In this week’s top music-video picks, we take a journey through old Hollywood, romance novels, and some ghastly murders. From hip-hop to electronic and indie rock, and featuring artists like Dizzee Rascal and Keys N Krates, see which music videos are becoming viral this week.
Keys N Krates: “Treat Me Right”
What better way to learn how to treat someone right than to get tips straight out of a romance novel? The music video for electronic-meets-hip-hop outfit Keys N Krates is a dizzying exploration into vintage romance-novel covers involving a range of characters from medieval swashbucklers to Dick Tracy types.
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Kendrick Lamar: “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe”
Molly, the MDMA drug, might just be what is killing Kendrick Lamar’s vibe. In the rapper’s long-awaited clip for “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” he and his buddies, all clad in white, make their way to a funeral, and in waves go from looking somber to having a raucous limo party, double-fisting bottles of champagne. Lamar also gets baptized by actor Mike Epps (The Hangover) with a bottle of booze (see 2:39) before the video ends with the message, “Death to Molly.”
1995: “Bla Bla Bla”
It’s always fascinating to hear people rap in languages other than English. In the visuals for 1995’s track “Bla Bla Bla,” the six-member French rap group depicts a suburban life not too dissimilar to one of the average American. The boys skateboard in empty swimming pools, sell lemonade at stands, and have a circle of bikini-clad women shaking their booties around them.
Skylar Grey: “Final Warning”“This is your final warning/There’s a dark cloud overhead” are the lyrics for the hook of Skylar Grey’s gloomy and ominous offering, “Final Warning.” A woman, looking like she’s caked fresh with mud from a spa treatment, walks into a family’s birthday gathering and coughs up mud, and murderous mysteries unfold. Grey has been most recognized for providing the choruses for tracks like Dr. Dre’s “I Need a Doctor.”
Lana Del Rey: “Young and Beautiful”
Lana Del Rey provides one of the main tracks, “Young and Beautiful,” for The Great Gatsby soundtrack, and it’s a bit refreshing that it’s completely different from Baz Luhrmann’s visually explosive rendition of the beloved classic. This video matches the song’s subdued and melancholic tone with a nod to old Hollywood. Del Rey is captivating with her new dark tresses and crimson-tinted lips, and a full orchestra plays as her backup band.
Dizzee Rascal (featuring Robbie Williams): “Goin’ Crazy”
Xzibit, rapper and host of MTV’s Pimp My Ride, would be proud of Dizzee Rascal’s latest video. Dizzee and fellow U.K. musician Robbie Williams soup up their motorized wheelchairs and ride as a crew through some British streets. The rapper arrives in a spiked vehicle (see 0:54), and the lighthearted video is filmed as one long, continuous shot.
Future Unlimited: “Haunted Love”
We get it: the Disney days of Shia LaBeouf are long gone, and there’s an artistic soul inside him. It’s nice to hear that the actor is making headlines not because of a new feud with actor Alec Baldwin, but because he is focusing on his creative side instead. LaBeouf directed Future Unlimited’s music video and tells a dark tale about abuse, poison, and some limb dismemberment.
Queens of the Stone Age: “Kalopsia”
Queens of the Stone Age has been creating some nightmare fuel with their latest music videos off of …Like Clockwork, due June 4. In "Kalopsia," the rock band enlisted the help of artist Boneface to create a creepy animated video featuring a ghoulish masked figure who wields some head-exploding Jedi mind tricks. For the morbidly curious, he takes off his mask to reveal his true face at 1:20.
