A video to inspire you
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Sour – Hibi No Neiro
(2009, Masashi Kawamura, Hal Kirkland, Magico Nakamura and Masayoshi Nakamura)
Even if you've never seen this video, you're likely to have seen one of several adverts that used it as "inspiration". It features webcam images of around 80 fans of Japanese band Sour coordinated to create a web version of those times they get people at football matches to hold up cards that make a giant image when viewed from a distance. It took two months to plan and four weeks to execute.
A video to get you angry
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Justice – Stress
(2008, Romain Gavras)
A gang of yobby boys (or "boyyobs") walk very fast through Parisian streets being horrid to everyone and everything they come across. They wear nice leather blousons emblazoned with the cross logo associated with French band Justice and, er, Jesus. Gavras also made the exploding ginger boys promo for MIA's Born Free and the slo-mo riot with surprise elephant promo for Kanye West's No Church In The Wild, and his direction in the Stress video is so smart that at times you wonder if the violence and harassment really is staged. Is it cool? Is it bad? Is it coolbad? Or is it just balls? Whatever it is, it packs the kind of punches that would have Daily Mail readers short-circuiting within 30 seconds, and if you've recently been harassed by a real gang of urban boyyobs, you should probably avoid it. Less controversial and perhaps more fun is Gavras's recent video for MIA's Bad Girls featuring everyone's favourite Cs: colourful costumes, choreography and car stunts. And no one gets beaten up, burned or exploded.
A video to make you happier
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Baby trashes bar in Las Palmas
(2010, Johannes Nyholm)
Not strictly speaking a music video, but one that should nevertheless be seen by all humans. A group of marionettes in a cardboard tourist restaurant are terrorised by a real toddler, staggering from table to table apparently pissed. Johannes Nyholm brilliantly captures a series of mealtime toddlerisms that also bring to mind every lubricated Brit tourist you've ever had the misfortune to come across on holiday.
A video to make a child smile
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The Lonely Island – Threw It On The Ground
(2011, Akiva Schaffer)
The Lonely Island are Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg, director Akiva Schaffer and comedian, actor, writer and producer of much of the Lonely Island's music, Jorma Taccone. Since 2005, they have racked up hundreds of millions of views online for their works, including Dick In A Box (featuring Justin Timberlake), I'm On A Boat (featuring T-Pain) and Jizz In My Pants (featuring Samberg and Taccone's peerless "jizz faces"). It'll be a few years before I play any of those to my sons (eight and ten years old) but aside from some light anal tasering near the end, Threw It On The Ground is entirely PG, and as funny as any of them. It's hard to say what it's about, other than celebrating the act of throwing things on the ground, but Samberg's superbly rubbery face is always a big part of the appeal. I don't know what's more fun, watching the video or watching the children laughing as they watch the video.
A video of David Bowie
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David Bowie – China Girl
(1983, David Mallet)
Not exactly a hidden gem but one of Bowie's best videos capturing him at his most conventionally handsome and charismatic, gyrating about jerkily like a malfunctioning sex robot. New Zealand model Geeling Ng plays the China girl in scenes that toy with Oriental stereotypes, juxtaposed with bits where she and a blond Bowie flirt weirdly. The video was controversial at the time for the brief glimpse of David's nude bottom and, in the uncut version, some ladynipple, as the happy couple enjoy a saucy roll in the surf, but in 2012 the standout moment is Bowie pulling back the corners of his eyes in a pre-PC parody of a Chinese face. In a video featuring more overtly political imagery (Geeling running through the desert in cultural revolutionary garb; David loosening his tie angrily then tossing a bowl of rice in the air in slow motion!) it's this gesture of playful offence that ends up saying the most somehow. It's followed too by a smile from Bowie that is at once very sexy and very stupid. Sample YouTube comment: "SO funny what 30 years will do to your perspective; when this video was new, Bowie seemed so OLD to me, but now he look very young in this video. Enjoy your youth kids, getting old sucks." – Up2Late2
A video to make you laugh
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Roots Manuva – Witness (1 Hope)
(2001, Mat Kirkby)
Everything works in Mat Kirkby's joyful video for Witness (1 Hope). A simple idea married to a great track and terrific performances from the children of Woodmansterne Primary School, first impressed then outraged by the visiting rapper, and of course Roots himself: cool, handsome and funny, very much the way I think of myself, in fact. When I play this video at Bug shows, I wait for the audience's reaction to the three-legged race. If they don't laugh, I know I'm in for a hard night, but I honestly can't recall the last time that happened.
A video to make you cry
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Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math
(2011, Dan Kwan & Dan Scheinert)
The bearded singer of American indie rockers Manchester Orchestra is driving through woodland when, all of a sudden, he has to swerve to avoid a deer (hate it when that happens). The car rolls, catapulting him through the windshield (really hate it when that happens) and SHWOINK! It's flashback time. For the next five minutes the action switches back and forth between significant moments in the beardy singer's life, unfolding with the help of ingenious visual tricks and edits, mainly achieved in-camera rather than with CGI. The video makes for a cinematic experience that will make your throat go painful as you struggle not to weep like a lady watching One Born Every Minute. The video's directors recently made another epic for Tenacious D's single Rize Of The Fenix. It's packed with in-jokes about music video production that will amuse anyone involved with, well, music video production. It's good too, though.
Adam Buxton's Bug starts this Monday, 9.30, Sky Atlantic
