Weirdest Plot Premise to a Music Video?
I mean music videos that have nothing to do with the music and mostly just do their own thing and tell their own story.
An example --
Basement Jaxx's Red Alert seems to be about a meteor-worshiping cult awaiting the arrival of their rocky messiah in some unsuspecting greasy spoon cafe in the middle of nowhere.
Once the meteor crashes into Earth, everyone gets horribly mutated and convulses to the strange rays exhibited by the meteor. The infection seems to be localized entirely within the cafe. The End.
Edit: Please link to a video, or at least summarize the plot.
Edit2: Please actually link to a video, or tell me why the video plot is cool. Come on, it's just 30 seconds of your time.
76 replies
Come now, DJ Snake Turn Down for What makes no sense but is amazing.
https://youtu.be/HMUDVMiITOU
That's a lot of fun. I'm gonna go with: guy gets infected with a restless virus that makes body parts indestructible. Transmission is spread through breaking floors and body slamming people. Once it exhausts its hosts it lives on that guys dick. 10/10
'twas directed by the guys behind Everything Everywhere All At Once
A lot of movie directors start with commercials and music videos. It is training for making long videos by making a lot of short ones.
Dating myself a bit, but Men Without Hats " Safety Dance" is a clear indicator of how much cocaine was consumed in the 80s.
https://youtu.be/nM4okRvCg2g
Hah, that music video is genuinely a pretty accurate depiction of your average England village’s May Day celebrations. I went to one this year, got drunk watching old men skipping about while wearing bells, kids tying up a pole with ribbon, folk band (minus the fabulous Mike Edmonds as seen is this video) playing fiddle and more, sitting around on a bunch of straw bales, and cuddled a goat kid while my dog obsessed over a Shetland pony until my partner told us to go home.
::: spoiler You're dating yourself? That doesn't seem healthy. /s :::
Lone Digger by Caravan Palace. It's about a murder-brawl at an animal strip club.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UbQgXeY_zi4
Love it - it's like if Zootopia was more honest about it's seedy underbelly
Also, Mr. FEAR by SIAMÉS has a nice animation about an alien (?) and a human merging to make a larger alien (?).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EKLWC93nvAU
Lotta 90's stuff comes to mind:
Garbage - Special
Primus - Wynona's Big Brown Beaver
Not 90's but:
Gorillaz -Dare
DJ Shadow/Run the Jewels -Nobody Speak
First ones that come to mind.
That RTJ video is one of the few I've loved since it released.
Then, I discovered Kendrick Lamar had made a video for Alright. Wow.
I like music videos as a genre. Anyone know if there's a good community/reddit sub/yt channel for them?
[email protected] exists, but isn't active. I also have my community [email protected] but that's a particular niche that I'm not sure if anyone else is interested in, haha. I wish there was somewhere better to discuss music videos but I haven't found such a place either.
DyE
Fantasy
Probably one of the most memorable music videos of all time
Ugh I caught this at the exact wrong time once and had the worst existential dread for the whole god damned day
That isn't even, imo, the weirdest Basement Jaxxs video - I'd give that crown to Where's Your Head At
https://youtu.be/5rAOyh7YmEc
However, I think the HK Slap is also incredibly weird.
https://youtu.be/kucefQ6sYbo
Robbie Williams - Rock DJ
When a strip tease goes just a bit too far.
I've never seen it before but after your comment had to check it out.
That was unexpected.
The daddy of my babies doing a striptease?!? The first 2:55 of this video could have made my life so much better. God, he’s beautiful.
Everlong was pretty wild
Check out the claymation videos from Tool!
Example
Salvatore Ganacci - Horse
People punch animals. Animals helpless. Man save animals by breaking into houses with his shoe car.
Salvatore Ganacci - Boycycle
Half boy, half motorbike. Travels the world to meet the half girl, half jetski.
Really anything from this guy
I have questions. I'm not sure what those questions are yet, but I definitely have some
How about, what size shoe was he driving?
Salvatore is great! I've watched every single video he made I could find on YouTube. Step-Grandma and Take Me to America are amazing as well.
Meteor worshipping cult you say
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)
Their website is still up btw. Wild shit but a cool 90's website. Pretty chilling though
https://www.heavensgate.com/
Especially this
https://www.heavensgate.com/misc/letter.htm
Portugal. The Man’s video for All Your Light is freaking weird. Complete with human heads in shopping bags, trailer parks, and what I think are aliens.
https://youtu.be/UJgVEnbwguk
That's pretty cool. Music definitely different than the video.
A girl sees mortality and decay in everything she encounters, and it makes her sick. Rather than continue to reject it, she accelerates the cycle and is hit with a holy accepting light after fulfilling her carnivorous destiny. She and her brother also might have been a vampires all along.
Stuck in the sounds - Let's Go also has a crazy video about an astronaut.
I do not know about the weirdest, but Quiet Riot’s The Wild and The Young video is pretty out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP2KhfQ8Pm8
The government bans and confiscates all music, and locks up musicians with their instruments and outfits in an underground bunker, where the musicians "cunningly" use these resources to sing in protest, but wait it's actually a premonition for something that hasn't happened yet and time loops itself. Pretty cool
Frankie Sinatra by The Avalanches
I always liked Radiohead - Just.
Twenty One Pilots' videos have ragged continuity from song to song, and tell a pretty out-there story. Example song: Twenty One Pilots - Nico and the Niners
man i love how thom looks like a preppie as much as he looks like a gangsta
I feel like I could suggest most of Salvatore Ganacci's catalogue here, but I think Take Me To America is probably the winner. Join a determined Bosnian man on his quest to for a better TV signal
His music is not my thing but goddamn does he make some awesome videos.
Wow, really loved this one. The unspoken rejection and then acceptance by his mother, the quest to infiltrate US conservatives to get into a position to
assassinatechange the transmission of brain rot seen in his country. And then to swim into oblivion a task well completehttps://youtu.be/Z3Pb3EJY5Qg?si=pMR5HFn4tJBZLmvB
For some reason this Shania Twain video is her on a future motorcycle running to herself from an evil iron giant
https://youtu.be/tKjZuykKY1I
The darkness - i believe in a thing called love.
Hes on an alien planet in a hot tub playing guitar and shooting lighting out of the guitar. Still a good song though.
She's not gonna pick you up, Phil, she's just stopping for the iguana.
Phil can't dance, so maybe that is the reason why he's being blatantly ignored by the pretty lady.
Steambreather
This isn't that weird but a wolf and a bear are investigating another planet and come across these sexy pixies only for them to turn into robots that attempt to harvest their organs once they've all had a mad night on the booze.
Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do
Telephone by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce. The song is about not answering your phone in the club because you're dancing. The video is about Beyonce breaking Gaga out of prison and then tracking down and murdering an ex boyfriend. It also has some top tier crazy Gaga costumes including a set of shades made of lit cigarettes. Good track if you like dance-pop as well!
you should check this out too... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CKOAQDsbg
That is absolutely amazing, I love it! I really hope Gaga has seen this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnGYaqjW-A
Einstürzende Neubauten - Sabrina, maybe not the weirdest, but weird enough to have stuck with me for the past 20 years
I've always been puzzled by the Stabbing Westward video Shame. It features a fairly disturbing plot of a woman and her boyfriend who escaped from an insane asylum. However, the portions where the band is playing are completely contrary to the "plot" of the video and almost comical.
https://youtu.be/CsxaoXHe9Xc?si=GEucLdCgmFU1sp_4
More fan made, but the combo is killer: mukinabaht with nature will have unintended consequences. Boards of Canada with a trippy french animation, the two feel made for each other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIY0c_OmcOY
https://youtu.be/PZbkF-15ObM?si=NYywD6MJD4m9ni1b
This is about aliens(?) and a warrior king.
Foo Fighter's Everlong
"When I get mad, my hand gets huge."
Honorable mention to Ludacris' Get Back for also using the big arm thing (though the video matches the song in this case)
Nick Lutsko - All Shook Up
There is no video plot here. It's just some guy having frankfurters thrown at him.
I think it's a metaphor.
So her music videos are a bit strange, but they've got nothing on the dozens or hundreds of random other videos (some of which are crazy long)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QpleqACHXzU
https://youtu.be/EvSjYYep3t4
Hot Chip - I feel better
Sci Fi boy band battle.
Those lazer eyes came out of nowhere!
Yea, I love the sharp turn.
I was afraid noone is going to mention this!
But note that it is Chris Cunningham, who is a twisted brain behind these.
Another classic: Come to Daddy
See also: Monkey Drummer and of course Windowlicker, with its ridiculous 4 (?) minute intro.
My vote is for Windowlicker. Wicked satire of “horny ho” videos saturating the market at the time.
Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice : Random guy dances through an empty hotel for no particular reason
Data - Don't Sing
Murders. I don't want to spoil any more than that because it has a twist.
Any one of the Lorn videos.
Dance Devil Dance
Well... It's difficult to even say wtf is going on there 😅
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhheiPTdZCw
It's visual commentary on society itself, as well as how fucked this system we've all built is to both our inner & outer nature.
Are these media systems self-sustaining? Aren't apples the symbol of knowledge? Or will our inner animalism escape, in spite of the processed knowledge, given even the slightest chance?
Might be reading into it too much, though.
Nekrogoblikon - No one survives..
Goblin gets bullied at the office.
https://youtu.be/LvHsLdYXfaY
It's kind of a surprise
A lot of the Freddie Dredd videos (especially the claymation ones) are wild
Michael Jackson's Speed Demon is ultra weird.
Blockhead - The Music Scene
Group Sounds - Temporarily In Love
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1I1NQuMP-8w
It's...an experience.
Arsonists get all the girls - shoeshine for Neptune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY1L8lY8qUg