In the 2000s, the music video has evolved far beyond the single-screen it was originally imagined for.
Music videos are standard practice for artists both big and small, and needless to say, the scale of and technology behind these clips has escalated over the years.
Back in the early 90s MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. Directors such as Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Stéphane Sednaoui, Mark Romanek and Hype Williams all got their start around this time; all brought a unique vision and style to the videos they directed. This trend continued in the following decade.
In addition by the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its sister channels had largely abandoned showing music videos in favor of reality television shows, which were more popular with its audiences, and which MTV had itself helped to pioneer with the show The Real World, which premiered in 1992.
2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier; Google Videos, Yahoo! Video, Facebook and MySpace's video functionality, which uses similar technology. Such websites had a profound effect on the viewing of music videos; some artists began to see success as a result of videos seen mostly or entirely online.
Fatboy Slim Weapon of Choice (2001)
The song is perhaps best known for its accompanying music video, which was filmed in the Los Angeles Marriott in December 2000. Directed by Spike Jonze and featuring actor Christopher Walken, who was trained as a dancer in musical theatre before his acting career, it features Walken dancing and flying around in the empty hotel to the music.
The "Weapon of Choice" video won six MTV awards in 2001.
Pullman was awarded one of MTV's "Moonmen" for Best Choreography. The clip was also ranked number one in a list of the top 100 videos of all time by VH1 in April 2002 that was compiled from a music industry survey.
Directed by Jake Nava in New York city and choreographed by Frank Gatson and JaQuel Knight.
The inspiration for the video was a 1969 Bob Fosse routine entitled "Mexican Breakfast" seen on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Beyonce wanted a simple music video; it was therefore filmed without alternative camera shots and cuts, or changes to hairstyles, costumes, sets and lighting.
According to JaQuel Knight, Knowles also wanted the video to feel "good and powerful" and include choreography that could be attempted by anybody.
The day the video was shot, the song was divided into three parts. Nava deliberately used lengthy shots so that viewers "would connect with the human endeavor of Beyoncé's awe-inspiring dance", with all the changes in looks, angles, and lighting executed live on-camera because he wanted to keep the feel "very organic and un-gimmicky". The styling was inspired by a Vogue photo shoot. In the video Knowles wears a titanium roboglove designed by her long-time jeweler, Lorraine Schwartz, to complement her alter ego Sasha Fierce.
In the video for "Single Ladies", emphasis is laid on Knowles' more aggressive and sensual side, her alter ego Sasha Fierce. It shows her in an asymmetrical leotard and high-heels, with two look-alike backup dancers, Ebony Williams and Ashley Everett.
The dance routine incorporates many styles, including jazz, tap, and hip hop, and is credited with popularizing J-Setting, a flamboyant lead and follow dance style prominent in many African American gay clubs across Atlanta and used by the all-female J-Sette dance troupe of Jackson State University.
The video features Knowles and her two companions dancing inside an infinity cove, which alternates between black and white and places the focus on the complex choreography. Throughout the video the women click their heels and shake their hips and legs. However, the main intention is to attract the viewers' attention toward their hands and ring fingers as they do the hand-twirl move.
Although the video for "Single Ladies" was the cheapest and quickest of all her videos to produce, Knowles felt that it ended up being "the most iconic ... something special". It spawned a dance craze and inspired thousands of imitations all over the world, many of which were posted on YouTube.
The music video has won several awards and accolades. It was voted Best Dance Routine in the 2008 Popjustice Readers' Poll and won Video of the Year, Best Choreography, and Best Editing at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The song also won Best Video at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards, the 2009 MOBO Awards, and the 2009 BET Awards
Directed by Joseph Kahn on a soundstage in L.A. California.
"Toxic" is Spears's most expensive music video to date, at a cost of $1 million.
The music video begins with an open shot of an airplane flying surrounded by many doves, referencing the works of Hong Kong director John Woo.
Spears appears with blond hair dressed as a flight attendant, receiving a phone call. After serving some of the passengers, she leads a bald overweight man to the bathroom and seduces him.
She takes off the man's mask to reveal an attractive man (Matthew Felker) and steals a black pass from his pocket. Spears is then dropped into the back of a Ducati 999, driven by a shirtless male (Tyson Beckford) in a futuristic Paris, that was compared to the 1982 film Blade Runner.
She wears a tight black catsuit and sports red hair, inspired by the character of Sydney Bristow from television series Alias. They pass a woman and lift up her dress, a homage to the iconic Marilyn Monroe scene in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch.
Throughout the video, there are scenes of Spears naked covered in diamonds.
The look was compared to that of Kate Bush in the music video for her 1978 single, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes".
Spears then enters Toxic Industries, and gains access to a vault from which she steals a vial of green poison. She accidentally triggers a laser trap when she leaves that she evades with elaborate dance moves, including a back handspring. This is followed by scenes of Spears wearing a black superheroine outfit and black hair. She scales a building and enters an apartment, where her unfaithful boyfriend (Henderson) is waiting. She kisses him just before pouring the poison into his mouth, killing him. Spears kisses him again and jumps out of the window. She lands back on the plane sporting her flight attendant outfit, and winks at the camera. The video closes with a shot of the airplane flying surrounded by doves like the beginning.
The video was nominated at the 2004 MuchMusic Video Awards in the category of Best International Artist Video, but lost to Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love".
It was also nominated for four VMAs at the 2004 awards in the categories of Best Female Video, Best Dance Video, Best Pop Video and Video of the Year, but lost all of them. Corey Moss of MTV said that Spears "remains the Susan Lucci of the VMAs."
Visual effects supervisors Chris Watts and Bert Yukich won the category of Outstanding Visual Effects in a Music Video at the 3rd Annual Visual Effects Society Awards.
The song attracted attention because of its music video, which premiered on America Online, but was banned from TV broadcasts in many parts of the world. It was directed by Madonna's then-husband, filmmaker Guy Ritchie in February 2001 and filmed throughout various parts of Los Angeles, including one location on W. Olympic Blvd and S. Wooster St.
Madonna portrays an angry woman on a crime spree. She is shown leaving a motel room and stealing a Camaro, with licence plates "*****" and "cat", and picking up an elderly lady from a nursing home, called "Ol' Kuntz Guest Home". Throughout the video, she is shown stealing money, driving dangerously, damaging property and setting fire to a gas station. It also has shots of pill containers and alcohol in the motel, several driving licences and Madonna putting on body armour. The final shot in the video is the car driving into a pole at full speed.
Critics criticized the video for being overly violent and graphic. Madonna's spokesperson said that there was a lot of violence because it tells the story of a woman who had probably been abused. Madonna also explained that her character was acting out a "fantasy and doing things that girls are not allowed to do."
The video was banned from most North American and European video stations including MTV and VH1, receiving only early hours play.
The decision to ban the video was a source of argument, since it appeared to be no more violent than some television shows that aired at the time. Ironically, the video went into heavy rotation on the Oxygen channel and was streamed on America Online frequently. It was also later played frequently on VH1 Madonna programs, but in an edited format. Madonna released the video as a DVD single on April 17, 2001.
The music video, directed by Vaughan Arnell, was surrounded by controversy because of its explicit content. The video begins with Williams dancing on a roller disco with girls skating around him. He wants to get the attention of the female DJ (played by Lauren Gold) standing above the stage, so he begins stripping off his clothes. After this does not get her attention, he starts stripping his skin, muscles and organs, too (in heavy makeup), until the only thing that is left from him are his bones which is performed by special effects. In the end, he achieves the DJ's attention and dances with her as a skeleton. The video ends with titles, reading "No Robbies were Harmed During the Making of this Video".
The video's ending (beginning with Williams taking off his skin) was cut by most music channels around Europe, including VIVA, MCM, MTV, The Box and VH1 Europe. Examples of TV stations that still play the full video are Bulgarian channel MM (often in daytime) and Canadian channel MusiquePlus, some channels ran the edited video during the day and the unedited one overnight, while The Hits played a version which cut from Williams dancing in his underwear to dancing as a skeleton, filling the gap by repeating previous footage. In 2001, "Rock DJ" won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects. In 2006, it was voted by viewers as the seventh Most Groundbreaking Video Ever on MTV and in 2007 it was ranked at forty-eight on MuchMusic's 50 Most Controversial Videos.
In Dominican Republic, the video was banned in that country due to allegations of satanism
"Rock DJ" got some attention in the U.S. due to the music video's shock value. Because of the controversial video, "Rock DJ" won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Special Effects and was featured on Fuse TV's Pants-Off Dance-Off. In the UK, the video was first played on Top of the Pops at 2:00am. On MTV2, the music video was played in its entirety on a special countdown highlighting the most controversial music video in MTV's history.
A video shoot was set up for "Love Is a Losing Game", reportedly costing £70,000 at Pinewood Studios, but an unnamed source was quoted in The Sun as saying that it was cancelled after Winehouse failed to turn up for filming.
Two alternate music videos were released: the first is a montage video, which includes photographs of Winehouse alongside live performance clips of the song, and the second is an entirely live video, taken from her I Told You I Was Trouble live performance DVD.
Back To Black (2007)
The music video was directed by Phil Griffin and features a funeral procession in which Winehouse mourns over a grave that reads "R.I.P. the Heart of Amy Winehouse".
The video was primarily shot nearby Gibson Garden and Chesholm Road in Stoke Newington, London. The graveyard scenes were filmed at Abney Park Cemetery nearby London. According the official Winehouse website, "Amy's sultry new video for Back In Black [sic] is both beautifully and artistically shot in black and white and compares in imagery a doomed love affair with that of a funeral."
Rehab (2006)
The music video was directed by Phil Griffin and released in September 2006. It features Winehouse's band playing their instruments while she sings to the camera. The band members are dressed in gowns throughout the video. It begins with Winehouse rising from bed and then moving to the bathroom. For the second verse, Winehouse is on a chair in a psychiatrist's office, presumably explaining herself to an unseen psychiatrist. In contrast to the lyrics, the video ends with Winehouse in rehab, sitting on a bed in a white-tiled clinical ward room with her band around her. On 31 May 2007, "Rehab" debuted on Total Request Live and later peaked at number one on 7 June. The music video was also nominated for Video of the Year at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, but lost out to Rihanna's "Umbrella" music video.
Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (2001)
The accompanying music video for "Can't Get You Out of My Head" was directed by Dawn Shadforth. It shows Minogue driving towards a futuristic city and back-up dancers in various futuristic costumes dancing in a highly stylized manner. It then focuses on Minogue in a sporty outfit, after which she is seen with other dancers in a computer-generated futuristic city. Her white, hooded costume, with plunging necklines and revealing slits, was widely discussed both for its fashion style and for Minogue's overt sexual posturing.
The outfit was created by London designer Fee Doran, working under the label Mrs Jones.
Lastly, she appears with a curly hairdo in a short, sixties-inspired shift-dress covered with overlapping pieces of ribbon. Kylie had originally intended to wear a similar dress from Tom Ford's A/W 2001 collection for Gucci, covered in small panels of fabric. The sample size, however, was too large for her, and therefore Baker and team recreated the dress. In his book La La La, William Baker conceded that the robotic dance within the video was purposely developed to give Minogue an association with a dance the way Madonna had developed an association with Vogueing, he felt that at this stage in her career it was important for Minogue to set trends and not follow them, just as Madonna had before her.
The video begins with Kylie driving over a futuristic bridge and into a metropolis. As Minogue continues driving, scenes of her are shown wearing a white skirt and shirt while her and her dancers perform robotic dance moves. As the chorus ends, the video moves to Minogue wearing an exposing white outfit as she sings the song. Going into the second chorus, Minogue is shown wearing the same outfit in a white room with several background dancers wearing red suits and cylinder hats, as they begin doing a dance routine to the song. The video then moves to her in a sparkling silver dress dancing on top of a building. As her dancers come in, she begins dancing with them. The video ends with Minogue walking across the roof top while she shakes her hair.
In 2002, the video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. The song was nominated for "Best International Video" at Canada's the Much Music Video Awards
Directed by Francis Lawrence, shot in Los Angeles over a two-day period.
The main idea behind the video is that of Gaga getting kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her, and then sell her off to the Russian mafia for a million rubles. It takes place in a fluorescent white bathhouse. The video begins with Gaga sitting on a white throne in a brightly lit white room. The scene shows her wearing the razor blade glasses and surrounded by people and a harlequin Great Dane. She has her finger on the mute button of an iPod speaker, and as she releases it, "Bad Romance" begins to play and a dimly lit bath house is shown. A bright light pans across the walls, activating fluorescent lighting, that shines through a sign reading "Bath Haus of GaGa". As the first hook of the song begins, a group of female dancers wearing white long-sleeved leotards with knee high boots and matching crowns crawl out of white, coffin-like pods. The center pod has "Mons†er" written on it, and Gaga emerges wearing a similar outfit to the others, who begin to dance behind her. A pastiche of following scenes alternates between Gaga singing to herself in front of a mirror and lying in a bathtub.
When the chorus of the song begins, two women pull Gaga out of the bathtub, rip her clothes off and force her to drink a glass of vodka. As the second verse begins, Gaga, wearing a diamond-covered outfit topped with a crown, seductively dances for a group of men bidding for her. She straddles one of the men, played by Slovenian model Jurij Bradač,and performs a lap dance for him. Afterwards, the man raises his bid and becomes the highest bidder for her. When the chorus is played for the third time, Gaga is shown wearing a faux polar bear hide jacket. She walks towards the man, who is sitting on a bed and unbuttoning his shirt, while drinking a glass of vodka. Gaga has a look of indifference on her face and removes her jacket and sunglasses. Suddenly, the bed spontaneously combusts with the man still sitting on it and Gaga sinisterly sings in front of the flames. The video ends with her lying beside a smoldering skeleton, on top of the destroyed bed, covered in ashes. With soot smeared across her body, she calmly smokes a cigarette, while her pyrotechnic bra activates.
The response from critics and fans was overwhelmingly positive. The video received 10 nominations at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards in the categories of Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Choreography, Best Direction, Best Dance Video, Best Pop Video, Best Female Video, and Video of the Year, tied with Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" for the record for most nominations for a single video in the history of MTV Video Music Award. It went on to win seven of the categories.The video also won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.
The video became the most-viewed video on YouTube and whole internet of all time, music-related or otherwise, with 130 million views; it had over 430 million views by later 2011.
The song's music video was directed by David LaChapelle. It depicts what was described as "a post-apocalyptic orgy".
The video opens with Aguilera gearing up and riding a motorcycle into a nightclub. Wearing a bikini and chaps, she is lowered from a cage into a boxing ring and dances, accompanied by several back-up dancers. A masked woman is lowered into the ring, and the two engage in foxy boxing. The scene is intercut with sequences of Aguilera dancing in a crop top, which she later removes to reveal a bikini top, and a microskirt. Redman then proceeds down a hallway, passing people such as mud wrestlers, a contortionist, and furries. The video proceeds to a scene of Aguilera and back-up dancers splashing and dancing while being sprayed with water in a room containing several urinals, as a possible reference to urolagnia.
The music video was successful on video chart programs. It debuted on MTV's Total Request Live October 2, 2002 at number six.] It lasted 44 days on the program, half of which were at the top of the countdown. At the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, the video was nominated for Best Female Video, Best Dance Video, Best Pop Video, and Best Choreography.
The video lasted eight weeks on MuchMusic's Countdown, peaking at number 11.
The song's music video was shot by film director Brett Ratner in Los Angeles.
The video features Carey readying for her wedding, and follows her to the altar, as well as her escape from the reception. It begins with a scene of a large mansion, apparently owned by the older man who she is to marry. Carey is seen walking barefoot in a room, shedding a black sheer robe and laying down on a bed draped with white linens. Dressed in lingerie, Carey's face is shown close-up, as scenes of her tossing in the bed are shown. As the song begins, Carey is seen sitting in front of a large mirror, preparing for her wedding by putting on earrings and shoes, and staring at the ring on her finger. Additional scenes of Carey sitting on a small blue sofa, wearing a purple dress, and Carey staring at the camera during a shower moment are interspersed. The wedding is then shown, with Miller approaching the reception through a stairwell in the back. Small children as seen throwing flowers on the white carpet, followed by Roberts and Carey walking down the aisle.
As Carey, now dry and clothed, is shown in another scenario following the dressing scene, a still of Carey and Miller in the video for "It's like That" is shown, during the lyrics "I can't sleep at night / When you are on my mind". After several other scenes of Carey dressed in the purple gown and white shirt are interspersed, the altar is displayed, where before being ordained by the minister, Carey looks into her ex-lover's eyes once more. She turns to Roberts, and begins running towards Miller, leaving the reception. As the song's climax is reached, Carey and Miller are shown running from the reception, as the guests stand up in awe, and watch the pair leave. Carey, dressed in the white shirt, is shown with growing anticipation, crying to the camera and moving her hands and hair. Back at the wedding scene, Carey and her lover get into his vehicle, and drive away as her 27-foot train hangs behind the car. The video was nominated for "Best R&B Video" and "Best Female Video" at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.
Directed by Chris Robinson, the music video follows Keys working as a waitress at a café. One day, Keys meets a man (played by Mos Def) in the café, and she falls in love with him. Later in the video, Keys imagines getting the courage to call him and to tell him about her feelings. However, at the end of the movie, she remembers his order but there is no other recognition and the scene ends with his card still being in the bowl and Keys staring out the window since she will never be able to reveal her true feelings for the man.
If I Ain't Got You (2004)
The single's music video, directed by Diane Martel, is set in a wintry New York City and features a cameo by rapper-actor Method Man as Keys' boyfriend.
No One (2007)
The song's music video, directed by Justin Francis, premiered on BET on September 24, 2007; it debuted on 106 and Park at number ten the following day, and has since peaked at number one. It premiered on Yahoo! Music on September 25 at number five and peaked at number one, and it premiered on Total Request Live on October 4 and peaked at number one. It debuted on VH1's VSpot Top 20 Countdown at number three, peaking at number one. The video was ranked at number twenty-two on VH1's "Top 40 Videos of 2007" and at number two on BET's "Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2007".
The video for "No One" consists of four settings: the first one shows Keys lying on a chair in an empty room; the second one is a musical instrument-decorated room in which Keys sings accompanied by a keyboard; in the third one Keys is initially alone, playing the piano on a rainy street, and she later finds herself surrounded with dozens of people; in the fourth and final one Keys is in a blue-lit nightclub. The video ends with a gear divided into four fractions, each one featuring a previously shown setting, and with Keys lying on the chair in the same room shown at the very beginning of the video
