Top 5 Music Videos of the Week: Milck, Troye Sivan + more
Welcome to another week where we get knee-deep in the best music videos to hit the World Wide Web. Put on your big girl panties and let’s get to it!
5. Jimmy Pizzitola — “Pierced and Tattooed”
Let’s start with two local boys here. “Pierced and Tattooed” comes to us from my second favorite local music video director, Jerry Ochoa of Two Star Symphony fame. Paired with Pizzitola’s driving honky tonk rock, the video is a low-fi dirty masterpiece that channels the awesomeness of Matt Nathanson’s “Girl in the Kinks Shirt” in style, but keeps it sexy and Texas in tone. Pizzitola plays the new beau of a local tattoo artist (Lauren Charmain Wood), who seduces him into becoming a living work of art. Eventually, she drops him, and he joins other former lovers at the bar, their tattoos forming a larger collage of broken-hearted men. It’s mean and raw and totally lovely every second.
4. Entrance — “Not Gonna Say Your Name”
Folks, music and music videos are both going to be very political for the near future, and though the Age of Trump is yet young, the voices and images against it have thus far been some very moving works of art. This is a little found footage film detailing the various demonstrations against the rise of the new American fascism, donated by protestors across the country and edited by Chris Richardson and Matt Popeliuch. Proceeds from the sale of the track go to benefit Planned Parenthood, so if this video moved you like it did me, then consider picking the song up on iTunes or something.
3. Victoria + Jean — “Takes You Like a Rose”
Victoria + Jean is one of those bands that when I see they have a new music video I sort of strap in and hope I’m still sane by the end of it. “Takes You Like a Rose,” directed by Kosai Sekine, will leave you shaking and questioning all reality. A man (Joey Capone) who is in thrall to a mysterious drug comes across a woman (Hyunri), that lures him into a strip club where the band is playing. There follows a trip-tastic audio-visual nightmare of sex and song that would put a good David Lynch segment to shame. Everything is hot and loud and sounds like raw nerves feel. Damn fine music video.
2. Troye Sivan feat. Betty Who — “Heaven”
God. Damn. You will live and die and not see a more beautiful or perfectly shot music video than “Heaven.” Director Luke Gilford perfectly poises Sivan against the naked chest of a lover or standing forlorn in the rain, all the intercutting images of the gay rights struggle that still continues to this day. You either cry watching this, or you have a pit of scorpions where your soul should be. It’s almost the most amazing thing to happen this week. Almost.
1. MILCK — “Quiet”
This video more or less destroyed me this week. MILCK is a survivor of abuse, depression and anorexia, and “Quiet” is an tremendous analogy for living under the terrible pressure of society’s expectations. Director Sammi Cohen traps her in something right out of a Saw film, trying to drown her in a small box. Almost dead, her voice breaks the glass and wins her freedom. It’s a slow burn, utterly moving, and the best of an amazing week of music videos.
