Music videos listed in the same order as their links, alphabetically by artist.

Left-Handed Kisses

Bird and Apple play 'lovers' according to the narrative of this song and video, but they also play two sides of a single self; the left brain and right brain--the logical, elaborately academic side (Bird) and the emotional, visceral side (Apple). Although he supposedly devotes his entire self to the song and expression, he fails to devote himself similarly to the person about whom he's speaking.

Lemonade

O to be a strange elderly woman draped with veil and beard in a de-caying mans-ion whose rooms contain the labyrinth of my own memory.

Old Ocean

I adore the handmade quality and physicality of the props, sets, and costumes. Compelling use of light/shadow and editing.

Losing All Sense

Life is a miserable reality show, a meaningless performance into which you can never quite fit--until genderfluid performer Freckle ap-pears in a haze of blue light, like Julee Cruise in Twin Peaks, to offer a vision of freedom. Interpret the layers of reality at play here as you wish. Then tell me what you think because I want to know.

Neighbors

There's no need to camouflage as lifeless in the wilderness of domesticity. You'll find peers before long. You can even fake it as a family. In the end, it isn't going to matter. You were never really there.

Girlfriend

This video looks like it was made in the year 2005 with 0 dollars and I have to respect it for that. Hemlocke swings for the fences with absolute con-fidence and the result is just insanely charming. Makes me smile every time.

sever the blight

Animated paintings and medievalist costuming are here steeped in the high drama of an 80s-style ballad, evoking Kate Bush's intensity. Hemlocke plays both captor and captive, creating an interesting duality of self.

Many Moons

One of Janelle's earli-est and (I must assume) least known videos, Many Moons sets the scene for her long-term sci-fi musical nar-rative. Even at the start of her career, show-biz itself clearly weigh-ed heavily on Monae's mind. Her alter ego, Cindi May-weather, is a robot designed as a product, disallowed, legally, from living her own individual life; she is wanted, auctioned off, the object of every desire, yet desire itself is fundamen-tally forbidden to her. She competes only with herself, and reaps none of the benefits of her success. She's in her pompadour and tux era here, which is still one of my favorite of her looks. Joyful in movement and expression even as her lyrics speak to deep cynicism.

Little Flaws

Sometimes I think romantic love isn't real but then Lady Lamb makes me reconsider.

July Flame

Cut paper stop motion animation. Beautiful hand-drawn jointed animal puppets. The fire is made of peaches. Indulgence, temptation, life, danger.

Gorilla

There are so many good shots in this video that it must be seen to be believed. Stand-outs include Simz lying among the chalk outlines; headless suits dancing in a cornfield; are they skating through an empty parking lot, or the Guggenheim Museum?

Point and Kill

Her hair is braided like ram horns here. I love the sequence where they drive past a series of subcultures and archetypes standing next to the road like a cultural tableau. The ending cut from warm light on a community dancing to the cold light/slow motion of a confrontation with police... Violence underlies everything, but it makes the joy that much more valuable.

Woman

Ain't nothing without a woman, though.

All Alone in an Empty House

On a sunny day we walk together thr-ough idyllic woods to the syrupy nostal-gia of a honey-gold built-by-hand cottage, but--voyeur that we are, peeking through the cracks, what seemed so soft and gentle reveals a lifetime of bitter hate beneath. Abuse hides carefully. The transition from day to evening feels to me monu-mental. Here we have skulls draped in white fabric, massive paper-thin puppets--here we are ensnared in twine and engulfed in dirt. Here the blood on our hands clings uncleanable, no matter how many lanterns we may send up in memory.

Labyrinth

The dancer's sunny tones radiate against cool blues of city night. Is this a single shot, or just a beautiful pretender?

Revolution

It's hard to describe Cabral and crew's hippie-burlesque camp of dazzle makeup and mixing gender signifiers as anything but fey.

Broken Man

The simplicity of this video means that we can look only at light, shad-ow, color--the strangeness and elegance of her move-ment--and the fire that threatens, again and again, to consume her.

Cruel

You are not a person; you are a life-size doll, to fill a role for others. You will never satisfy, but you have no choice except to try. She is kid-napped, she is buried alive; but was it any crime at all, or simply the weight of everyday expectation? You can reach for the door, even step outside, but you will never escape it. You are not even wanted.

Three Futures

This is a video about Torres (curly) attempting to escape a love-less marriage to Torres (hat) by having an affair with Torres (guitar).

Them Changes

There's a haunting stagnance in the transition between the action (the loss of his arms) & the man watching a ghost of his own past on the tv screen. Can't partici-pate, can't change the channel. The guinea pig in a tank with no enrichment. We can no lo-nger play like children. Now there are consequences.