The New Century & Animated Music Videos

[Madmick]

The top one in particular is my favorite.














I'm not sure who is to credit as the influence for this style of music video, but I've noticed it's very popular in one of my favorite subgenres, Electronica, and among European bands and DJs in general.

I know that Gorillaz was one of the first bands that conceived of "virtual band members" who had no real life correlate, and often had music videos that told fantastic and seemingly interwoven adventure narratives about these fictional worlds or characters. The above tend to be more one-off in nature, but this would seem to be a source of influence:




Daft Punk was an early adopter of the idea. One of my all-time favs:





Any favorites?

 

[ookii]

I'm not sure who is to credit as the influence for this style of music video.

Any favorites?

Are you referring to who used the used the first fully animated cartoon style video? I believe it dates back to 1984 (of course not counting cartoons based on bands Josie & Pussycats etc)

 

[Fork]

a few weird ones:






some good rotoscoping:


and a classic:

 

[Deleted member 405583]

 

[jefferz]

 

[rikwebb]

 

[Nesk]

 

[ookii]

 

[Lovestorm]

 

[Madmick]

Are you referring to who used the used the first fully animated cartoon style video? I believe it dates back to 1984 (of course not counting cartoons based on bands Josie & Pussycats etc)

No, not merely animated, that's very old. This is part of why I'm having difficulty tracing a source; because I cannot even adequately define and describe the "style" which is appears to me be emerging and congealing in some greater pattern or movement. Right now I feel the artistic style-- this pattern-- more than I comprehend it on a cerebral level. So I'm not even sure there is a "movement" here, but it feels like there is one, and that its history runs through YouTube, not traditional outlets of old like MTV.

I think one of the chief elements is that it costs less, not more (an traditional animation tends to cost a lot more). It seems most closely associated with electronica, house, or European flavors of hip-hop. Definitely feels more Euro than North American. There is an LCD dreamlike visual quality to a lot of the work. Even those videos which convey a visual narrative are often more abstract. 2D and watercolor is more prevalent than most other styles, but there is also a strong affinity for retro animation and the popular visual styles of the 20's, 30's and 40's: including not just in terms of animation, but fashion, and editing strategies.

It sort of feels like an attempt to modernize the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant "pink elephant" sequence from Dumbo, and layer these North American roots of animation to Euro synthesizer-based traditions of music. There's no sense or presence of the corporate world at all. It carries an emotional tone of the lone DJ/musician in his room with his headphones, a synthesizer, and not much else to arm him. He hands his track to a friend who has been scribbling on everything since he was a kid, throughout class all over his textbooks when they were in school, that kid, and this friend comes back with his self-taught, guerrilla, fantastic, purely artistic drawings.

Do the Evolution was made in 1998, and while it doesn't conform to nearly any of my descriptions above, so far that video is the earliest example in tune with the feeling I get from a lot of these videos.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

 

[Madmick]

I've noticed the whole retro-Transatlantic style is strongest right now in terms of sound with the French DJs I like so much like you'd hear on the famous Le Mellotron station:
https://www.youtube.com/user/LeMellotron/videos



In thinking more about this, I've started to favor the thought that a major influence is actually one of my favorite movies from just after the turn of the century:




A great feature about animated music videos although not necessarily of the style I'm describing:
https://www.creativebloq.com/animation/best-animated-music-videos-912838

 

[Hyperglide]

Perturbators always blow me away.





This video by Lorn is brilliant.



Noisia with a cool one.

 

[Hyperglide]

Another one by Noisia (with the Mercurial KRS-One) you might like @Madmick Has that Euro sound and look.



There was this amazing video I saw a couple of years ago but can't remember the title or artist. I'll try to dig it up. It's like future wave.

EDIT: found it. One of my all time fave vids.

 

[jrams]

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

I liked when Biggie was ballin and popping bottles but hey, that's just me.



Mars Volta did one of these a long time ago for the track:

Televators off their first album, De-Loused in the Comatorium