Best of '15: Music Videos of the Year
Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 10:15AM 
We'll begin our daily year in review partying with some music.
The best music videos are like short films. Or, rather, all music videos are short films. The best of them can give cinematic thrills, though. Not that you'd want two full hours of most of them. Still and all, here are 15 favorites of the year. Apologies to two tremendous auteurs who dabbled in music video this year (P.T. Anderson with Joanna Newsom and Xavier Dolan for Adele) but if you're a legit auteur with great films under your belt, expectations run too high to excited when the video is only "good".
Disclaimer: Endorsement of videos is not neccessarily endorsement of songs though it helps, sure.
Suggestions for what we missed are welcome in the comments since it's easy to miss great ones if a less than spectacularly popular artist makes them...
15 BEST MUSIC VIDEOS OF 2015
(after the jump)
15 "Living For Love" -Madonna
(February 2015) For fully committing to its minimalist concept, but heightening it with subtle superhuman magic, sharp rhythmic editing, and minotaur eroticism. And making the most of an unusually small budget as Madonna videos go
14 "Glass and Patron" - FKA Twigs
(March 2015) For being inexplicably eery (those Lynchian trees, that uh... rainbow birth) and for its catwalk voguing aggression.
13 "Bills" - LunchMoney Lewis
(February 2015) For being such a throwback to old school videos in which popstars had fun literalizing their lyrics
12 "I Really Like You" Carly Rae Jepsen
(March 2015) For both concept and vessel -- the definition of "likeable" himself, Mr Tom Hanks. It doesn't even matter that he's bad at lipsynching.
11 "Lionsong" Björk
(March 2015) The Tilda Swinton of pop stars. Or is Tilda the Björk of movie stars: forever colorful and alien, always hypnotic.
10 "All Hands on Deck" - Tinashe
(April 2015) 'They've got choreography!' We're suckers for a good boxed up dance routine. (See also Madonna's Human Nature and #1 on this list)
09 "Bad Blood" Taylor Swift feat. Kendrick Lamar
(May 2015) For being terrible and great simultaneously, knowingly exploiting the 'music video as commercial' aspects of the art form until it's only a sales pitch. It's forever selling its non-existent self (and the 1989 album, natch)
08 "Freedom" - Pharrell Williams
07 "Alright" - Kendrick Lamar
(July & June 2015) Neither of these videos could be called subtle with a straight face but social messages shouldn't always be. Pharrells goes full color with cosmic A.D.D. and Malick & The Masses pastiche. Kendrick's opts for beautiful black and white with a touch of transcendence (cue flying) and a killer ending.
06 Tame Impala "The Less I Know the Better"
(November 2015) What to say other than... WOW.
05 "I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)" - The Dead Weather
(August 2015) The very best of the minimalist school of music videos this year, hypnotic in its Sisyphian repetition.
04 "Ghosttown" - Madonna
(April 2015) Madonna survives everything. Even the apocalypse.
03 "Where Are U Now" Skrillex & Diplo feat. Justin Beiber
(June 2015) There's often nothing as cooly synthetic as dance music but watch how the crowd-sourced (?) drawings humanize and mock and worship and fuss on and over the artifice of music and stardom.
And finally...
The only two videos I watched an obscene amount of times this year. I would legit like to hand them tiny little Oscars for their achievements.
02 "Elastic Heart" - Sia
(January 2015) Kinetically wondrous (especially for fans of modern interpretative dance), gloriously resonant (Caged by our emotions -- aren't we all?), and deeply committed (Shia Labeouf is our favorite genuinely insane male actor.)
01 "WTF (Where They From)" - Missy Elliott feat. Pharrell Williams
(November 2015) I'll let Nick describe this one since he nailed it last month on Twitter...
Missy was from Mars way before Damon was. Missy's Puppets > Kaufman's Puppets. Missy's Force has Awakened. Holiday movie season ends today.
— Nick Davis (@NicksFlickPicks) November 13, 2015
Finis.
Which music videos did you love the most this year ... and which of these would make the best feature film if it were blown up with 85 more minutes?
More Year in Review
Animals | Worst of the Year | Fashion | Co-Star Chemistry | Biggest Hits | Oscar Foreign Coverage | Most Popular Tweets
Reader Comments (25)
That GHOSTTOWN video is one of my favorites.... she is absolutely stunning there!
Can't argue with number 1, but I will say that Florence + the Machine put out some great visuals (to go along with a great album) this year.
Vince Staples Senorita video belongs right there with Alright and Freedom.
Drake's Hotline Bling because it inspired people to look up James Terrell, and that's wonderful.
Nicki Minaj's Feelin' Myself because it's Nicki and Beyonce. NICKI AND BEYONCE!
And, especially, for this site, Chance the Rapper's Sunday Candy because it's perfect.
XOXOX
That said, your #1 is inarguable.
I'll throw a vote towards John Grant's "Disappointing" (NSFW). Inscrutable, unapologetic, and sleazy. The song itself is better than the video, though.
Gabrielle Aplin's "Sweet Nothing" is pure fun, and PWR BTTM's "1994" feels like a really strong match of visual aesthetic and song.
Tame Impala...wow, indeed. I see your wow and raise you a WTF (but in a good way).
All the yes to Lamar's and Elliott's.
The song was released in 2013, but the video of Sergei Polunin dancing to Hozier's Take me to Church only came out in February. It's amazing, breathtaking. I even cried the first time I saw it.
I found it strange when i saw Madonna here in the uk why she didn't do the best songs from rebel heart namely hold tight,joan of arc,graffiti heart & esp ghosttown,she was v icy after the crowd booed her so the night was v subdued.
Mary-
I think she needs a break at this point... I saw her in Philadelphia in September and she was so happy and funny and talkative... I think she is overbooked this tour.
Madonna can´t be twice in such a short list! Your love for her makes you miss some other great stuff. In general I found the list too mainstream (and boring). I would keep Tame Impala´s and Sia´s videos and complete my top 5 with my personal favorites (gold, silver and bronze) of this year: Ivory by Movement, Wet Dreamz by J Cole and He, She, Me by Devonté Hynes & Neneh Cherry
Enjoy!
Also, it may not be one of the best of the year, but you might want to check out Elle King's "Ex's and Oh's." Not only is it a good song, but it objectifies hot guys in ways I don't think I've ever seen in a music video before. It's not exactly well-shot or edited, but damn if it isn't fun.
Tomas -- i will look those up. it's easy to miss good stuff since there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of albums a year
You can never have too much Madonna though.
Good call, DJDeeJay!
Paul Outlaw - why thank you! Fun, right? It made me wonder if the director is gay (not that it matters, but holy hell do they really go for it).
Her whole album is good, actually.
Mary -- Amen.
DAVID: Better than the music video supporting the superior song with the same basic title. Seriously, the video for Adam Lambert's Ghost Town is hilariously misjudged as a tie-in to that song. Why? Based on the lyrics of each, Madonna's is "Ghost Town = Abandoned town" and Lambert's is "Ghost Town = Hollywood, but actually infested with assorted horror movie creatures." A werewolf on the Hollywood sign? A Frankenstein monster putting his big shoe in the Walk of Fame? A paparazzi standing over an actress with two bite marks in her neck? That (and more) is the kind of stuff the video tying into Lambert's song should have come up with. Instead, we get a generic (and over-edited considering the hyper atmospheric song) "singer's face and oiled hot people" video.
DJDeeJay: Thanks to this conversation, I just learned that there is also an IMVDb! The page for the "Ex's and Oh's' video director is here.
Paul Outlaw - I just discovered the exact same thing because of this conversation! So handy.
@DJDeeJay I'm right there with you on Elle King. I get a kick out of that video every time I see it and the song is damn catchy!
Side note: did you know she's Rob Schneider's daughter? She's easily the best thing he's ever had a hand in creating.
Yuck Madonna
Good. I'm not the only person considering adding Missy Elliott's "WTF" to my best films of 2015 list. It's still a possibility. My list right now is largely genre films and documentaries. Most of the big awards-y titles have left me cold so far.
@thefilmjunkie - I know! So weird. I wonder what she thinks of his "career."
Damned if I didn't love the hell out of Rebel Heart. Sad it didn't do better.