Jhené Aiko - "Eternal Sunshine" music video

The first image we see is of Aiko on her back facing the camera with her eyes closed and her body slowly ascending from the pavement. Even when she starts singing and her eyes begin to open, they don't do so fully, suggesting that she's only half-awake while reciting the lyrics, "Is it strange for me to say/That if I were to die today/There's not a thing that I would change/I've lived well." Meanwhile, the camera continues to follow her as she rises and we see more and more of the scene that's happening below her. No cuts. No jumps. Just Jhené. It's a terrific way to draw in the audience within the first thirty seconds.

"Eternal Sunshine" is a song about reflecting on the good in one's life and in this Jay Ahn-helmed video, we picture Aiko doing so in a fashion that's meant to detail her soul leaving this world. Things become clearer as the video goes on and our patience is rewarded with a graceful depiction of life and death that's earned it a spot as one of the best music videos of the year. By incorporating personal events like a 2013 car accident with her family and the death of her brother, the emotional gravity of it all is on Aiko's face to carry and it's done successfully with a calm, contemplative melancholy. In this interpretation of death, all of the good things come to us right before our time. It's undoubtedly somber, but there's some comfort to be found in there.

Pharrell Williams - "It Girl" music video

I gave a spin recently to Pharrell Williams' G I R L album after not playing it for a few months. When it got to the final track, "It Girl," the imagery for the recently released video couldn't escape my mind, which is pretty rare for me. I love the language of music videos and all of the life-altering moments that they have brought me, but I think that it is more truer and organic when you can connect with a song and create your own imagery, thus strengthening that thing we are sometimes forced to make weaker as we get older called imagination. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the video for "It Girl," but I can't stop looking at it. It's a digital rainbow amalgamation of anime and 16-bit video games that flirts with overkill, all set to the unlikely sounds of relaxing funk and R&B, but is eye-catching nonetheless (and I'm all for Genki Rockets' "Heavenly Star" being referenced to American viewers). There have been dalliances between mainstream artists and video games before (some examples are Redman's "Da Goodness" and Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication"), yet I feel like "It Girl" is one of the first from someone with a high profile to embrace gamer and anime culture in a way that feels authentic and respectful to its core audience (for what it's worth, I consider Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet" the apex of music and video games). After this video and Kanye West's "Good Morning," I would love to see Takashi Murakami (who produced "It Girl," Mr. and Fantasia Utamaro directed) add his distinct style to more videos for hip hop and R&B artists and not just those that are afraid to embrace their inner nerd. The nods to Tecmo cutscenes, blinking credits and extended shots of "gameplay" may only excite a select few, which makes it pretty notable that someone with a hit album on a major label went as hardcore as this video did.

A look back at MTV's Video of the Year

I've long given up hope that MTV will retain musical relevancy ever again. For a little over two decades, the cable network dictated trends while also breaking in new acts with graceful ease. Its dedication to showing music videos also pushed the medium forward, with its artistic heyday being in the 1990s when creative, visually distinct directors like Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Stéphane Sednaoui, Hype Williams, Anton Corbijin and Mark Romanek, among many others, made regular contributions, therefore upping the ante for any artist trying to get their video into regular rotation. Since MTV has long abandoned showing music videos during regular viewing hours, you would almost think that their annual award show, the Video Music Awards, would no longer need to exist. There is a bit of humor to be found in the fact that a network that hardly airs music would pretend to care for one night while keeping up the facade that they follow everything throughout the year.

While the VMAs have never been mistaken as harbingers of quality, I do place a bit of value into the main award: Video of the Year. Having come up in the 90s, music videos became one of my first loves and Video of the Year is probably the highest honor one can receive in that field. The Grammys have made some solid nominations over the years for their Best Short-Form Music Video category, but hardly any attention is paid to it and MTV has a longer history of identifying the most striking and relevant videos in the art form.

Despite barely dedicating time to music programming and with the majority of videos being watched online, I feel the Video of the Year award still manages to hold prestige by coming up with at least one surprise nomination a year. It shows that they care just a little bit, at least for me. I understand that MTV is in the business of making money and attracting viewers, so they have no choice but to include popular, albeit inferior videos into this category at times. This is also a different era than the 80s and 90s when the music industry thrived and more money was able to be thrown at budgets for videos, which meant more good videos in general.

With me still being a music video fan, I'm usually eager to see what happens with Video of the Year. Over the course of the VMAs' history, MTV has at times proven that it can acknowledge quality, but the VOTY could have more prestige if the network had decided to be consistently more daring. Here is a look back at all the previous nominees and winners in that category and what was overlooked in that respective year. Keep in mind when discussing what should have been nominated, I narrowed it down to videos that could have conceivably landed in the biggest category of the night, meaning that it had to have been a sizable hit with MTV rotation. Also, it should be noted that viewers have been able to vote in this category since 2006, which has taken away from the surprise factor, meaning we may never seen an upset like "Nothing Compares 2 U" or "Virtual Insanity" ever again.


1984

The Cars — "You Might Think"

* Herbie Hancock — "Rockit"
* Michael Jackson — "Thriller"
* Cyndi Lauper — "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"
* The Police — "Every Breath You Take"

What should have won: While the campy humor of "You Might Think" still holds up very well, "Thriller" was an unprecedented accomplishment at the time and has not lost its luster.
What should have been nominated: Talking Heads — "Burning Down the House"; Queen - "I Want To Break Free"; Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It"


1985

Don Henley — "The Boys of Summer"

* Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — "Don't Come Around Here No More"
* David Lee Roth — "California Girls"
* David Lee Roth — "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody"
* USA for Africa — "We Are the World"

What should have won: The set design for "Don't Come Around Here No More" trumps the lush cinematography of "The Boys of Summer" for me.
What should have been nominated: Art of Noise — "Close (To the Edit)"; 'Til Tuesday - "Voices Carry"; Madonna - "Material Girl"; Frankie Goes to Hollywood — "Two Tribes"; Bronski Beat - "Smalltown Boy"


1986

Dire Straits — "Money for Nothing"

* a-ha — "Take on Me"
* Godley & Creme — "Cry"
* Robert Palmer — "Addicted to Love"
* Talking Heads — "Road to Nowhere"

What should have won: A good deal of me wants to say "Take On Me," mostly for the mirror shot where the camera rotates around and reveals both the animated and live-action world, but overall, "Cry" is the most distinct. "Road To Nowhere" would have been a good choice as well seeing as how Talking Heads were miles ahead of everyone when it came to making videos around this time.
What should have been nominated: Kate Bush — "Running Up That Hill"; Talking Heads — "And She Was" ; Prince and The Revolution — "Raspberry Beret"; INXS — "What You Need"; Kate Bush - "Hounds Of Love"; ZZ Top — "Rough Boy"

Unedited "Paper Planes" video

Because I love "Paper Planes" so much, I was going to post the video whenever it was released, but apparently the video has been making news on its own. MTV has removed the gunshot sounds from the hook and it's got M.I.A. in a tizzy. It's not surprising any more how MTV edits videos (oh, how you ruined My Chemical Romance's "Teenagers"), but hopefully all the fuss will get more attention for such an excellent song, and Kala overall.