Top 10 Unintentionally Creepy Things in the Background of Music Videos

WatchMojo

They meant to be artistic, but ended up being disturbing... Join us as we count down our picks for the most unintentionally creepy music videos! Our countdown includes Bonnie Tyler's nightmarish boarding school, MGMT's hallucinatory jungle party, and Björk's manic Manhattan truck ride. Which music video gave you the creeps?

Transcript

00:00Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for music videos

00:11whose concepts were likely meant to be inoffensive but whose aesthetic and

00:16connection with the song are ultimately kind of disturbing.

00:2310. Electric Feel Director Ray Tintori supported the

00:36album Oracular Spectacular by applying MGMT's upbeat indie pop to hyper-surreal videos. The

00:43one for kids is famously traumatizing but Electric Feel seemed to be aiming for a more

00:48buzzy vibe. The band attends a festival in the Teekle Jungle, whose CG environment is

01:01deliberately pronounced by oversaturated cinematography. This homage to hallucinatory

01:06partying escalates when animatronic woodland creatures show up and the partygoers bathe

01:11in a multicolored ooze they cut out of the moon. By the end, the celestial body is destroyed

01:23by space motorcyclists. It's no wonder the ambitious video earned a VMA nomination for

01:29Best Art Direction. Still, an outside observer would say that Tintori and MGMT's party got

01:35a little too wild.

01:449. A Sort of Fairytale

01:47Tori Amos

01:56You Complete Me is an extreme romantic declaration when you think about it. Sanjeeva Sanji

02:02Sanjeeva Sanaka had to know what he was making when he accompanied Tori Amos' gorgeous A Sort

02:07of Fairytale with that impassioned of a love story. But Amos' head on a disembodied leg and

02:20Adrian Brody's head on an arm is pretty bold symbolism. As well as the soon-to-be Oscar winner

02:27expressing intense longing, the visual of these appendages' intimacy is a bit too intense.

02:38Even the process of love turning them into full humans measures up to any transformation in a body

02:44horror film. Amos' song, if not Sanjee's theme, remains beautiful, but only if viewers can embrace

02:51the full context.

02:578. Sat In Your Lap

03:00Kate Bush

03:00The late single on Kate Bush's The Dreaming sets the album's revolutionary contrasts between experimental

03:14songwriting and commercial tone. But Brian Wiseman may have overstepped visualizing Sat In Your Lap's

03:21satire of humanity's futile drive for knowledge.

03:249. Sat In Your Lap

03:31Bush skates and dances with jesters, men in ritual bowl costumes, and white-clad dancers whose dunce caps

03:39resemble caperotes. All the while, she eerily stares at the screen.

03:53The video was shot on a low budget in just two days. Hallucinatory editing is doing most of the

03:59work in conveying what seems to be an ambitious spoof of religion, culture, and education. Whether the

04:05imagery was meant to be as bold and funny as the song itself, it's more just unsettlingly crude.

04:187. Big Time Sensuality

04:21Bjork

04:27The always daring artist Bjork is known for surreal music videos that are often downright terrifying.

04:33Although, this goes back to the Michelle Gondry-directed Human Behavior,

04:38which is another song on the debut album that proved Bjork's eeriness inherent.

04:52Stéphane Sednoui directs her ecstatically dancing and mugging on the back of a truck drifting through

04:59Manhattan. The concept simply yet effectively conveys the passionate impulsivity at the heart of big-time

05:05sensuality.

05:13But with the singer's over-the-top gestures and outfits, on top of the black-and-white photography,

05:18the final product is as nightmarish as it is dreamy. Whatever Sednoui had in mind, Bjork has since

05:25settled that she prefers that quality in her videos as well as her music.

05:386. Dancing in the Street

05:41David Bowie and Mick Jagger

05:43The Rolling Stones couldn't make Live Aid, but Mick Jagger collaborated with David Bowie on a cover

05:54of Dancing in the Street to support famine relief. This would be more uplifting if David Mallet's

06:00video weren't notoriously awkward. All of London clears out as the two rock stars exaggeratedly,

06:14you guessed it, dance in the street. It's not just widely considered one of the cringiest music

06:19videos of the 80s, though that's not saying a lot. Jagger and Bowie gleefully expressing their

06:32hammiest quirks in a sort of urban wasteland is eerie on so many levels. This version of Dancing in the

06:39Street ultimately evokes many emotions, not as positive as the cause it contributed to.

06:455. Cellophane

06:54The seductive sorrow in cellophane is effectively translated into an elaborate pole dance that

07:09FKA Twigs trained for extensively. Andrew Thomas Wong's presentation, however, is harder to wrap your

07:16head around. His video's dark cinematography already contorts the poetry and Twigs' routine,

07:29never mind when it's interrupted by an angelic being with a robotic face.

07:332. Cellophane

07:41Twigs then plummets into a wasteland, where several women cover her in mud. The singer has indicated her

07:47vision of a particularly poignant art piece amid videos that are more overtly unsettling.

07:56While there's no denying the final work's technical splendor, it may be too abstract for comfort.

08:03There's still a lot of moving symbolism in cellophane, if you can look through the horror.

08:164. Blue Dabba Dee

08:19We obviously have to forgive the limitations of 90s special effects, especially for cash-strapped

08:33music videos. But it's hard to imagine that audiences at the time had as much with the Blue

08:39Dabba Dee video as the aliens who abduct Eiffel 65 for a concert.

08:51This kicked off the Blisco Media series of cluttered and computer graphics-heavy videos,

08:56edited in a garage with limited means. Even stiffer than the animated characters are the

09:02unconvincingly superimposed band members. Whether Blue Dabba Dee is more catchy than campy, the Eurodance

09:17Staples video is just remembered for being clunky. Or maybe it's crude visuals just permanently scarred 90s kids

09:25and beyond.

09:253. Sledgehammer

09:35Peter Gabriel

09:43Steven R. Johnson and Aardman Animations teamed up on one of the most imaginative videos of the 1980s.

09:50It may also be one of the most divisive as far as tone.

10:00A montage of stop-motion visuals surrounding Peter Gabriel's head certainly complements

10:05Sledgehammer's lively energy. Then the format shifts to claymation, and Gabriel uses the titular

10:12tool to pummel his own face and produce an egg that hatches out a dancing chicken. No less unsettling

10:19is the climactic dance number in stop-motion wide shots.

10:29The historic video succeeds in its mission to deliver more symbolic imagery than anyone could

10:34follow in one sitting. It still takes quite a few viewings to fully shake off the surrealism.

10:412. Godly and Cream

10:51We can all respect the metaphor for shared human struggle in Godly and Cream's self-directed video for

11:04crime. Cross-fading the singing faces of people from many different backgrounds influenced such

11:09works as Michael Jackson's black or white video. But the effect feels less romantic when the faces

11:20are deeply sad and shot in black and white extreme close-ups. It's hard to not be a little bit judgy when

11:27an actual clown pops up out of the lineup. Above all, the visual enhancement of the already moving song is as

11:40commendable as it is innovative. It's still okay to recognize that the tonal context for this surreal

11:46effect requires a good deal of tolerance.

11:501. Total Eclipse of the Heart

12:10You can't help but belt along with Bonnie Tyler's legendary breakup anthem,

12:23Total Eclipse of the Heart. Seeing the video could evoke a different scream though.

12:27Russell Mulcahy lays a seemingly dreamy scene by having Tyler stroll through the Holloway

12:33Sanatorium in Surrey. The Odyssey then becomes nightmarish as she recalls ghostly schoolboys

12:46under extreme lighting. Tyler eventually comes upon a choir of children with glowing eyes who can fly.

12:53This gothic setting just had to be, in some way, intentionally terrifying. Sure enough, the video

13:06pays tribute to the unrealized Nosferatu musical which inspired Jim Steinman to write Total Eclipse

13:13of the Heart. But if Mulcahy wanted to reconcile that with the song's romance at his own surreal concept,

13:19he clearly got turned around. What music video gave you the creeps, whether they meant to or not?

13:32Let's jam in the comments!

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