Top 10 Most WTF Music Videos



(The video begins with Sage in his normal set up, holding a PS3 controller. He then acknowledges the audience.)

Sage: Oh, hey folks, Sage here. You may know me from my video game reviews and Anime Abandon here on That Guy With The Glasses. But, like most people, my interests wander elsewhere.

(Cut to: the Michael Bolton section from Top Five Best and Worst Covers of All Time)

Sage (VO): A few months back, I did a top five list of the best and worst covers of all time and. I had a lot of fun making it. Though I'd like to keep making music related lists, I don't feel like it should be an ongoing thing. Maybe reserved for every once in a while.

Sage: And wouldn't you know it? It has literally been once in a while since that video came out. (Sets down the controller off-screen) So, let's put the controller down, and keep the anime shelved. But this time around, let's not focus on the music. And instead focus on the accompanying video. Specifically, how it makes NO goddamn sense.

(Cut to Sage talking in the background while the music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" plays in the foreground.)

Sage (VO): I use the term "What the Fuck?" as a catch-all term for any kind of video that makes you scratch your head or just plain confuses you. They can be funny, scary, or a combination of both. But they all share something in common. You sure as hell aren't the same after watching them. And before you ask, no you're not going to see what I like to call "Forced Weirdness". Nothing that is transparently weird or abnormal for the sake of being weird and abnormal. So rest assured that Lady Gaga will be nowhere on this list.

Sage: Have (Pulls out a bottle of) crazy pills on standby and be sure to remember not to swallow your tongue! Because we're going to be diving balls deep into the crazy pool with....

(Cut to: The music video for "I'm on Crack" by The Left-Rights, which serves as the interlude for the video)

Sage (VO): The Top Ten Most What The Fuck Music Videos.


 * 10:

Sage: When I was compiling this list, I was surprised to find out that a good majority of the entries were from the 90s.

(Cut to: The music video for "I Stay Away" by Alice in Chains as Bennett talks)

Sage (VO): It's more than just the fact that music videos began to expand their boundaries in the 90s. It was also that music in general slanted itself toward the abstract, the quirky, the, alternative if you will. While their are many musicians and bands that pioneered the alternative sound, for my money, no man was more instrumental (or more confounding) then Beck.

(Cut to: the Music Video for "Where it's at." by Beck)

Beck: There's a destination A little up the road From the habitations And the towns we know.

Sage (VO): It's kind of hard to pin down what exactly makes Beck Beck. Since his sound is as hard to pin down with a genre. Proto, Neo, Techno-Funk, Hip-Hop, Country and Western, Folk music?

Sage: Putting it as simply as possible, Beck is what every hipster today wishes they were. I was tempted to keep Beck off this list because of my aforementioned abstaining of forced weirdness. But at the end of the day, I'm just not sure what Beck intended to convey in his videos, and the ambiguity eventually won out.

Beck and the backing chorus: Do do. Do do do do do do do do do.

'''#10 The New Pollution Beck'''

Sage (VO): Much like the nature of the song, The New Pollution is plain incomprehensible. Beck's songs have been known to literally be about nothing, and that seems to be the case here. Words just kind of flow into each other with little regard to connectivity or coherence.

(The Lyrics (or at least, what are presumed to be the lyrics) are shown onscreen as well with question marks ending them.)

Beck: She's got a carburetor tied to the moon. Pink eyes looking to the fruit of the ages.

Sage: But, hey it's got a nice beat.

Sage (VO): So with a song that isn't really about anything, we get a music video that really isn't about anything one would think. And yet, you can't shake the feeling that there's something you're not getting. Beck himself directed this (Surprise, I know), so maybe this is him portending to have some sort of deeper meaning then their actually is.

Sage: But then you're compounded with questions like, "Why?"

Sage (VO): Why are there dancers that look like Wednesday Adams sashaying around power mowers? Why is there a bearded man chugging a glass of milk? Why is there an 80s hair metal breakdown? I mean, these had to be thought out. This had to be intentional.

Sage: The 60s style and décor I get, because the song itself feels very, um, Mod-Rocky? I guess is the word? But, everything else, I'm drawing a complete blank on.

Sage (VO): The New Pollution. It's Beck's world. And we're not supposed to get it.

(Interlude)


 * 9:

Sage: Nostalgia bomb in 3. 2. 1.

(Cut to: the video)

Jeffery Jey: Yo Listen up here's a story. About a little guy that lives in a blue world.

'''#9 Blue (Da Ba Dee) Eiffel 65'''

Sage (VO): Oh man! How long is it been since you last thought of this song eh? God this song was everywhere back in 99. Fuck, you could've kept track of the time of day by how many times you heard "Blue" playing on the radio.

Sage: This is probably the least likely hit I can remember growing up. Honestly ask yourself, how many Euro-Tech songs can you name off the top of your head that climbed the charts? And, more importantly, have you checked out the music video recently?

Sage (VO): You remember how impressive and groundbreaking it looked? We never saw music videos like this back in the day. But lord, this video has aged like fuck!

Sage: It goes beyond the horribly rendered aliens. Really, the whole video just feels like a child scripted it.

Sage (Doing a little kid voice): So like, they're playing a concert. But then aliens come. And the take the singer away and the band gets on a spaceship and chases after the aliens. And they go onboard and the aliens have these lasers but they can't hit anything like in Star Wars. And the goes "Boo boo" with their hands and they blow the aliens away. And they start punching them like "Boom boom boom!" and they all rescue the singer. But the aliens don't want them to go so they throw a concert. And the one guy in the band doesn't really know what to do so he just, kind of waves his arms around. The end.

Sage: Actually, if I have a favorite part. It's the moment when the abducted singer first realizes that he's now singing to aliens.

Sage (Impersonating the singer): What. No really, aliens!? What the fuck man?! (Normal voice) This entry really is the black sheep of the bunch, as it doesn't really assault you with oddball imagery or make you question reality. But the video is just so out of its mind insane, that it had to have a spot on my list.

Sage (Doing a salute): God bless you Eiffel 65. You insane glorious bastards.

(Interlude)


 * 8

Sage: A cursory glance at the bands and musicians on my list, show the theme that they typically tend to be outside the norm or the mainstream. This is not the case with our next entry.

(Cut to: The video for "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" by Genesis)

Phil Collins: But it's alright. Like a load on your back that you can't see.

Sage (VO): I kind of have a complicated history with Genesis. I'll admit, I'm one of those people who find the Peter Gabriel years to be superior than Phil Collins. If only because their music tended to be on the more eclectic side and thus more interesting to my ears.

Sage: Phil Collins may have brought Genesis the hits and fame they have now. But, I'd take "Lambs Lie Down on Broadway" over "Invisible Touch" any day. But this isn't about old Genesis versus, newer? Genesis. This is about how Phil Collins looks creepy as a puppet.

(Cut to the video)

'''#8 Land Of Confusion Genesis'''

Sage (VO): For those of you who live in the UK, you may recognize the puppets at work here. But for the uninitiated, this is the work of the puppet based satirical show "Spitting Image", which ran for a decade overseas. The show was focused on the politics and pop culture of the era, so there were plenty of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Regan, and Muammar Gadhafi puppets on display to go around. So with the socially conscience song, "Land of Confusion", it only seemed natural that "Spitting Image's" puppets were used.

Sage: And thus the world was given, unbeknownst to its unsuspecting public, the very face of death itself.

(Cut to the infamous image of all three band members in puppet form, surely to pop up in your nightmares soon enough)

Phil Collins: But I can see the fire's still alight. They're burning into the night.

Sage (Shaking his head): You cannot un-see it. It is eternal.

(Back to the close up of the Phil Collins puppet, but in slow mo.)

(Voice clip of the fox from Antichrist): Chaos. Reigns

Sage (VO): It's very hard to take what good ol' Philly is trying to convey, considering that we're being assaulted with new nightmare fuel every twenty seconds. We got Ronald Regan's Deadite stare in the negative zone. We got what, I think, is Prince eating his own tongue like a hot dog. We got a vast series of decapitated 80s celebrities heads on display. And Madonna singing out of her, I hope to god that's her belly button.

Sage: I bet this idea looked so good on paper. Or at least, less, scream yourself awake nightmare-ish.

(Cut to the ending of the video, showing Regan hovering over two buttons, one saying "Nurse" the other saying "Nuke". He presses the "Nuke" button on accident, which shows stock footage of a nuclear explosion going off with him and Nancy in the same hospital bed, the room shaking as Nancy wavers in fear.)

Regan: Eh, that's one heck of a nurse!

(Nancy gets offended and smacks Ronald in the back of the head with a snorkel before putting it in her mouth as Regan breaks the fourth wall and makes some weird sound as the video ends. It's as weird as it sounds.)

(Interlude)


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