Music

The 25 Best Music Videos of 2019

There's never been a better time to experiment with what music videos can be. Here are 25 of the greatest from the past year

December 19, 2019

What even counts as a music video now? Vevo and Tiktok and Instagram TV have all insisted on blurring the lines, and while it’s tempting to pine for the days of MTV when the medium had a simpler place in the world, there has never been a better time to experiment with what music videos can be or do. They can be an hour long. They can be events again, via YouTube Premiere. They can be virtual reality. They can be an Expensify ad.

Inevitably, making a year-end list of the best ones means resigning yourself to the fact that three months from now, you’ll find a clip from this year that you had no idea about that is profound and moving and funny and a little weird. The best music videos always are. Here are 25 of them, presented alphabetically by artist.

Angel Olsen, “Lark” (dir. Ashley Connor)

“Lark” is Angel Olsen’s grand symphony of emotions, so the accompanying visuals had better match accordingly. This feels like five music videos in one — and yet it’s never disjointed, a kaleidoscopic decay of a failing relationship with Olsen’s steady, heavily eyelinered gaze holding it all together.
A$AP Rocky, “Babushka Boi” (dir. Nadia Lee Cohen)

It’s a toss-up between this A$AP Rocky video and the artier “Kids Turned Out Fine.” But I have to give it to “Babushka Boi” for going all-in on its concept and nailing it. Except for the ending — hate to break it to you, Rocky, but burgers are made of beef, not pigs.
Bad Bunny and J Balvin, “Cuidao Por Ahi” (dir. Colin Tilley)

Colin Tilley rose up as one of hip-hop’s premiere video directors through technical prowess, but he’s always had a weird streak going. (This man directed “Anaconda,” after all.) It’s on full display here in “Cuidao Por Ahi,” where Tilley shows that he knows the cultural impact and international implications of dressing Bad Bunny and J Balvin up in goth costumes and surrounding them with hypebeast masked dancers. Personally, I will protect my fanged sons at all costs.
Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy” (dir. Dave Meyers)

Image Credit: Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish had plenty of slam-dunk videos this year, and Dave Meyers is basically the J. Balvin of music videos when it comes to the number of projects he does. But this is some of the best work either of them gave us in 2019. For many people, it was their introduction to Eilish herself. The “Bad Guy” video smartly doesn’t try to map on a narrative arc to her fantastical bragging, instead giving us eye-candy visual after visual with loose connections to the song’s lyrics. And Eilish? She’s a fucking star.
Caroline Polachek, “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” (dir. Caroline Polachek and Matt Copson)

The title says it all! But if you need more convincing, Caroline Polachek perfectly encapsulates what music videos might’ve looked like if MTV had existed in the Sixties. Within some Love Witch-y soundstage version of Hell, she cheerfully bemoans her long-distance relationship alongside some sick choreography that Fosse would admire for the pizazz, if not the technical achievement. It’s the dance craze that’s sweeping sad girls across the nation.
Charli XCX and Christine & the Queens, “Gone” (dir. Colin Solal Cardo)

Rope bondage, luxury cars, smoke, fire, rain, Héloïse fucking Letissier…Trust that this video would be one of the best this year even without the elaborate metaphor for the crushing weight of the music industry at its heart. But Charli and Chris bring their absolute A-game here in getting the message across, and videographer Colin Solal Cardo deftly balances power and sensuality in his direction.
The Chemical Brothers, “Got To Keep On” (dir. Michel and Olivier Gondry)

The Gondrys are BACK, baby! This is an all-star group of music video veterans from the Nineties, and the best Chemical-Gondry video since “Star Guitar.” It does what les frères Gondry do best: It takes a song’s essential ingredients and translates them into a dreamy, surreal visual concept. If the Gondrys were an infinite resource, I would want them to create an audio visualizer for every single song.
City Girls ft. Cardi B, “Twerk” (dir. DAPS) (NSFW)

My co-worker Charles was worried he was going to get fired for watching this video in the Rolling Stone offices. Watch it at your own risk. But do watch it.
DaBaby, “BOP” (dir. Reel Goats)

This is not the only one-take dance video to come out this year, but it’s my personal favorite. Despite all the extras in this “Broadway” backlot clip, DaBaby has no problem standing out — he’s every Looney Tunes character rolled into one short-king body.
FKA Twigs, “Cellophane” (dir. Andrew Thomas Huang)

FKA Twigs has transformed pole-dancing into a display of discipline, craft, and upper body strength, as it should be. The most subliminally beautiful video released this year, “Cellophane” is directed by Björk collaborator Andrew Thomas Huang and feels like a work of art every second you’re watching it.
Gideon Irving, “Woke Up Looking” (dir. Ewen Wright and Raky Sastri)

Reminiscent of some of Spike Jonze’s best music videos, Gideon Irving’s strange and whimsical “Woke Up Looking” utilizes classic filmmaking in wizardly ways and leaves you on the edge of your seat for its whole two-minute runtime. The behind-the-scenes clip on how they shot the damn thing is even more mesmerizing.
Haim, “Now I’m In It” (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

As the official director of the Haim cinematic universe, PTA had to come up with all sorts of variations on the trio of sisters roaming and performing around Los Angeles. This one, focused mainly on lead singer Danielle Haim and her struggles with depression, is the most narrative of his videos for the band so far and also features some of his best cinematography. I particularly love the shot of Danielle storming around the clothing racks in the thrift shop – kinetic energy! We love to see it!
Harry Styles, “Lights Up” (dir. Vincent Haycock)

Harry Styles proves that sometimes, it’s just nice to watch a very hot, very horny person ride on the back of a motorcycle while surrounded by equally hot, equally horny people in various states of undress. Representation matters.
James Blake, “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow” (dir. Frank Lebon)

Music videos really do separate the good editors from the bad, but the editing in James Blake’s “Can’t Believe the Way We Flow” is on another level. Too many videos try and capture the whole human experience in under five minutes; this one actually succeeds.
Joywave, “Obsession” (dir. Laura Gorun, Cooper Roussel and Dimitri Basil)

There are so, sooo many videos out now that are built around nostalgic parody, you’d think the only classic video any of these directors watched was the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” But I have to hand it to Joywave for taking it up a notch and creating a montage of fake midnight-movie title cards for their “Obsession” clip. This is like film nerd candy. I would like the nuns-with-guns movie to be real.
Kacey Musgraves, “Oh What a World” (dir. TRIPPYOGI)

Look, there are about 10 zillion videos every year with fluorescent colors and trippy animation. I could’ve chosen any of them this year, but this is the one I watched the most. What can I say? I like a frog with a banjo. P.S. “OFFICIAL VISUAL VIDEO” = YouTube title of the year.
Lana Del Rey, “Doin’ Time” (dir. Rich Lee)

Hard to think of a more delightful video that came out this year. Lana Del Rey as 50-foot-tall woman, roaming around L.A. to a Sublime song — sure, why not? When the “plot” does come in, very briefly, it’s just an excuse to watch the immortal visual of the West Coast’s millennial musical historian stepping out of a drive-in movie screen. She may be from New York, but she gets it.
Normani, “Motivation” (dir. Dave Meyers, Daniel Russell)

This is the type of video I’d expect to have been a sensation in, like, 2003. The fact that it became such a tremendous hit in 2019 speaks to the power of nostalgia, sure, but mainly to Normani’s supernova star power right out of the gate. And yes, the choreography rules, but the most powerful thing she does in this video is wear a spray-painted “1996” bra so that all the olds watching can crumble into dust.
Orville Peck, “Dead of Night” (dir. Michael Maxxis)

The masked, pseudonymous cowboy Orville Peck made a splash on both the country and indie rock worlds this year, in no small part thanks to theatrical visuals that don’t shy away from his queerness. “Dead of Night,” released near the top of 2019, was a fitting statement of purpose: Peck poses in his most colorful Western get-ups, wandering through the desert with his posse of lovers/companions and encountering stylish drifters of all sorts along the way. There’s plenty of cowhide, plenty of neon. He visits a brothel called the “Leghorn Bar,” for Pete’s sake. What more could you want from a gay outlaw?
Pup, “Free at Last” (dir. “PUP and Jeremy and also Amanda”)

My younger brother really likes Pup, but I’ll be honest, I never quite got their appeal until watching the video for “Free at Last.” They explain this at the beginning, but let me give you the rundown: Pup had an unreleased single called “Free at Last.” They shared the lyric sheet and chord chart with their fans and said, “Please play this song and film yourself doing it.” Those amateur clips became the music video. Thankfully, it’s not the whole music video, but man, if this isn’t the sweetest tribute to your fanbase, I don’t know what is.
Robyn, “Ever Again” (dir. Colin Solal Cardo)

To put it plainly, Colin Solal Cardo is one of the best emerging video directors right now. He made quite a splash with his “Gone” video for Charli XCX and Christine & the Queens, but the less high-profile video that he did with Robyn this year is equally great. Amid a set made up of classical ruins, Robyn dances and gets very intimate with a microphone stand while slowly stripping away her custom Louis Vuitton tunic. It’s sexy but tasteful, an ode to the human form with pop’s foremost scholar of feeling at its center.
Rosalia, “Aute Cuture” (dir. Bradley & Pablo)

In case we needed a reminder that nail art is the coolest — and deadliest — thing in the world, Rosalia is here to tell us. While it would be hard to top her “Malamente” video from last year, this ode to femme style is one of the Spanish star’s best works, taking pretty much every flash-in-the-pan fashion trend from the past few years (cowboys, face masks, Guy Fieri flames), coating them in red latex and tossing it all in a blender.
Solange, “When I Get Home” (dir. Solange)

An indelible ode to blackness, Houston, cowboys, aliens, and ~aesthetic~. Yes, it is possible to watch just a snippet of this 45-minute magnum opus via the “Almeda” video. But if you have the time for it (and you do), I recommend diving into the full director’s cut that’s now available on YouTube.
Tierra Whack, “Unemployed” (dir. Cat Solen)

Tierra Whack follows up last year’s surreal Whack World visual album with a new single and an even trippier video to go along with it. The less that’s said about it before you watch, the better. Great for anyone with a vendetta against potatoes.
Young M.A, “Big” (dir. Marc Diamond)

Young M.A never has to get super-flashy to demonstrate her talent and finesse. The video for “Big” is deceptively simple, but like the Brooklyn emcee’s bars, it warrants multiple playbacks just to catch every detail you might’ve missed. Here’s hoping Kehlani picks up the phone.