My favorite music videos of 2014

It's always around the music video part of my end of the year lists that I start to worry about the depth of my selection.  Four out of the following five videos are of bands in my top ten albums, three bands are on my mixtape, and two are in the cover art section... Enjoy these five rad music videos, while I sit in a darkened room, wide-eyed, in terrified introspection.

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NUMBER 5
Spoon
"Inside Out"

There is a certain sense of creepiness to They Want My Soul; or maybe it's spirituality.  Both concepts  manage to be captured in the video for "Inside Out".  Only nine images with ghostly transitions and photoshop effects added to them.  Your imagination does the rest.  

NUMBER 4
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra
"Wake Up"

It's an easy temptation in ska videos to include a lot of action shots of the band throwing their instruments around.  To use a lot of quick close ups, and tracking shots, and mugging for the camera.  The restraint of "Wake Up" only reinforces Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra as the classiest band in ska.  Sharing the screen with Asian Kung-Fu Generation puts over a dozen people in one room.  Instead of being a big dancing mess, the entire video is a collection of static shots, as performers pose in living paintings; all depicting various mafia/yakuza scenarios on sets that range from lavish to destitute.

NUMBER 3
Buffalo Daughter
"Oui Oui"

While the animation of "Oui Oui" is a bit too on the nose for my liking, its cuteness cannot be turned down.  A cute little buffalo bobs its head in a cute way, plays little cute instruments, encounters many cute two frame animated animals, gets abducted by a cute alien who plays its own cute instruments....

CUTE!

NUMBER 2
Deerhoof
"Exit Only"

Michael Shannon gets to play his two best emotions as an actor: tortured and enraged.  This is also a fitting expression of what most people feel when listening to Deerhoof.  Throw in a few wacky cameos by the band.  This is everything a music video should be.

NUMBER 1
Liars
"Mess on A Mission"

The most innovative concept for a music video in years.  "Too Many Cooks"?  pssh.  Earlier in 2014, "Mess on A Mission" took only four minutes to go through the same exact range of emotions.  "What a mess" indeed.