Welcome to FACT’s weekly video round-up.
As we note at the end of every year, music videos have never been better. But too often, music videos — along with documentaries, live sets and interview clips — get lost in the shuffle of news and new music.
With that in mind, FACT is doing what it does for mixes, mixtapes, vinyl and more: rounding up the internet’s best videos on a weekly basis. And to remove our bias, we won’t be including our own content — you’ll have to stay tuned to FACT TV for all your Against The Clock, FACT Freestyles and Confessions needs.
Read more: The 20 best music videos of 2015
Wild Beasts
‘Big Cat’
Dir: Pablo Maestres
In this cinematic clip, a trio of men try to escape from a surveillance society that has infiltrated nature with its living propaganda. But despite burning evidence and going off the grid, nature proves most dangerous.
Peaces
‘Vaginoplasty’
Dir: Briana Gonzales
Exactly what we’d expect from a Peaches video for a song called ‘Vaginoplasty’: a synchronized swim team dazzles in vagina costumes and unicorn masks as Peaches thrusts, her bathing suit adorned with extra nipples and pubic hair.
Courtney Barnett
‘Elevator Operator’
Dir: Sunny Leunig
Courtney Barnett is the titular ‘Elevator Operator’ for an elevator that travels through time and space. Reminiscent of the bellhop in Four Rooms, Barnett finds magicians, nuns, bowlers and assorted characters (including Sleater-Kinney, Jeff Tweedy and plenty of like-minded musicians) before her shirt-and-tie Rosencrantz and Gilderstein become her rooftop band.
Clams Casino feat. Samuel T. Herring
‘Ghost in a Kiss’
Dir: Grant Singer
As with his striking videos for Sky Ferreira and The Weeknd, Grant Singer’s video for ‘Ghost in a Kiss’ is unsettling, its sex and violence insinuated. Future Islands frontman Sam Herring lives a solitary Groundhog Day life where he is haunted by ghosts of his past: perhaps himself and the woman he loved (and killed?).
Father
‘Big Emblem Benz’
Dir: Ramez Silyan
Father and Abra go grindhouse: driving a big emblem Benz, taking over an Airstream and relaxing in the pool before burying something in the desert. Everyone with a camera should shoot a trunk POV shot before they die.
Fielded
‘I Choose You’
Dir: Alex Mallis
“You’ve said this in one of your songs,” Oprah once asked Britney Spears, “but do you feel like you’re between two worlds, the world of the girl and then moving into womanhood?” That pitch-shifted quote opens ‘I Choose You’ and illuminates both song and video. The latter is drenched in otherworldly purples and greens as Fielded’s Lindsay Powell sits in barber chairs and dentist chairs, embarking on twentysomething hookups where shared experiences are passed like so much spit.
Gucci Mane
‘First Day Out Tha Feds’
Dir: Gabriel Hart
Well, at least Gucci’s time behind bars didn’t kill his sense of humor. In his first video since getting home, he toys with those silly clone rumors while living lavishly.
Francis and the Lights feat. Bon Iver and Kanye West
‘Friends’
Dir: Jake Schreier
Francis Starlite and ‘Friends’ Justin Vernon and Kanye West break the fourth wall in a film studio. Kanye may be too cool to dance, but Starlite and Vernon use this opportunity to show off their white boy choreography.
Fergie
‘M.I.L.F.$’
Dir: Colin Tilley
No matter how you feel about this pop-rap Frankenstein, you’ve got to hand it to director-to-watch Colin Tilley for going all-out on the video. Milfville is a pastel-colored slice of suburbia straight outta Edward Scissorhands and its residents – Fergie, Kim Kardashian, Chrissy Teigen, Ciara and others – breastfeed, dance as malt shoppe strippers, act out teacher-student fantasies and enjoy a milk bath spa day. Did you expect subtlety?
David Brent
‘Lady Gypsy’
Everything we could have hoped from a “David Brent” video: corny Mumford folk, plenty of mugging for the camera, every cringeworthy lyric made literal.
