lucid Dreams” is his magnum opus. It’s a dream-like visual abstraction of Juice WRLD’s vivid lyrics about a breakup. There’s a melancholy that hangs heavy over the video, but you can also sense the trust between the late rapper and a fellow artist. “My creative expression is very important to me,” Bennett, who has worked with everyone from J. Cole to Eminem to Doechii, said. “It’s what keeps me happy, motivated, and inspired.”
“Now I’m In It” by Haim
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
If there’s one thing Haim loves, it’s working with Paul Thomas Anderson. If there’s two things, it’s working with Paul Thomas Anderson and walking in their music videos. “Now I’m In It,” a video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (!) which finds a bleary-eyed Danielle Haim in a depressive haze that’s only briefly broken when she’s walking (!!) alongside her sisters Este and Alana, has both. Walking is “cheap, quick, and cinematic,” according to the Phantom Thread filmmaker. Alana: “I will be walking in music videos ’til the day I die.”
“Cellophane” by FKA Twigs
Directed by: Andrew Thomas Huang
A year before the “Cellophane” music video was released, FKA Twigs revealed that she had laparoscopic surgery to remove six fibroid tumors from her uterus. “I started to doubt if my body would ever feel the same again,” she shared on Instagram, adding, “My confidence as a woman was knocked.” The singer accompanied the post with a video of herself practicing pole dancing, something she feared she would never be able to do again. “Cellophane,” a song about unrequited, publicly scorned affection, takes those feelings of vulnerability and turns them into a surreal masterpiece about attempting to attain perfection, and feeling like you’ve failed. All you can do is get up and try again.
“Forever” by Charli XCX
Directed by: Charli XCX
In the early months of the pandemic, Charli XCX wanted to make a music video for “Forever,” the lead single from her overlooked album How I’m Feeling Now. But, with the world in lockdown, a traditional promo wasn’t possible. Instead, Charli reached out to her fans for videos of cherished memories, sentimental objects, and pets. Especially pets. Over 6,000 people submitted footage, which were pieced together for the crowdsourced music video. It was a moment of connection during a time when we needed it the most.
“Squabble Up” by Kendrick Lamar
Directed by: Calmatic
You don’t have to be from Los Angeles — Compton, specifically — to appreciate the “Squabble Up” music video, but it sure helps. Kendrick Lamar packs the video for the GNX highlight with IYKYK references to his home city, including a 105 Freeway exit sign and scraper bikes, and a nod to Black cinema classics Menace II Society and Do The Right Thing. His humor shows up, too: The Drake-trolling rapper, who stays straight-faced the entire time, reads from a book entitled How To Be More Like Kendrick For Dummies (lesson one: make more videos as good as this one). There’s no throwaway lyric in “Squabble Up,” and every shot in the music video has a purpose, too. All killer, no filler.
