Top Videoclips of 2018

2018 has been the year of national and international artists: Rosalía, Beyoncé, Childish Gambino, Jack White, Dua Lipa… LINX’s team has made a list of the best audiovisual jewels that have been left by singers and directors over the last year. We have selected 10 clips that have won prizes and got good reviews from experts and press. Heat yourself some popcorn… and enjoy our selection 😉

1. Childish Gambino – ‘This is America’ (directed by Hiro Murai)

Seemingly out of nowhere, Donald Glover, or perhaps those listening to him and his new song know him better as Childish Gambino, dropped an amazing single with a shocking music video to accompany it, and now the tune has become one of the few to debut at the top of the all-genre singles chart. Gambino’s new track “This Is America” opens at No. 1 on the Hot 100, Billboard’s weekly ranking of the 100 most popular songs of any genre in the United States.

 

2. Flasher – ‘Material’ (directed by Nick Roney)

The clip was Directed by Nick Roney, breaks the fourth wall in an utterly unique and post-modern way. It can confidently be said that a video similar to this does not exist. Rather than spoil it with tedious description.

 

3. Jack White – ‘Over and Over and Over’ (directed by Us)

Jack White‘s apartment transforms into a vibrant fever dream in the reality-bending “Over and Over and Over” video.

The songwriter appears in several scenarios, playing electric guitar as his living room shifts to blue and white. Wrestlers, masked children, women wearing colorful garments and men in military fatigues appear in the shifting scenes as an unfazed White delivers ear-splitting fuzz guitar solos.

 

 

4. Dua Lipa – ‘IDGAF’ (directed by Henry Scholfield)

The ‘IDGAF’ video surprises with its minimalism. In the clip, Dua Lipa and her dancers are dressed in suits and split into two identical groups, differentiated only by the colour of their clothes. Both groups are confronted through a choreography, with which Lipa tries to express the “duality” (forgiveness) between the “strongest side” and the “weakest side” of a person.

5. Joey Dosik – ‘Inside Voice (directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada)

The love story between a clam and a meatball that thrilled Spielberg. To preview the album, Dosik has released a music video of the title track, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada (Thundercat, Father John Misty). The video shows us a dapper Dosik introducing us to a romantic 50s style candlelight dinner of a courting couple when suddenly, in a surreal twist, various dishes on the dinner table start singing along!

6. Vince Staples – ‘Fun!’ (directed by Calmatic)

The audiovisual work of Stapels, like most of his previous videos, is quite impressive.  The video is structured in a large sequence viewed with Google Street View of the streets of Long Beach where Vince Staples grew up. Google cameras capture a robbery, children dancing, prostitution, an arrest and a recording of a rap video, where the rapper appears and releases his verses.

 

7. ‘Welcome Home’ (directed by Spike Jonze)

The 48-year-old Oscar winner, Spike Jonze, has directed a new four-minute short film for Apple’s HomePod speaker featuring yet another marquee collaborator—the English musician and dancer FKA twigs. The result is a stunning piece that’s charming, surreal, emotional, playful, theatrical and utterly compelling—one of the most remarkable ads of the year so far.

8. Rosalía – ‘Pienso en tu mirá’ (directed by CANADA)

This year, however, Rosalía has been reborn as a swivel-hipped pop performer. Her smash show at Barcelona’s recent Sónar festival featured a twerking dance troupe and catwalk-ready costumes. In May, she guested on reggaeton poster boy J Balvin’s song Brillo (Letra). And her forthcoming album, El Mal Querer, produced by tropicália beatsmith El Guincho, comes with visuals referencing motorbiking, matadors and manicures. With a combined , that Christine and the Queens-shaped crossover potential is Rosalía’s for the taking.

 

 

9. The Carters – ‘Apeshit’ (directed by Ricky Saiz)

In “Apeshit,” which is set in Paris’s Louvre Museum and rife with centuries-old images of conquest, the Carters present themselves as a modern kind of royal family—one that’s not helmed by a patriarch, but by two equal partners. The other men and women who populate the video also embrace a more mutualistic and fluid approach to gender and power. Men are shown as graceful and valiant, women as both matronly and aggressive—though it is the latter who are depicted in “Apeshit” as the backbone of the Carters’ world.

10. Father John Misty – “Date Night” (directed by Chad Vangaalen) 

This clip is a strange, psychedelic loon at dating in the Tinder era. Directed and animated by Chad Vangaalen, the clip for the track off God’s Favorite Customerdepicts a world of brightly colored individuals (monsters, really) who all seem glued to their phones. Whether they’re testing out the latest winged shoes trend or floating through space with their banana helmets, everyone is sending a signal to somewhere else, and it’s all patently insane. Check it out below.