Maddie’s favorite music videos

One of mine and Allison’s favorite leisure activities, especially when we have company over, is to go down a music video rabbit hole. These are usually the same videos again and again, until we find one we maybe haven’t seen before for a song we both love. In seventh grade, I’d come home and watch Melanie Martinez Crybaby videos every single day after school. It probably wasn’t until high school that I realized how much I care about music, and how music videos add a whole extra layer to a song I already loved. 

I have a very visual brain and imagination, so listening to music is a pretty visceral experience for me (this makes listening to music both exciting and incredibly overwhelming when I’m really deeply in it). As a result, I am always visualizing a music video in my head when listening to a favorite song. Once I have a song on repeat, I’m usually inclined to look up its video, though many of my favorites don’t have videos. It’s fun to see how close my vision is to the actual thing, and for songs without videos, I can only watch it in my brain. 

I wanted to make a list of my favorite music videos, which I suppose should act as my current list of favorites since I discover new things to love all the time. Here are my top ten, in no particular order besides that I saved the best for last.

1. Thirst Trap - Audrey Hobert

While I think all of Audrey’s music videos are incredible (I am thinking very hard about the dance battle scene in the “Bowling alley” video as I’m writing this), I’m really fascinated by the visuals in “Thirst Trap”: a mixture of flashing bright colors and green screen clips with her vintage-inspired clothing style and floral patterned grandma-y wallpaper behind her in the treadmill shots. The slo-mo jumping shots are also actually gorgeous despite being silly. I want Audrey’s clothes. She is the coolest. 

2. “Just Two Girls” - Wolf Alice

Wolf Alice was part of my top 5 artist lineup this year when Spotify Wrapped dropped, which is really saying something because I didn’t dive into them fully until September or so. Their latest album, The Clearing, is visually stunning, and very sparkly and more “curated” than their previous album eras seemed to be (though I am a relatively new fan besides the handful of songs I knew in years before this). As a result, their music videos for this album are all really fun to look at. “Just Two Girls” stands out the most to me though. Really great colors, and visuals that unexpectedly become quite surreal by the end of it. I also love how they did the sound design, where some sound effects can be heard over the music. And this song rocks. 

3. High Fashion - Addison Rae

Now, this may be a relatively recent release, but I know for certain this has cemented itself into my list of all-time favorite music videos. This album is fantastic, and all of its music videos are fun to watch, but this one in particular is gorgeous. The song itself is by far the most experimental of Addison’s discography, and the video follows suit. It makes references to The Wizard of Oz, which I’m a sucker for always anyway, but it’s done in a way that blends so seamlessly with the other more crazy things happening in the video. Her dancing and level of flexibility is so entertaining to me as a former dancer who misses being able to do the splits on the fly. The slo-mo shots are great, and her outfits are great, and it’s Britney and it’s Gaga and it’s pop star. And she’s Addison Rae and I love her. 

4. What You Waiting For? - Gwen Stefani

On the topic of pop stars, I’m a big Gwen Stefani and No Doubt fan. This is another gorgeous video, especially for Alice in Wonderland lovers. The costume design in this era was amazing, and I think a lot of it was Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano. I’ve linked the extended intro version because it’s just so weird and I love it. 

5. It’s My Life - No Doubt

Gwenny Gwen Gwen! Not straying too far here. I have recreated the makeup from this video more than once and have this Gwen on my list of potential future Halloween costumes if I ever go blonde or find a really nice wig. Her looks in this video are the BEST. I love when she is in the pink room slamming that vase of flowers on the ground. And the involvement of the band members is great too. And the cut between her crying to looking totally smug towards the end of the video is perfect. 

6. Ava Adore - The Smashing Pumpkins

As a segue to another 90s band… this video is usually pretty classic for Maddie and Allison music video deep dives. I love that it looks like one continuous shot, and how it goes from slow motion to random bursts of fast motion - not entirely sure how they filmed that. But cool visuals and a totally eerie vibe. And D’arcy Wretzky is so cool. Yet another example of Michiganders being awesome. 

7. Just Dance - Lady Gaga

Obviously all of Gaga’s videos are incredible, but this one stands out because it is such a different aesthetic from the rest of The Fame era. THIS is indie sleaze. You can really see here that electroclash was an influence for her both sonically and visually to some extent - she didn’t really stick with this style visually but I’m so glad she did it at least once. The fashion is so good. 

8. Soap - Melanie Martinez

I know this went in a totally unexpected direction, but I mentioned her earlier and I would be lying if I didn’t include this video in my lineup of all time favorite videos. Now, speaking of the Crybaby era only (I feel like if I don’t give the disclaimer that I am not partaking in any discussion of her recent controversies I will be taken out of context)… she was my absolute favorite person in the world in seventh grade, and probably most of eighth grade (which was 2015-2016ish). This video, which was the somewhat temporary (I think) homemade video for this song, meant everything to me as a 12-year-old. She eventually deleted it and redid it professionally to put alongside “Training Wheels”, as other former Melanie fans probably remember. This one has just held up for me; maybe it’s the Tumblr-ness… but it was shot on film and the lighting and coloring in it really is pretty. It’s far more raw and interesting than the style of other videos from this era, which were highly scripted out and more in the surrealist style she was going for. Always a trip down memory lane for me to watch it. 

9. Good Day - Tally Hall

This went in a crazy direction again. I don’t know how much I feel comfortable disclosing about my obsession with this band without fear of being cyberbullied for being a complete nerd. However, I am a nerd, and this is my blog and I can say whatever I want to, so here is “Good Day”, one of my very favorites. Tally Hall is from where Allison grew up, which is also close to where Sophie and I grew up, so that’s what sparked my love for them. You’ve almost certainly heard one of their songs online before, or something from one of their side projects. They have a reputation online for having probably the worst fanbase ever, so I struggle to be open about my love for them because I will be and have been met with judgement. But I promise I’m not like the others. This video rocks, and brings out that “I so desperately wish I could have been a young adult in 2005 and could have had a myspace account” feeling I get quite often. 

10. Evil - Interpol

And now, for the grand finale, “Evil”. Allison and I have grown such an immense obsession with this video that a month or so ago we were watching it once a day. It was like taking a daily vitamin. We needed it. The album this song is from, Antics, was my top album this year. I’ve written a bit about my obsession with Interpol here, and another post entirely dedicated to them is on the way soon. Anywho, the animatronic-marionette combo puppet featured in this video actually has an entire fanbase of its own, and crazy lore to go along with it. This is part of what got us so obsessed with this video in the first place, I think. Basically, the puppet went missing for a long time, and it was later recovered by a fan who purchased it on an auction site and had it professionally restored. It had reached a horrible decrepit state while missing, as the rubber of the face and other parts of it had deteriorated without proper upkeep. If the puppet wasn’t already creepy enough, having been intentionally designed to be as uncanny as possible, it became an entirely new state of terrifying. Look up pictures at your own risk. The puppet’s name is Norman, by the way. I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that someone had to hold up the head of the puppet for the full body shots and be edited, because it was too heavy to operate the animatronic while it was standing up. I love this music video and this song, and that’s why it is the grand finale. 

I need this to be an even 10 videos, but an honorable mention is the “New Perspective” video. I also think it's fair that it’s an honorable mention since half of it is just clips of Jennifer’s Body. I hope this is a solid, enjoyable list of videos, and maybe you find something new to love. This certainly shows off the variety in my music taste, and only solidifies my belief that if I was ever a musician one day I would probably do it all just to be able to make super high production music videos. 

Here is a playlist of the songs featured in this list.