Top 20 Best Animated Music Videos

Bearded Indie-folk collective Fleet Foxes have just released a new animated video for The Shrine / An Argument; one of the most sprawling, rustically melodic tracks off Helplessness Blues (2011): and it’s an imaginative masterpiece.

If you aren’t aurally intimate with Fleet Foxes music, they’re the band that successfully made “choral folk” the new black back in 2008, with the release of their self-titled debut. It went platinum in the UK, but failed to captivate the US market - like a lot of quality indie music sadly - despite being one of the best releases of that year (in my humble book obviously… but seriously - get onto it).
Helplessness Blues isn’t an unworthy follow up either. The Shrine / An Argument’s animated video below (by Sean Pecknold & Britta Johnson) with its warm muted copper tones - colours I’ve always envisioned listening to their music – and intriguingly haunting little narrative, is what I would call the  “Picasso’s gizz” – pure creative genius.

…And it got me to thinking how much consideration goes into the storytelling of animated music videos… and how the good ones can leave such a graphic imprint in the back of your mind. It’s a lot more than 3 dudes in a garage with a swinging light bulb that’s for sure!
With that in mind, here are the top 20 best animated videos that managed to capture the Radar team’s imaginations in recent years.

Let me know if I missed any!

Fleet Foxes – The Shrine / An Argument

Gorillaz - Stylo

Daft Punk – One More Time

Radiohead – Pyramid Song

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Otherside

Pearl Jam - Evolution

Goyte – Heart's a Mess

Moby – Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad

Grizzly Bear – Ready Able

MGMT – Time to Pretend

Sebastien Tellier – Look

Kanye West – Heard ‘Em Say feat. Adam Levine

The Chemical Brothers – Another World

Portisehead – The Rip

Tool – Sober

Architecture in Helsinki – Do the Whirlwind

Goldfrapp – Twist

Royksopp – Beautiful Day Without You

Coldplay – Strawberry Swing

Queens of the Stone Age – Go With the Flow

Bear Bands and Bear Hands

Having the word “Bear” as part of your band name seems to be a mystical precursor for quality music these days, badged by scout-leading bands like: Grizzly Bear, Bear in Heaven, Panda Bear, Boy & Bear, Bearhug (Sydney band), the former Bear Vs Shark and the Bearnaked Ladies (oops wrong bear…and they were shit weren’t they). And now these little Brooklyn based furry nuggets, Bear Hands join my personal sleuth.

The boys began to cause a stir via a steady slog of support slots on the New York indie scene back in 2007 (Vampire Weekend, Les Savy Fav etc) after the release of their debut Golden EP. But it’s been their latest LP drop Burning Bush Supper Club that’s finally starting to chink its way into the independent Aussie airwaves.

They could be likened to fellow Cantora Records psy-rockers MGMT (upon hearing the track “Camel Convention” – I was envisioning a strange bird-like creature losing control of its limbs in the desert – or perhaps recalling my last night out on the town…) but Bear Hands seem to have a more jaunty texture to their sound: fuzzed-out vocals and just enough reverb to claw over dynamic percussion arrangements: some rollicking and tambourine infused, some unsuitably standard - but sounded out sweetly either way with woodland-romping melodies and abstract lyrics. I don’t know about you, but I love non-figurative language in song writing: where the sound of a feeling becomes the story and the way you flesh it out internally, tells it (true poetry? You tell me).

One of my fave tracks off Burning Bush Supper Club would have to be “Julien” (you can here what I mean by woodland-romping) as well as “Tablasaurus” (which has an Empire of the Sun kind of flavour to it).

Will Bear Hands get their bear heads mounted up on indie music fan's cabin walls alongside the formidably talented Grizzly Bear and Bear in Heaven? Only time - and perhaps a handy air rifle will tell...

You can purchase Burning Bush Supper Club from the Bear Hands website or here on itunes(although only their Golden EP is available in Australia as yet), or you can lend your heart to “Julien” here on Hype Machine. Check out their first single of the LP “What a Drag” below: