Best Music Videos of 2016 (So Far)

Director: Devin Williams & Myron Watkins

If your primary goal in life is to lead a healthy, safe, and secure existence, please don’t become a musician. The last fifty years of popular music have seen the reckless rise and fatal fall of so many young, talented artists—if you’re a popular musician and you live to be thirty years old, you’ve already outlived some of the best of them. With that being said, thank God that Bruiser Brigade’s Zelooperz is still alive. If Danny Brown is Iggy Pop, Zelooperz is G.G. Allin—a rawer, scarier, and even more badass version of his mentor.

In the video for his track “ISBD (I Should Be Dead)”, Z teaches you how to live fast and die young while hand-drawn animations tempt fate and poke fun at the threat of puny death. Pause the video at any point and you’ll see something spooky. Be it skulls and crossbones tessellated across the screen or the features of a skeleton drawn on to Z’s face, every frame looks like a sketch from a really cool goth kid’s notebook.

Zelooperz performs for the camera like the undead emcee of a rave at your local morgue and the beat hits like a clenched fist swung full speed in a mosh pit. Please, skip the boring eulogy and play this video at my funeral instead.

Directors: Claire & Mac Boucher

The visuals for "Kill V. Maim" play out like an IRL cartoon—the colors and movements are all hyper-real, smearing the screen with a rainbow of creative power.

We first join Grimes speeding through the city in a stripped pink convertible, its windows replaced with Grimes' writhing squad, our sherpas through this underworld. They lead us through a series of subterranean cyber-punk dystopias—an empty subway is transformed into a battleground, while an industrial warehouse turns into a bloody jungle gym.

The costumes deserve first mention—it's a dominatrix's fever dream, complete with fishnet stockings, wigs, masks, smeared makeup, and a mass of leather that would put the cast of Mad Max to shame.

There are little creature animations that pop up at random, a blood rave with increasingly aggressive strobe lights, and a spasming style of dance that matches the song's searing energy. Grimes carries the day, as usual, with an onscreen charisma that has made every one of her videos unmissable. "Kill V. Maim" is no exception.

Director: Quba Tuakli

The video for Rocks FOE’s “Law” makes a statement. The black-and-white visual opens with honest portraits of a motley South London crew comprised of all walks of life—men and women, adults and children, black and white. All are united by a common frustration with the law, the police that enforce it, and the justice system that claims to act in accordance with it. The mob turns violent as the song’s wild beat drops—the squelching bass, horror-movie strings, and abrasive hi-hats are the anthem by which the mob arrests, tries, and sentences a police officer.

Blood meets concrete as Rocks’ lyrics foreshadow an execution, but the mob elevates itself above villainous justice system in a magnanimous twist, the cop’s life is spared. As the eerie piano riff fades away, Rocks places his hand on the officer’s soldier in an act of solidarity. The anger of the lyrics leaves the listener charged even after the video has ended; although the cop’s case has been tried, the system he represents must still answer for its crimes.

Director: the little homies & Jack Begert

ScHoolboy Q’s “Groovy Tony” came out of nowhere. No tweets, no leaks, nothing. Q and his fellow TDE members have a history of this kind of behavior, and although it’s not clear whether this trend should be attributed to Top Dawg management or the artists themselves, it is clear is that it works every time.

Of course, having one of the best videos of the year helps keep the fans interested. Q couldn’t look cooler in the “Groovy Tony” visual, which plays like an audition tape for the role of a ruthless 007. What’s more badass than lighting a blunt from the burning sleeve of your expensive-ass jacket? We’ll have to wait until his ScHoolboy Q's new record drops to find out. Until then, we’ll be watching this one at least once a day.

Director: Chloé Wallace

Ah, high school. The cafeteria lunches, the schemes to get the cute boy/girl’s attention, the awkward run-ins with your crush—it’s a story we all know too well. It’s also a story that tends to fall along gendered, one-dimensional, age-old stereotypes: The Jock, The Cheerleader, The Nerd, and the rest of the Class of Whatever.

But Shura flips the classic hallway romance on its head with the video for bubbly, '80s-pop-tinged “What’s It Gonna Be,” in which she and her brother play themselves. Spoiler alert: Shura ends up in a sneaky auditorium make-out session with the cheerleader, while her brother, Nick, ends up going steady with the football player.

The song’s dizzying, sugary beat perfectly matches the feeling of a first love, but the stereotype-breaking video, in all its kitschiness, gives the already-solid track a new dimension. Maybe the best part about the relationship switch-up, though, is that Shura doesn’t make a huge show of it—the video isn’t meant to shock you (and if it does, welcome to the 21st century). Instead, the fun, carefree video is simply a new take on a tired storyline, and we’re loving it.

Directors: Matt Clark & Chris Davenport

The otherworldly, mesmerizing video for James Blake and Bon Iver’s “I Need a Forest Fire” begins with mysterious array of papier-mâché-esque shapes. Slowly, the fragments take form, and a forehead—then a jawline, eyes, and a full face—appear. Much of the video continues on this course, with shadowed, abstract objects gradually becoming familiar: feathers, an eagle, a rose, the artists' faces.

Directed by UVA, the video is just as hypnotizing and strangely beautiful as the song itself. Moody, melancholy, and undeniably gorgeous—exactly what you’d expect from this goosebump-inducing, sadboy singer duo.

Director: Director X, Tim Erem

As soon as Rihanna and Drake dropped the visuals for their chart-topping collab “Work,” the video was already iconic. The internet goes nuts over any clue that the duo may or may not be dating, and this video provided plenty of fodder in that respect.

Make that “videos”—the pair surprised us with back-to-back versions, and though they feature the same song, they couldn’t be more different. In the Director X version, we enter West Indian restaurant and Toronto mainstay The Real Jerk, where RiRi drops it low among a sweaty crowd of grinding dancers. Drake lurks in the background.

In the Tim Erem-directed version, Rihanna spirals her hips Shakira-style in front of Drake (lurking, again, in the background) in a sheer tank and ripped jean skirt, the whole thing washed with pink neon light. It could probably be summed up like this: DAAMN! In both videos, the duo’s chemistry is undeniable, and they seem to be genuinely enjoying themselves—peep Drake try to hide his smile at roughly the 5:33 mark in the video below, and you’ll know what I mean.

As we said, the Internet goes crazy over Drake and Rihanna—but this time, the hype is real.

Director: Menno Fokma

Klangstof’s “Hostage” is an intimate interior portrait of a solider-turned-forester. The Dutch musician’s breakout single is the perfect soundtrack for the narrative, which portrays the tribulations of a military man unable to readjust to civilian life. The lush, patient instrumentation that opens the track matures as the video’s main character is developed, and as the song’s momentum builds, the frustration and confusion experienced by the protagonist is made palpable by dynamic synths and live drums.

By the time the song reaches its climax, the visuals have become frenetic, with jump cuts and close-ups mimicking the former soldier’s scattered mental capacities. The final moments of the song hearken to the track’s softer opening, creating an aural cycle that, combined with a revelatory shot of the former solider back in uniform, reminds the listener of the cyclical ailment that holds the protagonist hostage.

Director: PussyKrew

“No Drama”—the heavy, heart-thumping collaboration between Cadenza, British rap up-and-comer Avelino, and Jamaican artist Assassin—goes hard. But the music video almost one-ups the song in that aspect: with a trio of aggressive female dancers, glitchy imagery and an almost apocalyptic landscape, it’s a glitchy trip through a futuristic, monstrous world in which the rappers appear as 3D scans. The video is dark, but not hopeless: director PussyKrew told Noisey that the images represent a state of “rebirth” out of darkness.

Director: Skim Nasty and Lil Chano from 79th

Try to watch the video for Chance The Rapper’s “No Problem”—or listen to the song, for that matter—and not smile. No one can stop dancing in the exuberant, vivid visual for the Coloring Book standout: not 2 Chainz, not Lil Wayne, not DJ Khaled or Young Thug or Boosie Badazz or King Louie—all of whom make cameos.

The video, co-directed by Chance himself under the name Lil Chano from 79th, is really more like a scrapbook of fun, hilarious, and often unrelated moments, most of which involve dancing. The clips also appear candid—the video looks like it was shot in garages, on sidewalks, inside cars, across highways, in kitchens, indoors, outdoors, you name it.

A personal favorite: Lil Wayne raps his verse while donning a “Make America Skate Again” snapback and dancing alongside Chance. Fancy effects and complicated visuals are worthy of praise, but it’s great when you get to see your favorite artists simply having fun with one another.

Director: Darnell Williams

This self-directed video from Detroit transplant Darnell Williams is crazy. This is the best of DIY—sure, Williams has a history in video journalism, so he wasn't going in untrained, but as a piece of filmmaking "South Central" is hypnotic.

It doesn't hurt that the song's as good as it is—Williams lectures on dangers of the block while bullet holes and lipstick are superimposed over his own image. The layers help the L.A.-based rapper visualize his lyrics, but they're only half the story, edit-wise. There are time lapse sequences, expert jump cuts, and color manipulations that will have any self-respecting video editor replaying "South Central" frame by frame to see just how Darnell did it.

Director: the little homies, Jack Begert, PANAMÆRA

To try to summarize the massive scope of Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-award winning record To Pimp a Butterfly in this short write-up would be a fool’s errand. In fact, responsibly analyzing anything more than one track at a time is a real challenge. Thankfully, Kendrick released “God is Gangsta” at the beginning of 2016, a short film that acts as a music video for two of the album’s tracks, “U” and “For Sale?”

By juxtaposing these two songs, which are not adjacent on the album’s track list, Kendrick asks his fans to think critically about the similarities and differences between the pair.

In “U,” Kendrick drunkenly berates himself for a slew of regrettable decisions—leaving Compton, choosing money over activism, and other choices make it hard to love himself. As Kendrick takes swigs of an amber liquid, the tincture that gives him the confidence to excavate those caverns of regret deep within himself, the video begins to skip and slur, ending with the rapper passed out on the floor of his prison-like lounge. The internal demons confronted in “U” can be contrasted with an external one, the seductive force personified as “Lucy” (read: Lucifer) in “For Sale?” Kendrick acts possessed, as if he has signed away his soul to Lucy in a contract not unlike the one he raps about signing at the beginning of his new career as a musical superstar.

The video changes scenery as the songs transition, trading the Lynchian VIP room for a red-and-orange club populated by beautiful women. It is possible that these women are disciples of Lucy sent to tempt Kendrick in the hellish red club—or perhaps you prefer to see them as angels sent to aid in his redemption, with the red-and-orange glow representing the sun rising on Kendrick’s new career as a self-forgiven man. The video ends appropriately with a baptismal scene—by the end of the two songs, Kendrick has come full circle in his retribution.

Director: Fleur Fortuné

The Avalanches’ new single “Frankie Sinatra” is great in the same way as a huge rollercoaster. It’s fun, dizzying, and we’ve all been waiting a really long time in line (in this case, 16 years) to see what it’s like.

Appropriately, the visual for this track takes place at a bizarre backwoods carnival, where every patron is served a radioactive substance with overwhelming psychotropic effects. You thought circuses were creepy sober? Wait until you see one through the eyes of these folk, who are tripping harder than a drunkard playing double-dutch.

The song itself is a dizzying mix of calypso, hip-hop, and evil circus melodies that sound like the devil got ahold of a calliope and starting improvising. And who better to rap over such an absurd track than Danny Brown and MF DOOM, the Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll of hip-hop?

This video has everything a good carnival needs: sideshow acts (every one of which looks ten times creepier on this mystery drug), delicious food (which turns to cockroaches in the eyes of its consumers), and even bumper cars (in the form of a boat-race turned demolition derby/Vietnam reenactment). The song comes to a close as the cops arrive too late to save the circus-goers who, at this point, lay passed out on the ground, defeated by what was undoubtedly the craziest trip of their life.

Director: Hiro Murai

For all the violence that plagues modern society, it's nothing compared to the barbarism of the Revolutionary War, when British soldiers would line up opposite their opponents and shoot at each other straight on. That's the backdrop for Baauer's collaboration with director Hiro Murai—the song is "Day Ones," and features a bloodthirsty verse each from Novelist and Leikeli47.

The massacre happens in a modern-day parking lot, the anonymity of the space made all the more surreal by Murai's carefully placed objects: a parked car here, a chandelier there. It's a truly chilling and statuesque piece of artwork that brings the song to life.

Director: Johan Renck

If you weren’t already convinced of David Bowie’s genius, this video should do the trick. Released just two days before his death, “Lazarus” is a carefully constructed and ominous portrait of the artist at his weakest. The video opens with a wooden wardrobe left ajar, an image which immediately conjures thoughts of a coffin. Bowie then takes to the screen (lying in a hospital bed, of course) and delivers the song’s portentous opening lines: “Look up here; I’m in heaven.”

Looking back on this video after his death, it seems so blatantly obvious that Bowie was aware of his fate; between the pain audible in his voice and the final image of him climbing into the open wardrobe and closing the door, Bowie doesn’t leave anything up to the viewer’s imagination. Never in my life have I witnessed a YouTube comment section unified in the way that this one is—even the most ruthless trolls know to pay respect where it is due.

Rest in peace.

Director: Hirad Sab

In our generation, everyone is a sculptor. We use data, our medium du jour, to carefully construct digital profiles that stand in our place in the agora of social media. As sculptors, our work is precious to us, and the visual for Sevdaliza’s “Marilyn Monroe” perfectly captures this preoccupation with our fragile digital simulacra.

Hirad Sab’s sharp 3D animation combines the most sophisticated visual techniques of the vaporwave movement with video art sensibilities usually reserved for modern art museums to create a stunning reflection on the modern play between the sentimental and the synthetic. Sevdaliza’s vocals are by turns natural and digitally processed, imbuing the track with a certain cybernetic energy that resonates beautifully in the echo chamber that our social lives have become. Artificial intelligence may be a few decades away, but digital emotion is here, and it’s heartbreaking.

Director: Glassface & Rahil Ashruff

Lil Yachty divided the hip-hop community when he splashed onto the scene earlier this year. Some people became instant fans, and others wrote him off as generic, a boring product of the industry that dominates hip-hop today. Show the video for “1 Night” to anyone in the latter group and see if they still can’t spot the personality.

Regardless of your opinions on Lil Yachty, it’s hard to deny that he has fun doing what he does, and if this visual is any indication of what’s floating around in that mind of his, then it comes as no surprise that so many people have lauded his creativity and positivity. You can’t help but smile watching this video, and that’s exactly what Yachty wants—to make people smile. The energy and joy in this video promise an exciting and impactful career for Lil Boat, and we can’t wait to see what he delivers next.

Related: I'm Becoming a Lil Yachty Fan

Director: Rob Shaw

Since his debut on the underground hip-hop scene 20 years ago, Aesop Rock has stood out from the crowd. Though vocally gifted and creative with the flows, Ace really shines lyrically and conceptually—the Rhymesayers emcee has laced his tracks with poetry covering everything from personal tragedy to his favorite video games. In his new track “Rings,” Aesop eulogizes his former career as a failed visual artist; ironically, the video is anything but a failure.

The visual depicts the rapper’s brush with death after a car accident. He narrates in live-action from the operating table as a surgeon performs something between an autopsy and a heart transplant.

This scene is cut with stop-motion dissections of the rapper’s brain and heart, wherein a wooden mannequin representing Aesop as a visual artist does battle with a serpentine beast, a veritable tape-worm of creativity bent on destroying his work. After the surgeon removes the mannequin, Ace comes back to life and must face the world without that vital part of his creative self. Though the lyrical message is one of resignation, the video feels positive, like a warning against abandoning whatever it is that inspires you.

Director: Melina Matsoukas

Years from now, Beyoncé's visual album Lemonade will be remembered for its innovative use of technology and for its lyrics that confront bigotry of every type head-on. Perhaps the most confrontational of all the tracks is the lead single “Formation,” the song that shows Beyoncé at her most impactful.

The Queen’s sovereignty is undeniable; as she performs throughout the various Southern locales highlighted in the video, she reminds the viewer that, despite all the controversy, she is the one running this show we call pop culture. How many people would have used the word slay in a non-high-fantasy setting without this song? Our culture in 2016 already owes so much to Beyoncé's latest edicts, and this is the video where they all began.

Director: Nabil

"It's a love song from the perspective of a girl in Afghanistan," Anohni told Annie Mac when "Drone Bomb Me" premiered back in March. "A nine-year-old girl whose family's been killed by a drone bomb. She is kind of looking up at the sky, and she's gotten herself to a place where she just wants to be killed by a drone bomb too."

There are certain expectations that come with subject matter that weighty. Pitfalls are common, too—this video could have been disastrously cloying and literal, but in Anohni's hands it turned into something very real and moving.

First, she assembled a team: eternal goddess Naomi Campbell is the video's centerpiece. She mouths the words from a metallic throne that might double as an electric chair.

Art direction was handled by Riccardo Tisci, Givenchy's Italian designer with a gothic tilt. We never leave the dimly-lit, windowless room where Campbell first appears, her black hair turned purple in the light.

The final piece is Nabil's direction. The twisting, furious dance that swells around Campbell's tearful delivery becomes the bomb's approach. And when it hits, it really hits. "Drone Bomb Me" the only video we've seen from Anohni's HOPELESSNESS album thus far—here's hoping there's more to come.