My Favourite Music Videos - Part 3

Number 5:

Sia - Chandelier (2014)

 

Artist - Sia
Album - 1000 Forms of Fear
Music Genre - Electropop
Year Released - 2014
Video Length -3:51
Video Director - Sia & Daniel Askill
Video Type - Concept Based
Views on YouTube - 227 million +

Sia's video for 'Chandelier' received huge amounts of critical acclaim when it was first released in 2014. The reason being is the use of mysterious and dark yet very artistic and captivating dancing featured in the music video. The audience (with me included) cannot take their eyes off of the young girl performing strange yet beautiful ballet and gymnastics as she acts out Sia's lyrics, her dancing was choreographed by Ryan Heffington.

The song basically tells a story of how Sia's childhood experience of alcoholic parents have affected her throughout her life and the video is made as it to resemble this visually. I think the video is filmed really well without having to literally act out the lyrics it still gets across to the audience the torment and distress that Sia went through in her childhood. No special effects are used in this video, neither is there lip synching, luxury locations etc. It is a simple video with very little editing either that effectively gets across the message of the song to the audience and this is why the video inspires me a little to keep my own relatively simple with a message.

Fact - This video has received allot of complaints as well as acclaim due to the over sexualisation of the dancing child (Maddie Ziegler a contestant on Dance Moms an American TV show) since she is wearing a nude leotard that is supposed to resemble her nakedness and therefore innocence and vulnerability.

However this is what Maddie had to say about the dance:

"I like the whole dance. It was really different and weird for me, because I usually don’t, you know, be a crazy person every time. It was so fun to do and it was really out of the box and it expanded me a lot, because I’m used to competition dances where you’re like, Point your legs! But this time it was like, you just need to let go and feel it."

- Maddie Ziegler, New York Magazine (2014)

Number 6:

Nickelback - Rockstar (2006)

 

Artist - Nickelback
Album - All the Right Reasons
Music Genre - Alternative Rock
Year Released - 2006
Video Length - 4:14
Video Director - Dori Oskowitz
Video Type - Performance/Concept Based
Views on YouTube - 61 million +

Rockstar was first released into the USA in 2005 with no music video. The song became so popular so fast that Nickelback re-released the single with a brand new music video to the world in 2007. They were both a success with Rockstar reaching number 2 in the UK charts and has reached number 1 in the UK rock charts as well as successfully staying in the UK rock charts for 359 weeks! I believe the music video has allot to do with the songs success.

The video is simply celebrities and members of the public lip synching the songs lyrics. It is very effective since it relates to what the audience is probably doing, singing with the song. These are celebrities and average people alike singing the same song in well known locations, it cant get much more relatable. That in my opinion is why it is so popular, this gives me some inspiration into getting the audience to relate to my own music video.