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2. Miike Snow - "Heart Is Full"
Director: Lance Drake
Three years later, Miike Snow is back. The synth rockers and their unique taste for electronic falsettos got a futuristic twist this month in the video for their comeback single, "Heart Is Full." It's a violent, apocalyptic clip that could fit snugly in the end-times classic Blade Runner: We follow a tightly-shorn heroine through oily city streets as she battles baddies in a crotch-hugging jumpsuit. Good times.
3. Pusha T - "Untouchable"
Director: Harrison Boyce
The news of a new Pusha T album was water in a drought, and he followed it up with a truly iconic video. The single sets the bar high—sampling Biggie tends to do that—but the new president of G.O.O.D. music is great on camera, and does New York proud with a vibrant video that pays homage to one of rap's greats while celebrating his own legacy.
4. Her - "Five Minutes"
Director: LISWAYA
Beautiful women are an easy way to attract an audience, and French duo Her has delivered on that count. Their video for "Five Minutes" has some seriously religious overtones, but only to start: the central character starts as a priestess, but quickly morphs into something much more.
5. Tame Impala - "The Less I Know The Better"
Director: CANADA
Love is love. That might not be the central tenet behind Tame Impala's beautiful, bizarre narrative for "The Less I Know The Better," but it's an undeniable moral of the story. And if that love comes from a gorilla, so be it.
What could have been a standard, melodramatic romance is twisted in much the same way Kevin Parker and company have twisted conventional pop structures into something all their own. It's weird, wonderful, and absolutely hypnotic.
6. Sia - "Alive"
Director(s): Daniel Askill & Sia
It's a new visual chapter for Sia, the Australian singer who has climbed charts while hiding behind her signature blonde wig. She has a massive voice and a first-rate list of writing credits, but it was pre-teen Maddie Ziegler who shone in Sia's most popular videos ("Chandelier") to date. Maddie and Sia have parted ways for the time being, and the wig has been taken up by child star Mahiro Takano.
Takano is a force to be reckoned with, running through a vicious routine of high kicks and fearsome faces. Even if the faces change, Sia's creative powers are still in full force.
7. Sir Spyro ft. Big H, Bossman Birdie, and President T - "Side By Side"
Director: Henry Schofield
Grime videos are generally snapshots of the artist's environment—the roads, the endz (shout out Novelist's video which we included in last month's round-up), the clothes, the crew—but rarely are they as creatively shot as the "Side by Side" visual. The grittiness is still there, but little touches like the shot with the mirror in the market make this video worth watching again and again.
8. David Bowie - "Blackstar"
Director: Johan Renck
One of music's greatest living legends surged back into our feeds this month with an epic video. "Blackstar" is the title track off of Bowie's upcoming album, and the ten-minute visual is proof that Ziggy Stardust isn't running out of ideas. It recalls FKA Twigs in terms of its vision and artistic direction, but the high production values don't make for a plastic experience.
On the contrary, "Blackstar" is rather disturbing: eclipses, seizures, and horrific scarecrows are just the beginning of Bowie's opus. It's equal parts David Lynch and Wes Anderson, something that needs to be seen to be believed.
9. Nao - "Bad Blood"
Director: Ian Pons Jewell
A whole spectrum of black and white plays out in Nao's mesmerizing video for "Bad Blood." It's an industrial horror story, set within the confines of a seemingly depthless power plant. The NSFW video follows a crusader as she enacts revenge on her enemies, one by one, in the most elegant way possible.
The director, Ian Pons Jewell, directed Vince Staples' "Senorita" video earlier this year—you can see the parallels between the two, proof that he's one of the best doing it right now.
10. Missy Elliott ft. Pharrell - "WTF (Where They From)"
Director(s): Dave Meyers & Missy Elliott
The return of Missy wouldn't be complete without a classic Missy video, and we got it this month on "WTF." Her eye for costume and dark, dystopian sense of design has resulted in some gems this time around: the opening sparkle suit, of course, but also an insane puppet sequence and some flawless dance choreography. Welcome back, queen.
11. M.I.A. - "Borders"
Director: M.I.A.
Never afraid to speak her mind or address important issues in her music, "Borders" proves yet again that no one can fuse the pop and the political quite like M.I.A.. The song itself was certainly catchy, although a little underwhelming, but paired with the video, it becomes her strongest work since 2o13's "Bad Girls."
Directing one again, M.I.A. confronts the current and ongoing migration crisis and takes aim at those whose response is to build fences and close their borders. Images of boats laden with refugees and piles of life jackets left on European shores have been all over the news recently, and M.I.A. provides a highly stylized version of that in the "Borders" video.
While the video seems to most directly reference the refugee crisis as it is playing out in Europe, the tall, barbed wire topped fences bring to mind the obsession that Republican presidential candidates (especially Trump) have with building a wall between America and Mexico. Movement between nations and how to deal with displaced peoples is one of today's most important issues, and M.I.A. tackles it head on with "Borders," while also providing a video that is visually spectacular.
The video is dedicated to M.I.A.'s uncle Bala, "one of the first Tamil migrants to come to the UK in the '60s." Read her dedication here.
