It's been thirty years since the very first Video Music Awards on MTV, which means thirty videos have been granted the award for Video of the Year. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the VMA's, here are the best of the best, the top 10 winners of the coveted Video of the Year award.
10. Pearl Jam - "Jeremy" (1993)
Perhaps the most controversial video to ever win Video of the Year was Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," which, like the song's lyrics, tells the story of a teenager who commits suicide in front of his classmates. The editing and imagery may get pretty pretentious at times, but it's a powerful video nonetheless.
9. Missy Elliott - "Work It" (2003)
I have no idea what the "Work It" video is supposed to be about. There's a lot of breakdancing, a beauty salon, a Prince impersonator, a slave slapping his white master (who himself turns out to be black), and a mini-Missy Elliott sitting in a classroom with a dunce cap. It could be awful for all I know, but I think I'm blinded by how much I love the song itself.
8. Jamiroquai - "Virtual Insanity" (1997)
Yeah, the "Virtual Insanity" video is based around a pretty gimmicky concept (furniture moving around a room on its own), but if there's a time and a place for gimmicks like that, it's a music video. It helps that the gimmick is pulled off perfectly, with some impressively nimble dance moves from singer Jay Kay. The song itself is all right, but the video (and Kay's hat) is what most people remember about Jamiroquai these days.
(Note: the official "Virtual Insanity" video has been pulled from Youtube, but here's an abridged version.)
7. Lauryn Hill - "Doo Wop (That Thing) (1999)
Lauryn Hill's video for "Doo Wop (That Thing)," probably the best song to ever win Video of the Year, serves as a visual representation of the entire neo-soul genre, cleverly blending classic soul and R&B with a modern hip-hop aesthetic, although I'm a little peeved that the video was filmed in Manhattan and not in Hill's native South Orange, NJ (but that's just the Jersey in me talking).
6. OutKast - "Hey Ya!" (2004)
Nirvana may have beat OutKast to the concept of the "Hey Ya!" video by more than ten years with its "In Bloom" video, but "Hey Ya!" takes it to another level by casting André 3000 as all eight members of "The Love Below." It's a great video for what is probably the best pop song of this century.
5. Sinead O'Connor - "Nothing Compares 2 U" (1990)
Prince has never won Video of the Year (or even been nominated), but the closest he's come to the award is Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U," which he wrote. It's by far the simplest video to ever win the top VMA: Most of it is just a close-up of O'Connor singing the song, but the sheer emotional intensity of her performance, complete with two (real) teardrops towards the end, proved that a video doesn't need to be flashy or gimmicky to be memorable.
4. Peter Gabriel - "Sledgehammer" (1987)
Most pop and rock videos from the '80s are pretty embarrassing, but one of the best from this era is Peter Gabriel's stop-motion extravaganza "Sledgehammer." The video won nine VMAs, an all-time record, and is the most played video in MTV's history.
3. Beyoncé - "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)" (2009)
Let me get the obligatory Kanye West reference out of the way: he was right about "Single Ladies." He wasn't right to interrupt Taylor Swift's acceptance speech, but the point of his interruption was dead-on. "Single Ladies" actually is one of the best videos of all time, and a deceptively simple one at that. It's just Beyoncé and two other women dancing to the song, but the brilliance of the choreography, lighting, and cinematography make it completely exhilarating.
2. Lady Gaga - "Bad Romance" (2010)
I absolutely love it that the creepiest video to ever win Video of the Year didn't come from some alternative rock band, but from Lady Gaga, the planet's biggest pop star (at the time, anyway). From the freaky costumes to Gaga's abnormally huge eyes to the charred skeleton at the end, this video is weird in a way that most pop stars won't even dare to approach.
1. Smashing Pumpkins - "Tonight, Tonight" (1996)
Before I even started writing this list, I said to myself, "'Tonight, Tonight' has to be number one. That video is just too damn good." A song as beautiful and majestic as "Tonight, Tonight" needs an appropriately beautiful and majestic video, which is exactly what it got with this gorgeously shot homage to the classic silent film A Trip To Moon, directed by future Little Miss Sunshine directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris and starring Mr. Show's Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, along with the Pumpkins themselves.
