History Main / SurrealMusicVideo

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDygS0a6Tgo The Riddle]] by Music/NikKershaw is screwy from beginning to end, with the singer rambling around in a nonsensical house filled with weird items, of which none have the slightest to do with the song. The song itself is a string of WordSaladLyrics that Kershaw himself admitted were meant to be a placeholder but ended up the real lyrics when he couldn't make any coherent lyrics work with the melody. The end of the video? It turns out the house Kershaw was trapped in was a question mark, picked up by none other than ''The Riddler'' of Franchise/{{Batman}} fame. The same Riddler shows up a number of times, along with figures from Literature/AliceInWonderland. Does not make the video more understandable, though.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDygS0a6Tgo The Riddle]] by Music/NikKershaw is screwy from beginning to end, with the singer rambling around in a nonsensical house filled with weird items, of which none have the slightest to do with the song. The song itself [[WordSaladLyrics makes even less sense than the video]]. The end of the video? It turns out the house Kershaw was trapped in was a question mark, picked up by none other than ''The Riddler'' of Franchise/{{Batman}} fame. The same Riddler shows up a number of times, along with figures from Literature/AliceInWonderland. Does not make the video more understandable, though.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDygS0a6Tgo The Riddle]] by Music/NikKershaw is screwy from beginning to end, with the singer rambling around in a nonsensical house filled with weird items, of which none have the slightest to do with the song. The song itself is a string of WordSalad lyrics. The end of the video? It turns out the house Kershaw was trapped in was a question mark, picked up by none other than ''The Riddler'' of Franchise/{{Batman}} fame. The same Riddler shows up a number of times, along with figures from Literature/AliceInWonderland. Does not make the video more understandable, though.

* Many Music/AliceInChains videos, including "We Die Young", "Angry Chair", "I Stay Away", "Grind", and "Lesson Learned".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU9HjiyKnZw Ayla - "Ayla Part 2"]] consists of a [[MysteriousWaif mysterious blonde woman]] in an EtherealWhiteDress [[ThreeMinutesOfWrithing gyrating]], holding a strange shiny object, and teleporting to various locales around the world.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU9HjiyKnZw Ayla - "Ayla Part 2"]] consists of a mysterious woman in [[EtherealWhiteDress white]] [[ThreeMinutesOfWrithing gyrating]], holding a strange shiny object, and teleporting to various locales around the world.

* Music/{{JR JR}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0mpgHNapc "Gone"]] features a chorus of [[UncannyValley uncannily creepy]] [[DancingPants dancing disembodied legs]].

* During TheNineties, Indian musician [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daler_Mehndi Daler Mehndi]] faced accusations that his songs were only successful because of the {{fanservice}}-laden music videos. He fired back with the legendarily bizarre [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTIIMJ9tUc8 video]] for "Tunak Tunak Tun", eschewing the usual sexy female dancers in favour of several {{Palette Swap}}ped DifferentlyDressedDuplicates of himself doing a bizarre dance while {{Chroma Key}}ed onto various CG backgrounds. Judging by the video's viral popularity on Website/YouTube, he seems to have proven the critics wrong.

** Their 2016 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQH4qnUU68 take on]] "[[WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh Heffalumps and Woozles]]" (featuring Music/{{Ayria}}) cranks the trippiness of the film's DisneyAcidSequence UpToEleven.

** Taken UpToEleven with her video for "[[http://www.vevo.com/watch/miley-cyrus/we-cant-stop/USRV81300234 We Can't Stop]]".

** " [[https://youtu.be/dEfDF_6cVjs Lighter]]" from ''Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz'' takes it UpToEleven.

[[quoteright:350:[[{{Music/Kesha}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/20170426_200050.JPG]]]]

* Music/AceOfBase's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuluCH6KNpg "Beautiful Life"]]. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that the entire thing is a dream sequence.

* Music/{{aha}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&ob=av2e "Take On Me"]] involves a woman being pulled into a comic book world by the animated Morten Harkett, then he breaks into the real world at the end. The video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xah1qYBYI A1's cover]] is even better, [[RecycledInSpace moving the setting]] to ''{{Franchise/Tron}}''-style {{cyberspace}}, as well as having {{shoutout}}s to ''Film/TheMatrix''.

* "[[http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121217212213/fireemblem/images/e/e9/Serena_(FE13).png Bleed]]" by {{Music/Meshuggah}}: A man is turned into a mindless slave creature by an albino god. Interspersed with heavy doses of NightmareFuel imagery and clockwork gears.

* {{Music/Paramore}}'s "Still Into You" includes scenes where Hayley Williams sings in a bedroom full of birthday cakes with lit candles and the band travels by rowboat across an indoor "sea" of blue balloons. It also includes relatively mundane things like the band riding bikes indoors or playing with sparklers as fireworks go off. Rather than tell the straightforward love story suggested by the lyrics, the director wanted to show what being in love ''feels'' like.

* Music/PearlJam's "Do The Evolution" was an AnimatedMusicVideo (directed by none other than Creator/ToddMacFarlane) that devolved quickly into apocalyptic imagery and people with skull faces.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdWX0IDhbCU music video]] for {{Music/Sakanaction}}'s "Rookie", where the singer Ichirō Yamaguchi repeatedly has a nightmare of falling (which might or might not also be a DreamWithinADream), wakes up suddenly, walks around the city confused passing always in the same exact spot and keeps finding a fallen woman lying dead on the pavement.

* During TheNineties, Indian musician [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daler_Mehndi Daler Mehndi]] faced accusations that his songs were only successful because of the {{fanservice}}-laden music videos. He fired back with the legendarily bizarre [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTIIMJ9tUc8 video]] for "Tunak Tunak Tun", eschewing the usual sexy female dancers in favour of several {{Palette Swap}}ped DifferentlyDressedDuplicates of himself doing a bizarre dance while {{Chroma Key}}ed onto various CG backgrounds. Judging by the video's viral popularity on Website/{{YouTube}}, he seems to have proven the critics wrong.

* Music/TheCure. Any music video, and I really mean any video. Pick one. Highlights include the second version of "Close to Me", in which the bandmates go under the sea and essentially do battle with a dazzling variety of technicolour marine life, and "The 13th", involving guys in wedding dresses having a fight with Robert Smith looking on. The latter gets even more surreal when you take into account the fact that the song is basically a typical sex-driven Cure song. {{Squick}} central.

* Mike Mareen's "[[https://youtu.be/AUe0kPKR3hw Love Spy]]"; whatever story is being told is anybody's guess. Mike performs a stage magic illusion of being turned into a dog, runs through a tire obstacle course, plays hide-and-seek in a department store, starts a fight at a casino, walks in on a kendo class, etc., while a gay couple play keyboards in a hot tub, in a hayloft, on a public stairway landing, and at an amusement park.

** So is Peter Gabriel's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1tTN-b5KHg "Sledgehammer"]].

** For that matter, the last 30 seconds or so of "Burning Down the House". Byrne's head, complete with slack jaw and thousand-yard stare, projected on to a road from a moving car. [[FlatWhat What.]]
** Also worth mentioning is [[TheBandMinusTheFace spinoff band]] The Heads' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Mye3v3_KQ Damage I've Done]]. The imagery does connect to the lyrics in an odd sort of way: the refrain is "How can I undo the damage I have done?", and much of the video revolves around footage of people doing "damaging" things (ranging from dropping a framed photograph to spitting in a cop's face) played in reverse.

* Music/YellowMagicOrchestra's [[https://youtu.be/AyoH2FhWlC8 "Tong Poo"]] video overlays trippy visual effects upon footage of early arcade games and the band's own performance.

* Music/MichaelJackson's "Black or White" starts as a fairly typical salute to ThePowerOfRock with Macaulay Culkin blasting dad George Wendt out of the house, but then he lands on an African plain, where Michael is dancing with tribesmen. From there it's a multiculturalism celebration, which is the point of the song, but ''then'' it breaks away for several minutes to Michael between dancing alone on a city street set (they were OnASoundstageAllAlong) smashing car windows and grabbing his crotch a lot (plus, he's morphing from a panther and back again). Finally we learn the whole thing is a clip being watched by [[Main/TheSimpsons Bart Simpson]]. The controversy over the crotch-grabbing got the clip discussed by Siskel and Ebert, and they admitted that element didn't bother them so much as the fact that they had ''no idea what was going on''.

[[folder: A to I]]

** The video for "Telegraph Ave. (Oakland by Lloyd)" mostly fits with the themes of the song, following Gambino on vacation with Music/JheneAiko, until the last minute, where Gambino [[spoiler: is revealed to be an alien.]]

[[folder: J to R]]

** In addition to that, there's the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AZxUtZ2ZgI fifties-theme video where everyone has fish tank heads]] and, more recently, the video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUc_jXBD9DU Miss Jackson]] that takes a rather dark turn at the final chorus. If you're wondering whether the band has an explanation for that video - nope. Brendon can only offer "I guess I had a lot of anger. So I [[spoiler: chopped a girl's head off]]".

* Music/{{Pink}}'s video for "All I Know So Far" has her travelling through a nightmarish landscape, filled with symbolic representations of the tribulations described in the song (and in her life), first on her own, then with her husband Carey Hart (who she keeps killing) and finally with Hart and their kids, before [[spoiler: she and her daughter Willow are skeletonised by a nuclear explosion. "Till the world blows up", indeed.]]

[[folder: S to Z]]

* The clip for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w-LmPa3h88 "Ambling Alp"]] by Yeasayer is basically one bizarre thing after the other. There's one part of the video that's far less surreal than the rest of it if [[GeniusBonus you know what the song's about]]. [[spoiler: The song is about the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII wartime]] boxer Joe Louis and his most famous rivals Primo "The Ambling Alp" Carnera and Max Schmelling, but you'd never get that from the mostly vague lyrics or the seemingly out-of-place footage of the mirror-face boxers.]]

[[folder: To be alphabetised]]

* [[Music/NoahIndonesia Peterpan]]'s "Diatas Normal" music video is composed of the band performing the song, except the background, their outfits (which gets bizarre at times) and their instrument change every beat. It reflects the I-don't-understand-my-own-mind theme of the song.

* The Music/BloodhoundGang's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xat1GVnl8-k&feature=related The Bad Touch]]" has an understandable starting point: "you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals" = the band dressed as [[EverythingsBetterwithMonkeys monkeys]]. But all the monkey business in Paris doesn't make any sense.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqP2-w6AWS4 Belong]] by Washed Out. Film/{{Xanadu}} aerobics workout disco dance contest in space sums it up.

* Clean Bandit made two music videos for "Solo", and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JnfIa84TnU the first one]] qualifies: member Grace Chatto gets revenge on an abusive boyfriend... by tainting his dinner with a concoction that turns him into a psychedelic rainbow golden retriever. Guest vocalist Music/DemiLovato appears to be singing in Grace's living room as this all happens, but doesn't really interact with her or anyone else. There's also a couple of unexplained scenes of Grace's face evaporating [[note]]since these scenes are juxtaposed with the rest of the band mixing smoking beakers, this might mean they're using part of her essence as an ingredient in the psychedelic dog potion[[/note]].

* Too Much Joy's "Making Fun Of Bums", which among other things features ridiculous jumpsuits, a member plugging his guitar into another member's mouth and electrocuting him, another member standing in front of a propped up mattress with a sign reading "I am dreaming", someone dressed as a painter walking into frame for no reason, and lengthy bookends of the band just standing around in rain gear at a fishing pier. The band disliked how it came out, but couldn't afford to scrap the video and start over, so they just added snarky subtitles (such as "Maybe you should close your eyes and just listen to the song" or "Help, I'm trapped in a bad special effect").

* In Inna's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LK48dtjRl4 Wow]] video, she gets knocked unconscious at a beach party and dreams of being a {{stripperific}} Snow White [[ThreeMinutesOfWrithing erotically dancing]] with the Seven Dwarfs, then after "falling dead" from consuming the poisoned apple, she becomes a similarly oversexualized [[Film/TheWizardOfOz Dorothy Gale]] on the Yellow Brick Road. Cut to her as sexy ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' performing some more erotic movements in a tiny house and at the Mad Hatter's tea party, where the characters from the previous stories join in for the final dance.

* The video for Music/TomPetty's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0JvF9vpqx8 Don't Come Around Here No More]]" is heavily inspired by The Mad Tea Party from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' with elements such as Alice's body turning into a cake thrown in to make it ever weirder.
* Music/OneRepublic got some among their more down-to-earth videos:
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtNS1afUOnE Stop And Stare]]" has lead singer Ryan Tedder listening to a preacher in front of a grave. He generates a "clone" of himself, who walks toward a motel, where other Ryan is waiting at the reception. Somewhere near, he is performing the song with the band, while other people (including Ryan and the other members) watch from the outside. As one of Ryans crosses the street, he is almost ran over by another Ryan Tedder, driving a car with a pregnant woman in the backseat.
** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OWj0CiM8WU Love Runs Out]]" happens in some kind of desert with colorful sunset/sunrise skies. In this desert there is an old woman playing the piano, kids clapping and girls dancing with tambourines, all donning weird clothes ([[FridgeLogic natives]], maybe?). Shady creatures ride dancing horses, a man in a shiny outfit does some stunts, youngsters play with a ball, [[GratuitousNinja "ninjas"]] kick stacks of books, women in craters wave with the song, and then there is a plastic sea. Also, Brent Kutzle is golden and Zach Filkins blows things up.
* Music/LowerDens' video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f0BtVsBK7U “Candy”]] shows members of the band at a woodland retreat with some drag queens and a teen boy with a yarmulke. The activities at the camp are only a little weird, but at the end the whole picture explodes into strange gaudy logos.
* Clairity's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQDTRkP7x54 "DNA"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUNxOw7SGmc "Velcro"]].

* Avi Buffalo's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evu_MqAZpC0 "What's It In For?"]] The music video has the band is preforming in a field as trippy looking plants start to grow and eventually cover the band when they lay down in them.

* The whole music video for Blockhead's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsgFBHfRNq8 The Music Scene]]" is a surreal animation.
* Gouryella's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wp7xMwfS3M Walhalla]]" video has a freak-out sequence after the {{Black Viking|s}} bumps his head into the camera. [[DemBones Dancing skeletons]] and spinning flowers against a psychedelic hypno-wheel background, etc.

* "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McdqerXrwXE Remedy]]" by Music/LittleBoots starts as a PerformanceVideo, then gets all kaleidoscopic.

* [=TOKiMONSTA's=] video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ44ljwS48w "The Force"]] (feat. Music/KoolKeith). Which can only be described as the experience of a gangsta [[Franchise/StarWars Jedi Knight]] [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on ecstasy]], [[EpilepticFlashingLights going on a seizure]].
* Suede's "Stay Together", which features the lead singer [[BoundAndGagged gagged at the end]], among other things that have nothing to do with the song whatsoever. The band has [[CreatorBacklash denounced it]] as nothing more than [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible "empty symbolism."]]

* "Keep A Lid On Things" by Crash Test Dummies involves a miniature Brad Roberts piloting a MobileSuitHuman version of himself, which mimes the lyrics and lumbers down the street in a very UncannyValley sort of way. Eventually, his mobile suit human gets low on power and he has to fly down to the ground with a jet-pack in order to retrieve some batteries... At which point we see powered-down versions of the rest of the band lying on the street: Apparently he was remotely controlling everyone else too.

* Ed Tullett's very, [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible very unique]] video for [[http://youtu.be/eatcVtvyGpI "Oxblood"]]. An artistic expression of loss and sadness, a PostModernism take on drug use, an advocacy for gay porn... [[MindScrew You're guess on its symbolism is as good as mine]].
* Music/DavidGuetta & Music/{{Sia}}'s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVzljDmoPVs She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)]]".
* Many Music/{{Pavement}} videos are low-bud and nonsensical. For example, the video for "Gold Soundz" doesn't feature any performance or seem to have much of a story; it's little more than the band messing around in Santa costumes. Even "Cut Your Hair," which has a loose story (the band going to a barber shop) is full of surreal imagery, such as one of the members sneezing out a kitten, another getting his haircut in a gorilla suit, etc.
* Music/{{Moby}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7zQlsLgYhg "Shot in the Back of the Head"]], produced by David Lynch.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q7FFjUpVLg "Oh Yeah"]] by Yello.

* The original video for Music/OzzyOsbourne's "Mama, I'm Coming Home", which had Ozzy and his band miming over a ConveyorBeltVideo-style collage. Some of the imagery at least obliquely had to do with the general idea of "coming home" - airplanes, the Statue Of Liberty, and the New York City skyline for example. More of it was arbitrary and surreal, like Ozzy carrying a pig or miming the lyrics towards a raven perched on his shoulder, visual {{Shout Out}}s to Creator/ReneMagritte, and gratuitous use of fire. A PerformanceVideo for the same song was also made, specifically because Ozzy didn't think this approach suited the material.
* ASTR's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vabqQaSz01g Operate]]. A haunting montage of surreal clips accompanying an already weird R&B song is one way to describe it.

* "[[http://youtu.be/UvLFNG1anxU Mt. Moriah]]" by Gadarene Swine has 3D dinosaurs walking, and later fighting, on blue and green screens. The song is an (according to the Bandcamp tags) "[[GenreBusting Alternative Experimental Folk Grunge Noise]]" song about walking down a lonely road.
* "[[http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121217212213/fireemblem/images/e/e9/Serena_(FE13).png Bleed]]" by {{Music/Meshuggah}}: A man is turned into a mindless slave creature by an albino god. Interspersed with heavy doses of NightmareFuel imagery and clockwork gears.

* Most of Information Society's videography fits the bill:
** Their '80s videos such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQa-b1HTgTc "Walking Away"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijAYN9zVnwg "What's On Your Mind"]] were especially trippy.
** Their 2016 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQH4qnUU68 take on]] "[[WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh Heffalumps and Woozles]]" (featuring Music/{{Ayria}}) cranks the trippiness of the film's DisneyAcidSequence UpToEleven.

** Take for instance "Once In A Lifetime". The entire video is Music/DavidByrne doing a very unusual dance (inspired by marionettes and African rituals, and to a lesser extent epilepsy sufferers), with the [[TheInvisibleBand rest of the band missing]].