Favorite and least favorit music video cliches.

Self explanatory; what cliche imagery in music videos you like and what you hate?

My favourite is the classic rap cliche of a street full of people bouncing to the music, seen in about every video made in the 90's, more recently especially in Wiz Kalifa's "Black and Yellow".

My least favourite is a tossup between gratuitous fanservice (see, Limp Bizkit's new video "Gold Cobra") and overt product placement (J-Lo's "On The Floor")

Favourite: Da club with lots of nice women. Not complaing.

Least Favourite: Everything in pop-punk videos.

Favorite: the artist's posse.

Least favorite: pointless cameos.

Favorite: The artist performing in a middle of a riot.

Least Favorite: Anything and everything having to do with the goddamn club.

Favourite: I always smile at the 80s AOR/glam practice of tipping one's microphone over and sharing it with a backing vocalist. Also, bands performing atop tall buildings - even Limp Bizkit made that one epic.

Least favourite: metal videos that give too much attention to the asshole hardcore dancers in the crowd. I want to watch a band play, not witness the br00talness of their audience.

I like this one also.

Lots of 80's Industrial music videos had this Stop-Motion collage thing that was pretty cool.

I dislike most Aggrotech music vids 'cause they feature the band in their ridiculous Graver gear.

Favorite: (In rock videos, mainly) Right before the hook, the whole band (sometimes even the drummer) leaps into the air in glorious slowmo. When they hit the ground, BAM! Instant awesome music video.

Least favorite: In recent videos, there's always this weird light effect I call 'the blue horizon', where there's this annoying glare in the background from a blue LED or something. It's used in every pop video. Also, everything in Crunkcore videos.

Favourites: Handheld camera, bizarre stunts, deranged animation.

Least-favourites: Gratuitous fanservice, bad slow-motion dancing.

Liked: slo-mo. Makes every antic pulled off by the singer look four times cooler, guaranteed.

Hated: the singer clutching his chest in an emotional bit as if he's about to have a heart attack ("HNNNNNNNG!!"), the guitarist leaving the guitar in an open chord when there's none in the song itself, close ups of the singer, random model-looking girl - allegedly the addressee of the song - doing random shit, synchronized bullshit, something bad happening to the band at the end of the video...

To be honest, I just hate performance music videos, unless the band in and of itself looks so cool that background events and inconsistencies can be ignored (Blur, Interpol, Refused).

How much I like a video that's not one of a performance depends on how creative the concept is.

Oh, and on that note, Radiohead are responsible for both my most and least favorite videos of all time ("Pyramid Song" and "Lotus Flower", respectively).

edited 14th Sep '11 1:23:34 PM by Litis

That post + That avatar = Mental Image of Richard D. James leaping up and down in time to Children Talking.

RDJ doesn't do crazy shit anymore. In fact, I'll be surprised at the very possibility of him stopping doing completely ordinary DJ sets and performing interpretations of some Krzysztof Penderecki avant-garde composer dude to a chin-scratching audience.

edited 14th Sep '11 12:57:09 PM by Litis

That looks cool. :3

Like: Cool backgrounds, an audience.

Dislike: Actors playing out the song's events

Favorites:

• Time lapse.
  • Madonna's "Ray of Light"
• One-shot. First, I'm impressed by the music video at first viewing. Then, I'm amazed to realise that it's all taken in one-shot.
  • Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma"
  • Spice Girls' "Wannabe"
  • Radiohead's "No Surprises"
• Retraux
  • Nirvana's "In Bloom"
  • The Smashing Pumpkins's "Tonight Tonight"
• Black-and-White. I focus on the camerawork and the details in the videos better without colors, funnily.
  • Madonna's "Vogue"
  • Justin Timberlake's "My Love"
  • Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy"

Least Favorites:

• Fan-submitted work. Most of them are just pretentious high-schoolers exaggerating how much a band means to them in their life. Some of them can be replaced by professional actors instead. Who wants to watch some random person lip-syncing too?
  • Maroon 5's "Daylight"
  • Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)"
• Music videos which lengths are relatively too long compared to the songs itself. This is when music videos overshadow the songs they promote, a big no-no for me.
  • Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (I know, a controversial choice)
  • Lady Gaga's "Telephone {featuring Beyonce)

edited 26th Feb '14 5:32:42 AM by tropeslave

Fav: Goofy costumes, puppets, and stop motion

Least Fav: Literal/Obvious interpretation of the songs lyrics. This sums up over 90% of fan-made music videos.

I dunno if it's done often enough to be a "cliche", but I like the kind of music video that heavily incorporates footage of the band just goofing around, like you're watching a montage of home movies. Weezer's ""Photograph" is an example", but The Meat Puppets' "Get On Down" is an even more fun one due to the "choreography".

I love pretty much any and all Surreal Music Videos, especially ones from the eighties. Nu Shooz' "I Can't Wait" is a particularly fun one.

For whatever reason, deliberately shoddy, B-Movie style effects tend to charm the hell out of me in music videos. A couple examples are "The Secret Of Life" by The Dead Milkmen and Devo's "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprize" ^note the "flying baby" sequence halfway through the latter is a Crowning Moment Of Funny

One of my least favorite things in a music video is when, instead of doing a mid-vid skit ^note which can also be annoying if there's not at least a Stop and Go section it can occur in, dialogue and sound effects will drown out the song while it's still playing.

I get irritated by videos full of film clips, for the most part, especially if the actual lyrical content has absolutely nothing to do with the movie it's promoting. There can be exceptions if the footage is cleverly re-contextualized in some way, like Beck's "Deadweight".

Finally, I love Monster Magnet's "Space Lord" video for parodying two music video aesthetics that were overdone at the time (i.e. the late nineties): stark, artsy, and harshly lit Alternative Rock videos and candy-colored, fish-eye-lense abusing, booty-dancing Glam Rap videos.

edited 26th Feb '14 8:05:43 AM by MikeK

I dunno about most favorite, but my least favorite without a doubt is when the artist is obviously just going through the motions of lip-synching without trying to put any effort into looking like he/she is actually singing.

Excellent choices for these.

edited 26th Feb '14 9:19:56 AM by Willbyr

Favorites: Fanservice if it fits the song, fire, band performing on tall buildings.

Dislike: Fanservice that doesn't fit the song, band BADLY mimicking the actual performance (it can be done well, but it's irritating when it's not).

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE: The seizure-inducing flashing that can be found in many dance music videos. I'm not epileptic, but it hurts my eyes. The only artist I'm making an exception for is Rob Zombie because he uses it in the overall context of a "stupid B-movie clip" and it works, but 99% of the time it's outrageously bad.