Blog

Music video director Matthew Boman has made some of our favorite videos for artist like Riff Raff, BLOK, and Brooke Candy. And since he has directed some of our favorite music videos, we decided to ask him about his favorite music videos. Man, were we excited when we got his answer.

Any way you look at it, 2012 was a big year for music videos. We had great videos coming out on just about a daily basis, from independent productions to videos premiering on cable TV. We had a video reach 1 billion views on YouTube, and it didn't even need the entire year to do it. We saw newer directors release breakthrough videos (and then release a few more for good measure). We also saw established directors release some of their best work. The bottom line is if you are a music video fan, 2012 turned out just fine.

So, it was particularly difficult to compile a list of just 10 of the best videos of 2012. However, we sharpened our pencils, made the hard choices, and came out on the other side with a list. Thank you to everyone on our Facebook page who suggested videos for the list. We whittled the final top 10 down from a larger list, to which each suggested music video on Facebook was added.

By the way, you can listen to us count down our top 10 music videos of 2012 as well as share some superlative awards for 2012 on the podcast here.

We took a month off to give Hip-Hop YouTube comments a chance to work out some of their complexities. They were unable to, and so here we are again. In this month’s edition, we take some time to examine truth, swag, and Hot Pockets. 

Do you guys remember when we posted our first "The Top 10 Music Video GIFs of All Time" blog a few months ago? Those days were great. Oh, the memories. But, rather than dwell in the past, we look ahead to the future… and specifically, to part two of our "The Top 10 Music Video GIFs of All Time" series! 

Wow, music videos can be sexy, can’t they? I mean, think about it. There is some sexy, sexy stuff in music videos. Some music videos go as a far as to contain nudity, but even the ones that don’t will explore the world of sexy from time to time. Not only because people like to watch other people sexin’ it up, but also because as an artist, you want to look cool. And, one sure fire way to make yourself look cool is to show people how much sex you get to have.

In our new monthly blog series, we’ve set out to examine the people pop stars have sex with in their music videos, and to let them know how we feel about it. And we’re starting with Rihanna, for obvious reasons.

Some of the most disgusting, misinformed, and illegible sentences ever written can be found in the comment section of a YouTube video. Any YouTube video. Even the cute, inspirational ones of little kids and cats get their share of belligerent trolling. This is particularly true when it comes to hip-hop videos, where the hate and nonsense is so profound, and so poetic, that it justifies a monthly examination. Through our journey, be on the look out for some of my favorite YouTube comment trends, including: racism, improper or nonexistent capitulation, homophobia, watching the video for someone or something other than the artist, using numbers for letters, sexism, ending a sentence with two periods, conspiracy theories, and the love of ass.
 

While we're all out celebrating our patriotism in the United States of America today, I thought it might be a good time to direct your attention to the most popular way music videos display their American pride: by putting up a giant American flag and doing something in front of it.

If you think about it, it's a pretty good deal. Everyone knows what an American flag is, it looks good, and you don't have to pay anything for it to appear in your video. Plus you can do it ironically or just regular-style - it's extremely versatile. Put it in front of some bikers - bam! Patriotic. Behind a sad farmer - bam! Deep.

So how do you use an American flag in your videos? Your first option is pretty obvious. Put it up and perform in front of it. The most famous example of this is probably the Paul Hunter-directed video for Lenny Kravitz' cover of "American Woman".

Animated GIFs are great! We all love them, this is well documented... And music video related animated GIFs might literally be the greatest thing in the world! This is also well documented. But, with all of the One Direction and Justin Beiber animated GIFs out there on the webs, finding the BEST music video GIFs can sometimes be a daunting task. Well, fear not, because I am here to help. Below you will find a list of what I consider to be the top 10 Music Video GIFs of all time (that I could think of when I wrote this).