Martha, My Dear: ILM's All-Time Video-Poll Results Thread

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-martha.jpg

I'll start counting down tomorrow around mid-day. Fifteen Thursday, 15 on Friday, and then the Top 10 either on the weekend or Monday, whichever people prefer.

Huge thanks to Viborg in collecting nominations and tabulating results. Turned out to be much more time-consuming than I expected.

MTV seems like a good place to start. We didn't get it in Canada, but I've learned that it launched a couple of months before I turned 20. The first time I saw it was when I visited a university friend in Rockford. We probably had MuchMusic up here by that time, but I'm not sure. There were more votes for old-school, early MTV videos than I expected.

Yes!

There were more votes for old-school, early MTV videos than I expected.

- many voters would have grown up on them
- younger voters here probably have a more historical perspective than their peers
- there were fewer videos then and everyone saw the same ones, whereas the viewership of later videos probably split along genre/fan lines

All of that, and a lot of people past a certain age just completely lost interest in them, even if they maintained an interest in the music. I saw new videos out of necessity: when I made my mad scramble at the end of each year to get a year-end list together, I caught up via YouTube (I rarely stream). I'd always see good ones, and few made my list.

I have no idea whether they retain any marketing importance right now (or if they did pre-COVID). Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Selena Gomez did not get a vote in this poll--they didn't even get a single nomination between them.

Björk! Björk! Björk! Björk!

^^^ he believes in beauty

xxp Real lack of taste when no one appreciates boob rockets

Björk! did extremely well, but I think I have a different conception of beauty (the thing I look for most in a video). I was able to lift a couple of images I liked, but with two of the three, it was a challenge. Beauty to me is the Fresh Prince's "Summertime" video, which got almost nothing in the way of votes.

Fresh Prince's "Summertime"

shit, should've voted for that

Did not vote for this, as I am not an informed voter and all of my picks would have been from the years 1988-1996. Still very much excited for this roll out. Preemptive thank you to all who organized.

I really wanted to join in with this, have loved the idea of a video poll since it was first proposed years ago, but circumstances just meant I couldn't get up the energy to root around and watch stuff. Will follow along with the results, though.

^ this plus it seemed like a huge undertaking and there is a lot going on in life at the moment. my ballot would have been all 80s anyways with the addition of Spoon's "Inside Out."

will enjoy the rollout and the work put in

I have an ongoing playlist on YT of my favorite music videos of all time here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTeVyV-FXsF93y3AyJh9lEJefAO6QCo7c

summertime was a late cut for me

are we really only rolling out 40 of these??

the p-funk poll rolled out 150 songs lol

I just wouldn't have the time or the energy. And even though 45 people voted, being an all-time poll, the votes are typically scattered far and wide at a certain point--which is just beyond #40. There's one video that got 2 votes and just finished out of the Top 40. Inside, one video got 4, nothing else less than 5, moving up to a high of 19 (not the #1, though).

I have an ongoing playlist on YT of my favorite music videos of all time here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTeVyV-FXsF93y3AyJh9lEJefAO6QCo7c

― kurt schwitterz

Aha - "Nolan Thomas - Yo' Little Brother"! I was trying so hard to remember the name of this one so I could vote for it, and there it is on your list. Was it even nommed?

I also feel robbed by the fact that this video was not part of childhood.

Maybe after the initial rollout, Clem or viborg could post some additional 'Bubbling Under' vids?

"Yo Little Brother" is the best sequel to "Let the Music Play" possible.

(xpost) Just working on a list for #41-100 now. I was actually wrong--almost all the videos in the #41-60 range got 5 or 6 votes, just not as many points.

Our family had a well-worn recording of Friday Night Videos from 1984 that's burned into my brain and remains classic to this day. 'Yo Little Brother', 'Rockit', ZZ Top's 'TV Dinners', etc. It was largely weird and creepy stuff and I loved it so! I should poll those specific videos some other time.

Oh and naturally I forgot to vote in this poll. Drat.

I voted despite very provincial and scattershot knowledge — didn’t have cable growing up and still probably haven’t seen a lot of things that were ubiquitous; the first three Directors Label DVDs established canon for me (and I’m guessing will be well represented). I watched maybe 20 noms I hadn’t seen and did vote for a few of them, plus various faves old and new discovered mostly on YouTube.

Get this: my parents didn't get cable until 2000. Growing up, I depended on Friday Night Videos and my friends.

"Yo Little Brother" is the best sequel to "Let the Music Play" possible.

“Yo’ Little Brother" is great fun tho, I’d never heard (of) it before

Night Tracks on TBS was often more fun to watch than MTV in the '80s. They played much more dance music and black music. It came on at midnight Friday and Saturday nights and ran all night. I remember parties when we would just put that on and it was great entertainment.

that would be “Give Me Tonight”, no need to look further

― celebrating ten years of constant posting (breastcrawl)

I don't consider "Let The Music Play" and "Give Me Tonight" separate singles: same fabulous electrogroove.

Where does "Do You Wanna Get Away" fit in? I guess the groove is less electro and more straightforward, but there's still some freestyle elements.

"Do You..." is closer to period dance music.

It's definitely my least favorite of the three

yep, formula running down

Shannon was so big in Miami that LTMP's third single earned airplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSaOxK_kTKU

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me that Miami had a freestyle station before the legendary Power 96, namely WHQT Hot 105. That was where you heard Shannon in 1985 (I was a high school listener). In about the summer of 1986 the two stations traded formats, with Power 96 assuming the freestyle sovereignty all the way to the end of the era.

I have some physio at 10:40, but I'll post the first couple before I leave--I'll pick up again around 11:30.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-40.jpg

40. “Jocko Homo,” Devo (1977)
56 points/6 votes
Director: Chuck Statler

Images were much harder for me this time than with previous polls I've done. Neil Young and Yo La Tengo were easy. The two film polls (discounting an early one, when I didn't put any thought into them), road films and political films, even when I hadn't seen something, I had a reasonably good sense of the film to pick something that worked. (I remember not having a clue about the John Landis film Into the Night--that was the rare exception.)

There are a lot of videos among these 40 I'd never seen before. And--I'll say stuff like this periodically, and it's never directed at people who voted for them--there are a number I don't like. So I'm sure with some of them, if it's a video you love, you won't care for the image; I'll have missed whatever it is that makes the video memorable for you. (I would skim those videos quickly, but I didn't have the patience to watch them all.)

i kinda dig that they're gonna be thumbnails with youtube UI included

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me that Miami had a freestyle station before the legendary Power 96, namely WHQT Hot 105. That was where you heard Shannon in 1985 (I was a high school listener). In about the summer of 1986 the two stations traded formats, with Power 96 assuming the freestyle sovereignty all the way to the end of the era.

― Josefa,

Excellent post. Hot 105 exists as the adult R&B station; these days I occasionally tune in for the quiet storm show.

(xpost) That was something that looked good to me, and I figure 97% of video viewing now happens on YouTube anyway; the two have basically verged. (I have one Vimeo image for the one Björk video I couldn't get on YouTube here.)

And, of course, not cropping that stuff out was easier, and also keeps the original ratio there.

Verged = merged...

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-39.jpg

39. “When I’m with You,” Sparks (1979)
57 points/4 votes/one #1 vote
Director: Brian Grant

Devo restoration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk1DNzg0LWs

sorry i'm bad at remember how not to embed lol

I suppose the first two define the earliest days of video--be as weird as possible. I very much doubt that Brian Grant and Chuck Statler, when they directed these, ever thought anyone would be looking up their names in 2022.

(Not a big Devo fan, but I did vote for "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize," primarily because of how much I love the song.)

Back in an hour.

Ah, sorry I missed that--that version looks much cleaner. (The not-clean version does look more primitive, though, which is apropos.)

i hadn't seen either of these but they're fantastic, particularly the sparks video

Damn, I meant to include non-embedded links in the info...I'll start doing that when I get back.

i didn't realize i'd seen the music video for "jocko homo," but now i'm realizing that i saw it as part of a short film called 'devo-lution,' which i saw during college at an ann arbor film festival. it's an incredible amount of fun, and the "jocko homo" part is definitely the highlight. would've voted for it if i'd known it was a free-standing video

Shannon was so big in Miami that LTMP's _third_ single earned airplay.

📹

I hope nobody minds this digression, but the Shannon talk reminds me…

seeing Sparks tomorrow, never seen this before. thanks, Clemenza!

I think Bob Roberts came out before "Subterranean" became an "official" video, so I vaguely remember being thrilled just to see the Don't Look Back sequence referenced. (Didn't care for the film at the time, got better when I watched it years later.) Looking at it now, it's just weird that the women look like the Robert Palmer women--reference overload.

Bob Roberts did it a few years after INXS iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQDzj6R3p4

The Maxell advert is one of the best TV adverts of all time. There’s another one which uses Desmond Dekker’s ‘Israelites’ along same lines to diminishing returns.

That would be this, then. As with “Into The Valley”, I could never hear the track the same way again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KShjB5jyjM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lucero

realized while watching the video for the odb remix of "woo-hah got you all in check" that i love this dude's work, always creative if on a more modest level than say a hype williams, sucks he died so young. tha alkaholiks video he did ("the next level") is pretty much as good as "'93 til infinity"

oh yeah thats a good videography. he loved him some contrast.

kush is a GREAT video

this one too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5xJBKVGTGs

always loved the song/video for xzibit's "paparazzi"

xp lol

this is making me want to do a poll for just hip-hop music videos

would participate

after i finished my ballot i made a youtube playlist of it, then i had the bright idea to expand it to 100 places, so here's the finished product:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlRIBtlBJdQ_IZV5yzhr1MnbzHhjbes9-

pretty proud of it, very rewarding project! i've wanted to do something like this since youtube first came into existence and now a majority of the videos have hd upgrades

that link doesn't work because of the weird hyphen at the end, so here's the real link:

brad's all-time top 100 favorite music videos ever

Good selecting. I'm happy anyone else has seen and loves "Y Control."

nice brad! lots of crossover with my favs

Totally forgot something I'm almost certain I would have voted for: Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." I think it was made a couple of years after Graceland; it starts with Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie. When Mickey Mantle shows up, it's as sublime a moment as Paul McCartney in "They Don't Know"--obviously Paul Simon's dream as a kid, to be pitching to Mickey Mantle, and suddenly there he is. Near the end, another sports icon.

I didn't vote in the Broadcast poll, because I really only remember (and love) "Echo's Answer," but I wish I'd known about this for the video poll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yEz1eZmUco

AV Club predictably making some eye rolling choices. https://www.avclub.com/50-greatest-music-videos-ranked-1850820669/slides/52

Very quickly scanning, but yeah. If you could generate a Masterpiece Theatre equivalent of a greatest-videos list, this would be it. (Which is not to imply that most of the famous ones here are boring but good--they're boring and bad.)

Soon after conducting this poll, a friend suggested I take my own list of favourites and turn it into a book. I've been working on that for 15 months (with the intermediary step of a blog) and finally got everything uploaded over the weekend. Here are some links for buying a copy if you're interested. (I realize there's a movement away from Amazon. I always publish with Kindle, which unfortunately is owned by Amazon. It used to be Createspace, an independent.)

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0DPVF51CS
U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPVF51CS
U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DPVF51CS

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I did a third Zoom last week on the book that came out of this poll (above) with Rob Sheffield; I posted about the other two in a different thread, but if you're interested, you can get to them easily by clicking on the uploader's account for this one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W58SfR7tGbc&t

(I have a distinct memory of a plug/promote your book thread, but I tried a few search terms and couldn't find it.)

Really enjoying these discussions.

Will order the book soon I promise!

congrats clemenza! this poll was fun

Thanks, and thanks. The book totally started with the poll--my own list, and also, to an extent, my reaction to the results.

I enjoyed the Rob Sheffield episode, but I disagree with him on several points.

1. "They Don't Know" is an outstanding pop composition/recording and although it has a wonderful video, the song and Tracey Ullman's recording stand alone
2. "Take On Me" is packed with hooks and would've been a worldwide smash with or without the animated video
3. Sinead's "Nothing Compares 2U" is a great recording and the video suits it perfectly

On a positive note, I appreciated his drawing attention to the EBN-OZN video, one that also made a big impression on me; and also the Bananarama video which I don't remember ever seeing. The Mari Wilson one was also interesting - new to me as well.

Rob not liking the "Nothing Compares 2 U" video genuinely surprised me. I agree with you totally that "They Don't Know" is a great record--original and Ullman's cover--but the conversation did make realize that I came to the song through the video, which is brilliant, so I have to at least concede the possibility that I wouldn't think as highly of it if that had been reversered. I'm not big on "Take on Me," song or video; can't remember what I thought at the time. When I say "my reaction to the results," that's what I was pushing back on: that "Take on Me" and "Sledgehammer" and "Rockit" and lots of stuff from MTV's heyday that to me is really dated is still thought of so highly. But then there are other videos from the same moment I love and write about in the book--Ullman, Bananarama, Cyndi Lauper, English Beat, Marshall Crenshaw--so basically I'm complaining about nothing.

Great new band name: Reversered.

Got the book. Will probably take some time getting through it because I had the same idea that Scott posits in his Foreword: I'm gonna watch the videos as I read along; flipping through, I estimate that I don't know at least half of these (probably more). Excited to dive in!

Really appreciate that...I did see there were three sales last week, which I initially attributed to the Rob Zoom, but then I remembered that one was probably you. Not that I habitually check for sales or anything, that'd be kind of sad.

35 pages, 8 videos, and 5 entries into the book. Slower than my usual reading rate, but I'm not usually pausing every six or so pages to watch music videos. I choose this point to pause and reflect because a) the next entry is the Dylan video that has apparently been scrubbed from YouTube, and I wanna see if I can dig it up elsewhere before moving on; b) the Sinead video is the first one discussed that I already knew and loved; and, c) I don't want these posts--should I continue liveblogging my reading--to get too unwieldy.

General observation, unrelated to the subject of music videos, but definitely related to the content of the book: reading about mid-2023 from the vantage point of early 2025 (the chapters are dated and arranged chronologically) is a surreal experience. Largely for personal reasons: in the Summer of 2023, I was in the final chaotic year of my dissertation, living between two cities, and dealing with the latest in a seemingly unending series of health problems in my immediate family. In February 2025, I am a newly minted PhD doing sessional teaching while frantically searching for permanent employment/funding/outlets to publish (lest I perish), living in one city (though still travelling to teach in another once a week), and I'm not anxiously fixated on the health of anyone close to me at this particular moment. It is fair to say that I was living pretty much inside my head in the middle of 2023, even more so than usual, so getting these glimpses of some of what was going on in the actual world at that time (even when couched in a discussion of an ex-riot grrrl's appropriation of an old Audrey Hepburn movie) is creating a funny kind of dissonance. That was a weird time in my life, and it has been a weird time in the world for several years now, but I'm not used to reading reflections on even the most contemporary history from so close a perspective (though I realize these weren't historical reflections when written). The effect has been appropriately, well, weird. The postscript to one entry, initially dated August 23, 2023, is disquieting: "On November 10, 2024, I can confirm that the neverending has still not ended, and that an eternity of this is looking more and more possible."

I gave the YouTube "thumbs up" rating to three of the videos from this batch. One of them was "The Emperor's New Clothes." The other two were new to me, although the songs were not. I generally share clem's predisposition towards videos that accompany songs that I already like. Good videos can be made from mediocre songs, and maybe even from bad ones, but I am very unlikely to come back to these videos, no matter how strong the visual presentation (this topic becomes a frequently one of the discussions in the video that clem has linked upthread, which I recommend). I absolutely get why clem loves the video to "The Past and the Pending" (I made the The Straight Story comparison before I read it), but The Shins are just one of those bands that have always bored the hell outta me, and "The Past and the Pending" sounds like every other Shins song I've heard. I recognize the video's qualities, but I don't ever see myself as willing enough to hear the song (or any Shins) again to ever come back to it.

Two I want to highlight, at least for the sake of making this thread relevant to the thread topic, and not just the book (which even 35 pages in I am confident in recommending to anyone interested enough in the subject to open this thread). The first, for "Motor Away" by Guided by Voices is listed as a fan-made thing, and I have evidence to suggest that it was officially sanctioned by the band, but damned if it doesn't look like a mid-90s indie video of the sort that Matt Pinfield would have played on 120 Minutes at the time. If this was fan made, someone really went to the trouble to make it look authentic: the grungy DiY aesthetic, the woman singing along with the song (while driving--an acknowledged clem fixation)...this was not just some appropriated footage matched to an appropriated song. So, whoever is responsible, a great video for an already great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uIA1y-7wWc

(Now time for my own postscript: I am more confident that ever that this video was fan made, as when I searched for it on YouTube the official video (for "Auditorium/Motor Away") also comes up, posted by Matador Records and with Robert Pollard's face front and centre in the thumbnail.)

I already liked Zebra Katz and Njena Reddd Foxxx's "Ima Read"--appearing about a decade ago, just as I re-entered academia, it felt serendipitous--though I hadn't played or thought about the song in a number of years. clem's retrospective reading of it as a prescient Trump song is compelling, but the video (new to me) plays to me like an extension of a literary genre that I'm only in the process of becoming aware of: Dark Academia. Typically, these are YA novels that take place at school (private academies, it seems, are the most popular setting) and contain some kind of sinister, if not supernatural, element. A number of the ones that I have read about (though not, alas, read yet--if I'm offering a misreading of the genre, please forgive my ignorance) also feature queer elements, which tracks with Zebra Katz playing, as he does in the video, a professor tossing out threatening proclamations, echoed and amplified by a girl (Njena Reddd Foxxx) in schoolgirl uniform--is this the Dark Academia "Baby...One More Time?" Two masked twin figures clearly refer to Arbus and The Shining, though clem also clocks The Blair Witch Project, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Twin Peaks, and J-Horror in here as well. There's a chilling ambiguity as to who are the heroes and villains in this drama--indeed, there are moments where the masked figures appear to be the least threatening people on screen (though they're still plenty scary). Anyway, this video is rad: watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo4Sqt2Bmag

So much for not becoming too unwieldy. More later, perhaps.

Typo correction: I have no evidence to suggest that it was officially sanctioned by the band.

Wow--I hardly ever get feedback that I don't initiate myself, crypto, so this is much appreciated.

Didn't know anything about Dark Academia, so that makes sense. Totally missed the Britney Spears connecion too. I'm almost angry about the Dylan video being pulled, because I don't understand: it was commissioned by him; it's great, and got all sorts of attention; taking it down from Dylan's site is one thing, but at least let someone repost it on YouTube. If you figure out anywhere to see it, let me know--I gave up.

It was real guesswork sometimes trying to figure out if a video was commissioned or user-uploaded; the GBV video is a good example. Nine times out of ten I would have assumed the Julie Ruin video was user-created, but seeing that it was uploaded onto the Julie Ruin page made that one easy.

Looking forward to more posting.

(I actually messaged CBS about putting the Dylan video back up--amazingly, they have not yet done anything.)

The channel surfing "Like A Rolling Stone" video? I think the problem there was running and maintaining the interactive software on the page hosting it--plus maybe some long-term licensing with trademarks or the participants.

I found the Dylan video here: https://video.bobdylan.com (via https://www.2pause.com/video/like-a-rolling-stone/ in case the former requires you to go through the latter)

Watched it twice, flipping through the "channels" each time. The second time through I was able to time it (not consciously) so that I landed on "watching all the pretty people" while on the Fashion channel" and "you better pawn it, babe" while on Pawn Stars. Will probably watch it at least three more times, the first to see the original video, and then straight through with The Price is Right and Bachelor's Roses (ha!). Officially one of the coolest things I've ever seen; now off to read what you have to say about it.

It glitched a few times both times I watched it, but only for a second each time.

Great! It looks like CBS has restored it (or fixed whatever technical issue caused it to spin unloaded endlessly a few weeks ago). My message and I are taking 100% credit for this.

(I know the issue wasn't mine--a friend encountered the same problem.)

I have to quote this corker of paragraph in full:

The net effect--of Dylan popping up at the last second, of everything that has preceded him--is overwhelming. The disconnect between what you might have envisioned for a video to accompany "Like a Rolling Stone"--different for everybody, an interactive cable-TV feed for nobody--and what you've seen is so vast, and so disorienting, you may not even be sure you've seen what you've seen. So you go back for another look, and then a third, and it's different every time, and it never ever changes. The song is bigger than the video, bigger than the form, bigger than the world; it subsumes everything in its path. What if the only language available to people were "Like a Rolling Stone"--what would that look like? What would that feel like? It would look and feel like this video. And it would be enough. Everything that needed to be said would still be said.

Thanks again. I was really happy with that, even if I do see the name MARCUS all through it...I've messaged three different people today about the video being back up (people I remember saying they'd never seen it).

Watched/read the New Wave block over my tea this morning. Pretty much a sweet spot for me--I don't think I had heard the Devo song until now, but I already knew and loved the other four. My favourite of the lot: "Life Begins at the Hop." I have some memory of having seen this video before, even though that doesn't make a whole lot of sense: I can't image any scenario in which MuchMusic would have played this in the 90s, around the time I first encountered the song on a Rhino DiY compilation, and it certainly wouldn't have been anywhere near MTV during my brief (late 90s--the Diddy/Backstreet years) access to the station. I suppose I might have looked up the video on YouTube any time during the site's existence, or followed a link from somewhere...who knows?

Anyway, I love the video for pretty much the same reasons you do. It's goofy, ironic/non-ironic fun. I plays, as I suppose it would have in 1979, like a band figuring out a format they barely understand and not worrying how fakey and clunky it might look--although the former quality is self-conscious and the latter actually not an issue: I've seen plenty of pop videos that undoubtedly cost more and looked worse. I love Colin Moulding lunging at the camera like a friendly parody of Johnny Rotten. I love the cardboard pink car, and guitar falling apart piece by piece. I love that Terry Chambers looks, era-appropriately, like Chris Makepeace's older brother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoSfTe9cI-M

Russel Mulcahy looks to be one of the video auteurs of the era: hell, he did "Video Killed the Radio Star," along with "Bette Davis Eyes," and a number of Duran Duran's biggest videos in addition to "Life Begins at the Hop," and a few other XTC clips that I now want to look up. His subsequent Hollywood career looks like a bunch of hackwork (various entries in the Highlander and Resident Evil series, along with a bunch of justifiably forgotten 90s duds like Ricochet, The Real McCoy, and The Shadow). He also directed a handful of episodes of the North American Queer as Folk, a show I was curiously indifferent to at the time, though I remember one episode making rather effective use of Rufus Wainwright's "Poses" (the YouTube clip I found is too blurry for me to bother posting, alas).

I thought I had two Russell Mulcahy videos in the book, but I just looked at his credits and I guess not...My guess is that I saw XTC and Devo on The New Music, which launched in '79; it's possible they still got played occasionally when Much went on air a few years later. I love how XTC are already making fun of the conventions of something that hasn't really even been invented yet. Those two videos, plus the Undertones and the Presidents of the United States of America and Green Day, are partly there as a balance to all the moody, aspires-to-art stuff I'm susceptibe to.

I don't have anything to add to clem's appraisal, but the Claude Lelouch-directed video for Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By" is indeed very cool. Probably because I knew I was in the hands of a fellow Paulette, but the "Come-Dressed-As-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties" analogy occurred to me even before I read the chapter. Puzzlingly, though, the video itself seems to have vanished from YouTube in the two days since I watched it.

One weird, likely unintended(?) connection, the chapter that opens with Warwick follows a chapter on Warhol-inspired videos, which itself culminates in a discussion of a lovely pair of videos that R.E.M. did for their equally lovely late-period single "We All Go Back To Where We Belong" (new to me, and a most pleasant surprise; New Adventures in Hi-Fi was the last time the band mattered to me). The connection? The Bacharachian flourishes in the song itself--likely the only time R.E.M. could plausibly be labelled Bacharachian--which, if you are playing the videos in sequence (as I was), makes for a nice segue into "Walk on By."

clem writes, rather poignantly, on the video (R.E.M. shot two Screen Test-inspired clips for the song) featuring Warhol's ex Jon Giorono, but I most enjoyed watching Kirsten Dunst's clip. I've always liked Dunst, and she fills the role of the Warholian blonde nicely here. She appears to be listening and responding to the song for the first time here, looking pensive during the verses and smiling at the wistful romance of the chorus; did Warhol invent the reaction video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpwd1YLgDaM

Finished the book. I didn't stop to highlight a few other standout videos--Feist, Fiona Apple, Vic Mensa--for the same reason I didn't dwell on "The Emperor's New Clothes" upthread: I already knew and liked these ones. Of the three, I was gonna say that Mensa is the least popular, but searching the archives, I see that "Down on My Luck" was ILM's 10th favourite track of 2014 (I probably voted for it if I submitted a ballot that year), and at least one comment in the rollout makes reference to the clip ("clever video too," says gr8080).

Anyway, I will just reiterate that if you care about music videos--not necessarily these music videos; this is very much the kind of book that inspires you to play along, brainstorming your own list of faves--or just good writing on music and pop culture in general, you should head on over to Amazon, or preferably somewhere less Trump-placating (I had a gift card to use up), and buy this. Well done, clem!

The "Walk On By" clip can still be found here (scroll down):

https://lapoeleafrire.tumblr.com/post/115204854531/comment-dionne-warwick-sest-retrouvee-sur-le-toit

I posted it on Twitter last year before it was yanked from YouTube, but mistakenly thought it was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty, who was pretty much the king of 1960s French music videos.

Thanks so much, crypto, your post means a lot to me. (I've never included blurbs on a jacket before, but if I do another one, I'm going to ask you I can lift something from that.)

I didn't even know the R.E.M. song until I was writing that entry, much less the videos; they were slated to be in the book for "Man on the Moon" or "The Great Beyond" or "End of the World" (probably would have gone with "The Great Beyond"). I don't remember exactly, but I wouldn't doubt that YouTube's algorithm threw them up there when I was searching for screen tests. I think the screen tests are crucial to a certain kind of music video; I'd say they're almost as important to "Nothing Compares 2 U" as the Dreyer film.

Not sure how much commercial weight my name carries (actually, I think I am sure), but yes, feel free to cite me.

Don't worry, I have exactly the same problem.

did Warhol invent the reaction video?

Misinterpreted you there...I see you mean those YouTubes where they get young people to listen to Patti Smith or Jimi Hendrix or whoever for the first time. Yeah, I can see that in the Kirsten Dunst video. In the actual screen tests, though, I imagine the room was silent after Warhol vacated? I don't know.