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

I've never seen The Box before! I knew about it at the time but didn't have access to satellite tv, then forgot about it for twenty years I guess. Pretty good, poor Tilda.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-29.jpg

29. “Wicked Game,” Chris Isaak (1989)
67 points/7 votes
Director: Herb Ritts

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd-qI62gNJM

Went looking online for the original Wicked Game video with the clips from Wild At Heart a few months ago and couldn't find it.

it was hard to pick one herb ritts video but i went with this one because of the clouds. he was unmatched in making gorgeous people look supernaturally gorgeous

It didn't work--got the embed. I'm just going to ask everyone to let that go...If I get ambitious tonight, I'll try to do all that in advance, but no guarantee.

Liked this at the time, both the song and video, but didn't vote for it. Linked in my mind with Bruce Weber's documentary on Chet Baker.

i do not care about links so this is fine

I read about the Wild at Heart version, directed by Lynch--I've never seen it, I don't think.

Anyone can find these videos without a link, it's fine.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-28.jpg

28. “Unfinished Sympathy,” Massive Attack (1991)
68 points/8 votes
Director: Baillie Walsh

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWmrfgj0MZI

New to me, but I like this one. I almost voted for Morrissey's "Tomorrow," another person-walking-around video, and I think the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" was the same thing--must be dozens of them.

Voted for a different MA video but this is a good one.

A good video, but maybe one that suffered, for me, from a kind of inverse of the whole bad song/great video problem. Which is to say, I love the song so much that I'm not sure I would like the video so much if a less interesting song were being played overtop of it.

Might've learned I was gay after reveling in the 'Wicked Game' video.

Voted for "The Box."

xxp

(some mangled grammar--and logic(?)--in there, but hopefully youl get what I mean)

Might've confirmed I was straight after reveling in Helena Christensen in the "Wicked Game" video--something for everyone.

TMI

It made me wanna buy a fragrance

Another tie at #26...I'll post these two, then continue tomorrow (again, around mid-day). Should I finish on Saturday or Monday?

Viborg hasn't posted, but thanks again to him for splitting all the preliminary work.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-26b.jpg

26. “Transmission,” Joy Division (1979)
68 points/5 votes
Live performance, “Something Else” (BBC)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBt3mJtgJc

https://phildellio.tripod.com/video-26a.jpg

26. “Oblivion,” Grimes (2012)
68 points/5 votes
Director: Emily Kai Bock

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tain2qdt3K4

They're the greatest dancers.

happy birthday, Grimes!

Actually did try to find a directorial credit for the Joy Division, but no luck--somebody directed the TV show. (The song is '78, but the show aired in '79.)

I <3 that Grimes video... pretty sure it's the most "recent" vid I voted for

What are these results? Did music videos peak in 1981?

if you mean '91 (which seems like the rough median here) – then yeah, probably

I haven't dated everything yet, but I have a feeling Grimes is the newest video in the Top 40. As I posted in the intro, this did surprise me.

I've barely seen any music videos made after 1996 or so.

Lots of '90s stuff, so I'd even push that forward.

music videos as a format peaked with almost every rap video from '95-'99

I rarely watch new videos, even for artists I love. I just listen to the track.

whoever made the first video of bundled-up guys in NYC rapping in an empty lot deserves to win

That Grimes video must've had a budget of like $18. Was one of my top votes though.

How is that Joy Division clip a video tho? I feel like those votes were just people affirming that yes, they were a great live band.

got sick and failed to vote but enjoying the roll out! thanks clemenza!

Whoa, didn't even realize 'The Box' had an accompanying video. Love that track so hard.

Hasn't that Joy Division clip kind of been co-opted by the band as _the video_ for the song?

How is that Joy Division clip a video tho? I feel like those votes were just people affirming that yes, they were a great live band.

― enochroot, Thursday, March 17, 2022 11:13 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i feel like the image i associate with joy division, even more than their actual videos (cf. the "atmosphere" clip), is that performance

the band's youtube channel also insists it is the "official music video" which is hilarious

I'm gonna guess I'm the only one who voted for non-SLTS Nirvana.

That's the only straight-performance video that placed--a few others got stray votes. I brought up this point when first proposing the poll, and there was a definite tilt towards a separate poll for such things.

I can understand bending a bit here because a) as Brad says, it's identified as "the official video," and b) the circumstances of Joy Division's brief existence, and the scarcity of actual videos. There's "Atmosphere," there's something closer to a real video for "Love Will Tear Us Apart," there's a homemade one I nominated for "Disorder," and I don't know what else there is.

Plus Ian Curtis dancing.

(xpost) Close, but no.

I mean "Enjoy The Silence" is great but "Heart Shaped Box" is Anton Corbijn's best.

I came close to voting for Heart-Shaped Box (which did get a vote)--one of the videos I find unforgettably unsettling (and it passes the I-love-the-song test). Don't want to turn this into another Christgau-is-awful detour, but I remember him remarking that it was terrible in Pazz & Jop that year; I can see where someone might find some of the more grotesque imagery campy, but I loved it then and still do--often just for the band, like the part where Cobain's in the foreground and the other two are behind him, with Novoselic's arm around Grohl. That's a great image.

i picked "teen spirit" over "heart-shaped box" because i thought a lot about iconicity when picking my ballot, and there are few more immediately recognizable videos than that one. i think i regret that, though, since that "heart-shaped box" video is the exact right kind of disturbing (i do not relate to that morrisp post above at all haha)

I considered voting for "In Bloom" just becasue he makes such great faces in it. The Nevermind-era videos are classic just because he's so much smarter and funnier than their directors.

What are these results? Did music videos peak in 1981?

I think Eric H. was being facetious here, bc one might have feared the results would come out that way

xxp yeah i picked teen spirit over heart-shaped box for similar reasons re iconicity, but rewatching it now i regret it as well. heart-shaped box was one of the first songs i remember loving as a kid when it was getting played relentlessly on 99x in atlanta. i probably haven't seen the video since i was a kid and watching it now i realize its been firmly lodged in my subconscious the way things do when absorbed by the uncritical mind of a child that fully accepts whatever it sees and has already decided is cool. speaking of which, my ballot in general is heavily weighted towards videos that i absorbed in such a way

Similarly, I rewatched R.E.M.'s "Stand" video today (after voting for it last week), and I guess it's not necessarily as objectively great as I remember... its appeal was more rooted in being a preteen R.E.M. fan. It's still pretty good, though (and crazy how much it just looks like an episode of that show Pete & Pete, which the director would later work on).

(xxpost) You might be right (but wouldn't "didn't" be the word to suggest facetiousness?).