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
Rihanna
‘Needed Me’
Dir: Harmony Korine
“Didn’t they tell you that I was a savage?” Rihanna teams with Harmony Korine for a personalized version of Spring Breakers, complete with slow-motion stripteases, a skull-masked motorcycle gang and a silenced assassination. Paradoxically, this is entirely over-the-top while subtle and understated (especially compared to the epic ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ video).
Charli XCX
‘Vroom Vroom’
Dir: Bradley and Pablo
Charli XCX pays tribute to Britney Spears with her outfits (latex, bikini tops, platform sneakers) and choreography (try it at home!), but as with her PC Music contemporaries, it’s tongue-in-cheek: watch out for seizure-inducing edits, product placement and cameos by Hannah Diamond and A.G. Cook. And stick around after the black-and-white for a neon hint of what could have been.
Kali Uchis feat. Steve Lacy, Vince Staples
‘Only Girl’
Dir: Kali Uchis
Kali Uchis’ visual aesthetic is a huge part of her art, and her self-directed video for ace collaboration ‘Only Girl’ doesn’t disappoint. Shot in heavenly pastels, Uchis is coquettish in some ‘Like A Virgin’ lingerie as Steve Lacy and Vince Staples look for loves in a sea of Kali clones.
Run The Jewels feat. Gangsta Boo
‘Love Again’
Dir: Ninian Doff
RTJ’s oversexed ‘Love Again’ is brought to life as pollination porn with insects and flowers shot in microscopic detail. Gangsta Boo as a Venus flytrap, smoking a post-coital cigarette? Genius.
Egyptian Lover
‘I Cry (Night After Night)’
Dir: Zev Deans
Welcome to NileVision, which is basically Videodrome if it were run by Egyptian Lover. The synth god is surrounded by Egyptian iconography, drowned in neon lights and given VHS effects reminiscent of his ‘80s heyday.
Minor Victories
‘Scattered Ashes (song for Richard)’
Dir: James & Justin Lockey
Indie rock supergroup Minor Victories get in on the cat video game, adding laser-armed cats and RPG-styled, “I Can Haz Cheezburger” dialogue to found footage of destruction and panic for a cat war apocalypse.
White Gzus
‘Phototype’
Dir: APJ
White Gzus take a break from video games in the slasher film-inspired video for ‘Phototype’, a song that reworks Andre 3000’s ‘Prototype’. In a bizarre turn, victims bodies become portals to other galaxies after unseen violence.
KeithCharles Spacebar
‘Chillin Killin’
Dir: JMP
KeithCharles Spacebar offers the week’s second slasher-esque video, albeit one with a more comedic touch. KCSB dons a Scream/Ghostface mask and threatens a women with a knife (the ‘Killin’ part) but ends up getting a facial and painting her nails (‘Chillin’).
Seven Davis Jr
‘Church’
Dir: Seven Davis Jr
Seven Davis Jr.’s life – life on the road, DJ gigs, studio sessions, meals at conveyor belt restaurants, visits to museums – is captured in bleached-out greyscale as Davis types out a manifesto.
Wasiu
‘Outer Space’
Dir: William Fradette
MTLien Wasiu forgoes an intergalactic theme on his latest video, opting for white space rather than ‘Outer Space’. Between all black-and-white bookends, the light-hearted breakdown sees the monolith turn into a video portal.
