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The 25 greatest animated music videos

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The idea of a music video is to generate promotion; to give extra air time to an artist in front of a chosen demographic, with the aim of increasing awareness and sales. 

The MTV Generation saw the creation of numerous animated videos, but as technology became more accessible and the platforms available for showing media grew, the possibilities for animation in music videos increased. 

The list below has been compiled to show a broad range of the animated music videos that are out there. Not all of them are strictly 'animation' (in the cartoon sense); some are motion graphics, 3D, lo-fi, hand-drawn and so on. And they're in no particular order...

01. Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do (Lyric Video)

  • Released: 2017
  • Directed by: ODD

Taylor Swift marked the start of her musical return with this animated video created by ODD. Featuring images of snakes that have been popping up on Swift's recently cleansed social media profiles, this video continues the long tradition of listeners indulging in rampant speculation as to who the pop phenomenon is referring to.

Interestingly, the official title of this animation points out that it's a lyric video. This of course makes sense when you watch it and see each syllable of Swift's lyrics spelled out on screen, but it makes us wonder if there's a more traditional, non-animated video on the way for this song, possibly to tie in with an official album launch.

02. The Killers – Miss Atomic Bomb

Director Warren Fu had previously worked with the band on their video for single Runaways, and returned to take charge of this, their second single. Effortlessly fusing the media of animation and stunning live action shots, this animated music video brings a heartbreaking love story to life.

Josh Goldstein worked as the producer, with Jeff Pantaleo as executive producer and Shawn Kim as director of photography. Titmouse Studio was responsible for the exceptional animation.

03. Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

You could say that the inspiration for this animated music video lies somewhere between Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer and The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army. The amount of work that's clearly gone into it makes it a true work of art.

Directors Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling have a creative chemistry that always produces the best results, whether it's applied to set design, window displays, Christmas cards or TV idents. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards is an absolute delight.

04. Home and Dry – Ghosts Are Dancing

  • Released: 2012
  • Directed by: Maxime Causeret and Gilles Deschaud

This video for Parisian art-rock band Home and Dry is a personal project made mostly using Houdini. The dramatic effect was created by filming a motion capture of the band's lead singer Laure Laffererie's face with two cameras. The effect was then created in 2D using motion vector and 3D lighting.

Sadly it doesn't look like the band have put out new music since 2012, but we think this video is still worth a watch.

05. Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused To Sing

  • Released: 2013
  • Directed by: Jessica Cope and Simon Cartright

Clearly inspired by the work of Russian animator Yuriy Norshteyn (best known for the incredible Tale of Tales) the intense atmosphere of this imaginative and thought-provoking short brings the haunting story of the song to evocative life. The stark and simplistic animation style – based largely on the gentle movements of hand-cut paper models – fits the mood perfectly.

06. The Kleenrz – Sandman

Combining children's television-style cartoon characters with live action, this music video follows the Sandman as he works with his two helper umbrella girls, and reveals what goes on inside the big bag he carries. The action cleverly synchronises with lyrics by The Kleenrz, a collaboration by LA rappers Self Jupiter and Kenny.

The beauty of this approach is that it gets you to listen carefully to the lyrics. This is something that can be difficult to achieve with music videos, as often the action distracts from the song itself.

07. Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight, Tonight

US husband and wife duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have directed music videos for the likes of R.E.M. and Paula Abdul, as well as Little Miss Sunshine. They paid homage to silent film director Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon for this animated video. To me, this is possibly one of the greatest music videos ever made.

08. Daft Punk – One More Time

The 2003 anime film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, also directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi, would be a continuation of the stories told in Daft Punk videos One More Time; Aerodynamic; Digital Love; and Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

09. Queens of the Stone Age – Go With The Flow

  • Released: 2003
  • Directed by: Shynola

Shynola are a four-piece collective who have worked with the likes of Beck, Radiohead and Blur, while also producing animation sequences for The IT Crowd and Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.

10. The Cribs – Mirror Kissers

  • Released: 2006
  • Produced by: Diamond Dogs

UK music video directors Diamond Dogs (Olly Williams and Philip Sansom) have directed for the likes of The Hoosiers, Jack Peñate and Maximo Park, and have a very distinct style. The video for Mirror Kissers was shot on a plain white background, then around 2,740 frames were printed, photocopied and manipulated before being edited back together to produce this fascinating video.

The concept works very well – it's stylistically spot on. It's not your typical music video as it's laced with blemishes and is rather ugly, all of which actually compliments the track it's supporting.

11. Gorillaz – El Mañana

Pete Candeland boast a huge repertoire of well-known pieces: the BBC's 2008 and 2012 Olympic marketing campaign, the Beatle's RockBand promos, plus numerous music videos for Gorillaz. You couldn't compile a list of animated music videos and not include Gorillaz, a band that was seemingly created for this format.

12. Los Campesinos! – We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives'/'You, Me, Dancing!

  • Released: 2007
  • Produced by: Monkmus

American animator Monkmus has created an array of music videos for the likes of Badly Drawn Boy, Mogwai and Death Cab for Cutie. This double effort for Los Campesinos! stood out the most for me as I love the contrasts and similarities between war and party. The naive style of the illustration is beautiful and reminds me of the tail end of the infamous Dumbo scene with the racing elephants.

13. MGMT – Time To Pretend

American Director Ray Tintori has directed music videos for The Cool Kids and The Killers, as well as MGMT. I love the lo-fi and slightly dystopian look of this video. It's unpolished and very raw around the edges, but also has a very warm psychedelic quality.

14. London Grammar – Hey Now

Chris Ullen's stunningly atmospheric video for London Grammar's Hey Now perfectly reflects the song. For this work Ullen collaborated with string artist Sebastien Preschoux.

In the video, balls of string and light dance amongst trees as a forest comes alive in a night time setting.

15. REM – Man Sized Wreath

  • Released: 2008
  • Directed by: CRUSH inc.

Toronto-based CRUSH inc. teamed up with REM to produce this very effective effort. CRUSH inc. have notably worked with IKEA, Budweiser and Nintendo.

I'm really intrigued by the many different styles in this video – from low-fi techniques, to 3D modelling via pixelated video games graphics. Normally, this really wouldn't work well together – but strangely enough, here it really does.

Next page: Basement Jaxx, Coldplay, The Shins, and more!

16. Basement Jaxx – My Turn

Tomak Ducki is an animator and designer based in Krakow, Poland. He's had numerous festival screenings and won awards for his distinct style of work. I really appreciate the minimal style of this video; the colours work so well together and give it quite a mystical vibe.

17. Everything Everything – Schoolin'

London-based freelance illustrator and animator Nicos Livesey produced this fascinating minimalist music video for Everything Everything. I really like the style and pace of this video, and how it tries to capture as many of the lyrics as possible, with brightly coloured, but minimal imagery.

18. Sebastien Tellier – Look

This wonderfully creative music video for Sebastien Tellier follows around a female bottom for the duration, but shows the evolution and devolution of everything around her, from clothing, to grass and her skeleton. For a simple outline animation, it's very captivating. Mrzyk & Moriceau's style of capturing a journey is also visible in their video for Air's Sing Sang Sung.

19. Coldplay – Always in my Head 

Animation duo Alasdair + Jock created the animation for a full 43-minute stream of Coldplay's sixth studio album, Ghost Stories. 

They used Mila Fürstová's beautiful album artwork – etched angel wings over an ocean – as the basis for their video, and brought it to life using a combination of 3D, 2D cutouts and 2D drawings. A total of 50 individual sections were created before being edited to ensure the line style of the animation exactly replicated that of the album artwork. The result is mesmerising.

20. The Maccabees – No Kind Words

This video features actors Mathew Horne (of Gavin & Stacey fame) and Matthew Baynton (who also starred in the comedy series) in what reminds me of an Alas Smith and Jones conversation piece, laced with pixelated video game visuals – before the camera swings round to a front-on of Mat Horne, complete with neon green visuals tracing his face.

Brown has also worked on music videos for James Blake, and Gabrielle Aplin's The Power of Love. 

21. Is Tropical – The Greeks

  • Released: 2011
  • Produced by: Seven

This animated music video went on to win at the 2011 UKMVA's for Best Indie/Rock Video – UK and Best Animation in a Video. It's a perfect blend of live action footage of children playing with toy guns, plus animation bringing the guns to life, in a dark-yet-naive video.

22. TOY – Lose My Way

Brass Moustache is an independent film collective based in London. Individually, they are musicians, photographers, illustrators and journalists. This effort for TOY is simply done, but extremely effective – a wide one-shot performance overlaid with a beat-matched psych particle system and sections of the singer/guitarist performing.

23. House Shoes ft. Danny Brown – Sweet

Russ Murphy/RUFFMERCY has animated and produced numerous videos for the likes of Paul Weller, as well as live loops for Ministry of Sound. 

RUFFMERCY has a very interesting visual style. This video in particular boasts a trippy flow of melting faces.

24. The Shins – Rifles Spiral

Jamie Caliri is a Grammy-nominated director who created this very eerie-looking music video for The Shins. The video follows a battle between magicians and a rabbit. I love the aesthetic of this. It's very unpolished and rather Tim Burton-esque, and really nicely blends 2D and 3D elements.

25. Silvery – Horrors

Alasdair + Jock met at Edinburgh College of Art and have gone on to produce numerous music videos, win multiple awards and produce sections for 3D feature, A Liar's Autobiography, by Graham Chapman (of Monty Python fame). I love the flow of this video. The simplicity of the moments and the intensity of the aesthetics really go well to compliment each other and the track itself.

Next page: the videos that didn't quite make the cut!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS (or ones that are in most lists...)

Dire Straits – Money For Nothing

Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer

Radiohead – Paranoid Android

Blur – Coffee & TV

White Stripes – Fell In Love With a Girl

Jack Beats – Careless

  • Released: 2012
  • Directed by: Rob+Rob

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