Some of my favourite music videos

For no apparent reason whatsoever, I wanted to tell you about some of my all time favourite music videos.

As a child of the MTV generation, music videos have always been really important to me. Some remind me of certain points in my life, others of certain people. Mostly they are just three and a half minute distractions.

I'm not saying these are the best music videos ever, but for a variety of reasons, they are some of my favourites.

10. Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence

Here's my theory. Dave Gahan is on his way back from a monarchy themed fancy dress party. It's late/early, the sun is just coming up. He takes a wrong turn just outside Basildon and finds a deckchair in a skip...

I have no idea what was on Anton Corbijn's mind when he came up with the concept for this video, but I'm mighty glad he made it.



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9. Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

Firstly, I genuinely and truly love this song.

The crux of the video is that Jimmy Sommerville has a homoerotic encounter in a swimming baths and then eats his lunch on a train. Doesn't sound the most riveting, but never has a music video been so starkly poignant and yet so utterly hilarious at the same time.



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8. PJ Harvey - This Is Love

Just because. OK?



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7. Army of Lovers - Crucifed

When I was growing up, for some reason or another we had German MTV rather than normal MTV. As a consequence, I was exposed to more eurodisco anthems than was probably healthy at such a formative age. Perhaps this is why I now have a penchant for visiting gay bars despite the fact that I am completely straight. This one is my favourite eurodisco song of them all.

The video is truly, truly bizarre, completely camp and ridiculously over the top! The gratuitous cleavage shots, the miniature piano, the dog and cat on the chair, the revealing wedding dress, the bathtub, the swordfight, the bed in the cage... I could go on... Genius!



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6. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Do You Love Me?

Whenever I am in a bar alone, writing, I dream I am Nick Cave in this video. However instead of Pedro, Luiz and Madalena, I'm usually surrounded by the likes of Dave and Kev from the building site down the road, Doreen behind the bar and Murphy the one-eyed Irishman. And I am brought down to earth and remember that nobody can ever be as brooding and cool as Nick Cave.

Mention has to be made of the truly terrible and inexplicable 'dad at a wedding' style dancing that begins 1:45' into the video. Possibly some of the worst dancing ever recorded on celluloid.



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More soon...