Bailrigg FM staple Nathan Rogers takes us through his three favourite music videos of all time…
Coffee & TV – Blur
It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am picking a video from Blur, given that they’re one of my favourite artists. The video opens on an unassuming carton of milk with guitarist Graham Coxon’s face plastered on it, stating that he is missing. Coxon’s family all sit around the breakfast table pining for their son. The first thing I find funny is that all of the family’s photos are of the same picture of Graham – the one on the carton. Then we are greeted by Milky, the main character of the video, the milk carton, now graced with a smiley face, arms and legs. He leaves the disgruntled family behind to go on an adventure to find Coxon. On the way he is almost cut to pieces by a lawnmower and run over by a motorbike. The humour comes from the alert expressions on the milk carton’s face. The whole thing is pretty surreal. Later on, Milky is seen horrified by a man drinking a milk carton, again, hilarious. Then, Milky meets a love interest, a pink milk carton, who is immediately crushed by a pedestrian. Milky finds Graham in a bad neighbourhood, playing the song with Blur. Coxon on his return home drinks the milk from Milky, whose spirit flies to heaven and meets with his love from earlier. Overall, a hilariously quirky and fun video all round.
Weapon Of Choice – Fatboy Slim
You’ve seen this video. Even if you think you haven’t, you have. You also love this video. Who wouldn’t love a video where Christopher Walken becomes Christopher Flyen and Dancen, and dances around a hotel lobby for 3 minutes. At first, you would assume that it was going to be a depressing video but once the music properly kicks in, we get what can only be described as an impeccably well choreographed dance routine performed to perfection by Walken – an actor not many would assume to be an incredible tap dancer. An unremarkable detail that I love is Walken jumping into a bellhop’s cart and spinning around in it. A particularly memorable moment comes when “Walken” does a few somersaults that an Olympic gymnast would be proud of. The video concludes with the greatest moment of any music video ever. Walken just starts elegantly floating around the lobby as if it was nothing before returning to his original bored looking state.
Just Lose It – Eminem
It’ll come as a surprise to anyone that knows me that I am picking a video by Eminem. I forgot about this video until I was writing this article. It replaced the bug-filled video of Gnarls Barkley’s cover of Gone Daddy Gone. However, as I was writing the phrase ‘depressing video’ I immediately thought of Stan by Eminem and from there remembered this video. This video has it all. My particular favourite being Eminem throwing up on Eminem as Michael Jackson just before his performs in a rap battle as a hilarious parody of his own film 8 Mile. Eminem as Slim Shady battles another rapper who is also played as Eminem. Other funny jokes include Eminem hitting on Dr Dre because of ‘beer goggles’ and Erik Estrada known for playing a cop on TV show CHIPS (also famed for Cool Cat Saves The Kids) arrests Eminem for running naked down a road.
