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.
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Rihanna
‘Bitch Better Have My Money’
Dir: Rihanna & Megaforce
With just seven minutes in heaven (hell?), co-director Rihanna turns ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’ from an anthem to a legend, boiling down the touchstones of transgressive film into a blood-soaked bit of ultraviolence. Rihanna and her fashion-punk associates kidnap her accountant’s buxom blonde and embark on a kidnapping-gone-wrong epic, flipping “your wife in the backseat of my brand new foreign car” from a come-on to a threat. RiRi smokes and slices her way to victory, besting Officer Eric Roberts and Mads “Hannibal” Mikkelsen and catapulting her way to the top of Best Video of the Year lists
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Kendrick Lamar
‘Alright’
Dir: Colin Tilley
Right up until Rihanna dropped ‘Bitch Better Have My Money’, this one was looking like the video of the year (and it still might be, if/when the shock-and-awe of ‘BBHMM’ wears off). Colin Tilley’s adaptation is a monochromatic short film, it’s urban dystopia introduction giving way to an interlude (with new music) of Kendrick riding in a hooptie on the backs of the police before the main event. Like he did in the ‘King Kunta’ clip, Kendrick rewires rap video cliches — posse shots, money in the air, hot rides and hotter women — for his own purposes. This time, he floats above it all, like a witness or a ghost, and in the end, a cop doesn’t need a real gun to end his life. But as he falls to the sound of TPAB’s recurring poem, he smiles at the camera and gets the last laugh.
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Disclosure
‘Holding On’
Dir: Ryan Hope
The first in a four-part sci-fi short film (short film being the new music video), ‘Holding On’ introduces a dystopia under the watchful eyes and scanners of a police-heavy surveillance state. The rebellion finds refuge in sweaty dance parties, with magical ink standing in for Death Star plans. Apparently, the future won’t be soundtracked by Carpenter and Detroit techno, but by pristine garage-house.
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Bilal
‘Money Over Love’
Dir: Hans Elder
Bilal and friends take the song’s title to heart in this allegorical clip, as a Jheri curled preacher tries to keep his flock in line. An interracial couple has seen better days, and when panhandling doesn’t work, an act of prostitution leads to suicide. Yeesh.
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Tink
‘Million’
Dir: Benny Boom
Tink’s best collaboration with Timbaland gets a visual treatment, and it follows some of the standards from when that Aaliyah song was more than a sample. Tink tries on a lookbook’s worth of outfits, goes all Rhythm Nation during a balaclava-heavy dance sequence, and brings the song’s “It’s Complicated” relationship narrative — a constant in her best songs — to life.
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Ben Browning
‘Friends of Mine’
Dir: Trouble Hands
Cut Copy’s bassist meditates on the state of friendship and the repetition of routine in ‘Friends of Mine’, twirling the camera around the cramped spaces of a Prohibition-era beach house. Girls highlight Alex Karpovsky makes a cameo amid the bleached-out, sun-washed nostalgia.
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Skrillex, Diplo and Justin Bieber
‘Where Are Ü Now’
Dir: Brewer
Jack Ü’s Bieber-voiced anthem is animated and illustrated with a little help from the group’s fans; as the behind-the-scenes footage shows, each frame superimposed over Bieber was pulled from fan-drawn doodles. Skrillex and Diplo are unseen, but Bieber continues his redemption tour and shows off his white-boy-at-a-festival dance moves.
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Tommy Genesis
‘Execute’
Dir: Tommy Genesis & andishae
“I’m just executing my vision,” boasts Tommy Genesis, and she’s not lying. Awful’s newest member makes a stunning debut with a stylish video for her club-ready debut: expect pleated skirts in the parking lot, Kanye references and plenty of direct-to-camera eye-fucking.
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Big Sean, Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign
‘Play No Games’
Dir: Mike Carson
Big Sean and friends show a sense of humor with this tribute to/parody of Martin. Director Mike Carson nails the ‘90s nostalgia, from the sitcom set to the camcorder to the VHS editing to the laugh track. There are plenty of lookalikes and even a cameo from… just wait for it.
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Son Lux
‘You Don’t Know Me’
Dir: Nathan Johnson
Tatiana Maslany escapes the boredom of domestic life by leading a gum-chewing, paint-dripping, cord-cutting cult. For the Orphan Black star, playing only two roles must have been a relief.
