‘Vous Avez Dit Bizarre’ N°313 – Vintage 2000s Music Videos

1 . Radiohead – Jigsaw Falling Into Place

“Jigsaw Falling Into Place” unfolds with the precision of a collapsing house of cards, a mix of acoustic strumming and rhythmic urgency that underscores Radiohead’s knack for tension and release.

The song, a standout from 2007’s *In Rainbows*, finds Thom Yorke weaving a narrative of fleeting connections and intoxicated disorientation, a lyrical snapshot of nights that blur into mornings of quiet regret.

Producer Nigel Godrich’s meticulous touch is evident in the track’s layered arrangement, balancing the warmth of live instrumentation with the band’s signature sonic unease.

Performances during the “In Rainbows” tour revealed the track’s visceral live potential, with its escalating intensity and cohesive interplay between band members.

Visually, the helmet-cam music video, co-directed by Garth Jennings, perfectly complements the song’s frantic-yet-introspective energy, capturing the band in an unguarded, immediate state.

Critics praised its structure and emotional weight, with *Time* likening its progression to a three-act tragedy of doomed romance—a thematic throughline that resonates long after the final chord.

Featured on the 1997 album “In Rainbows“.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

2 . Will Young – Friday’s Child

Will Young’s “Friday’s Child” steps into the pop landscape with an air of introspection that refuses to rely on theatrics.

As the title track of his second studio album, released in December 2003, the song emerges as a statement piece, bridging pop sensibilities with a contemplative, almost unhurried delivery.

The production, helmed by Stephen Lipson and Blair MacKichan, sidesteps overt gloss to weave in middle-of-the-road (MOR) textures with experimental flourishes—bold, if not groundbreaking.

Thematically, the song aligns with the overarching tone of the album, which leans into a narrative of self-discovery without tipping into overwrought indulgence.

While “Friday’s Child” never entered the realm of singles, its relevance endures through impassioned live performances, particularly a standout 2005 rendition in London that still circulates on video platforms.

The album itself rode high on commercial success, clinching the top spot on the UK Albums Chart and securing 5× Platinum certification, a feat few “reality show” alumni accomplish without being pigeonholed by their origins.

Tracks like “Leave Right Now” and “Your Game” may have carried the album’s public-facing momentum, but “Friday’s Child” quietly anchors the record, offering a reflective break from chart-chasing formulas.

If this song proves anything, it’s that Young’s artistry thrives not in loud declarations but in subdued, well-crafted intricacies capable of cutting through pop cynicism.

Featured on the 2003 album “Friday’s Child”.

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3 . Bubba Sparxxx – Ugly

Released in 2001 as part of the debut album “Dark Days, Bright Nights,” Bubba Sparxxx’s “Ugly” doesn’t shy away from showcasing a fusion of Southern grit and Timbaland’s unmistakably edgy production style.

This track features a bold instrumental approach, intertwining hip-hop beats with banjos to underline its country rap identity, a style that some would argue still feels novel over two decades later.

The song owes part of its infectious groove to Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On,” which is sampled with sly precision, while Tweet’s uncredited backing vocals add subtle layers to its texture.

The accompanying music video, directed by Marc Klasfeld, is a chaotic yet oddly coherent portrayal of rural Athens, Georgia, with Bubba Sparxxx stomping around in muddy fields and ramshackle barns, leaning heavily into Southern tropes without apology.

On the charts, it performed strongly, peaking at 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and infiltrating various international markets, demonstrating its broad appeal despite—or perhaps because of—its unapologetic regional flavor.

The track had enough momentum to claim space on MTV’s heavy rotation, where its erratic juxtaposition of rural imagery and hip-hop swagger managed to provide a spectacle that felt both awkward and inspired.

“Ugly” straddles the line between parody and homage to Southern culture, leaving listeners unsure if they’re meant to laugh, nod in agreement, or both, which might just be its most compelling quality.

Featured on the 2001 album “Dark Days, Bright Nights”.

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4 . Erasure – Solsbury Hill

Erasure’s rendition of “Solsbury Hill” takes Peter Gabriel’s introspective folk-rock anthem and threads it through the duo’s skillful synth-pop machinery.

Released as part of their 2003 album “Other People’s Songs”—a project devoted to reimagining others’ musical legacies—the track bears the familiar fingerprints of Vince Clarke and Andy Bell, whose electronic wizardry is marked by polished beats and crisp melodies.

Here, the time signature is transformed from Gabriel’s unconventional 7/4 to a more danceable 4/4, except for one fleeting vestige of the original, delicately retained in the chorus.

Gabriel’s tale of spiritual awakening post-Genesis ascension takes on an oddly buoyant air in Erasure’s hands, as if the epiphany occurred under strobe lights rather than atop a windswept hill.

Charting respectably in the UK at No. 10 and receiving modest accolades across Europe, this version swaps introspection for exuberance, a move both daring and divisive.

The accompanying video, directed by Clarke with input from the band, pairs surreal visual storytelling with cheeky animation, though it struggles to match the emotional resonance of its source material.

Still, Erasure’s effort is more than a cover; it’s an affectionate negotiation between reverence and reinvention, even if it occasionally teeters on eroding the gravity of Gabriel’s iconic work.

Love it or leave it, their take on “Solsbury Hill” provides an intriguing juxtaposition of solemnity and synthesized euphoria.

Featured on the 2003 album “Other People’s Songs”.

Lyrics >> More by the same : Official Site

5 . Wiley – Cash In My Pocket (w/ Daniel Merriweather)

Wiley’s “Cash In My Pocket” featuring Daniel Merriweather steps into the pop-rap arena with a sprinkle of 2008 recession cynicism, wrapped in a glossy Mark Ronson production.

For some, it’s witty commentary on payday desperation; for others, it’s a commercial detour that alienated grime loyalists, with Wiley himself dismissing the track as too polished for his liking.

Its debut at #18 on the UK Singles Chart signaled some early traction, but the track struggled to maintain momentum, sliding out of the top 40 just weeks later.

The accompanying video, which substitutes Wiley and Merriweather for office drones miming lyrics, feels like a quirky budget decision rather than an inspired creative choice.

Critics had a field day dissecting the track’s identity crisis—some praised its catchy hooks, while others balked at Merriweather’s vocal tone disrupting the song’s intended swagger.

Released under Asylum Records, Wiley’s frustration with his handlers is palpable, as he blamed them for leaning too heavily into mainstream appeal at the cost of authenticity.

It’s a track that’s as divisive as the economic climate in which it emerged, a synthetic blend of humor and pop accessibility that left neither die-hard fans nor its creator fully satisfied.

Featured on the 2008 album “See Clear Now”.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Wikipedia

6 . Interpol – Evil

“Evil,” a track from Interpol’s 2004 album *Antics,* condenses the band’s post-punk revival essence into three minutes and thirty-five seconds of taut basslines, serrated guitar work, and cryptic lyricism.

Released in 2005 as its second single, it achieved notable positions like No. 18 on the UK Singles Chart and managed an impressive foothold on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks at No. 24—handily showcasing its cross-Atlantic appeal.

The song’s accompanying video, both surreal and unsettling, features a puppet—dubbed “Norman” by fans—that appears to emerge from a fever dream.

Directed by Charlie White, it walks the line between eerie absurdity and art-house audacity, earning divisive reactions and a strange immortality as No. 25 on Yahoo!’s “Top 25 Scariest Videos.”

Rumors linking “Evil” to British serial killers Fred and Rosemary West have long been discredited by the band, leaving one to ponder the song as a stark example of tension between macabre narrative speculation and sonic craftsmanship.

What lingers most is its hypnotic rhythm, unsettling themes, and a puppet whose haunting presence refuses to be forgotten.

Featured on the 2004 album “Antics“.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

7 . The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1

“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1” occupies a curious space between existential reflection and retro-futuristic absurdity.

Released in 2002 as part of The Flaming Lips’ tenth album, this track merges shimmering electronic textures with a deceptively light acoustic arrangement, crafting a surreal battle anthem with a beating heart.

Wayne Coyne’s warbly vocals narrate the plight of Yoshimi, a brave Japanese girl, against malicious pink robots, echoing themes of mortality and resilience cloaked in pop eccentricity.

The sound, a blend of programmed beats and organic elements, thrives in its contradictions, reflective of the band’s genre-fluid identity.

The production, spearheaded by Dave Fridmann alongside the band, lends the track a polished yet offbeat charm, balancing warmth with digital crispness.

Despite being far from a commercial juggernaut, the song found its way into live performances, complete with theatrical visuals, often nurturing interactive moments with audiences.

Airing between whimsy and melancholia, it reflects an album embracing the tender and the bizarre, bolstered by critical acclaim, including a Grammy win for the instrumental blend found on the broader record.

The track, like its titular character, quietly perseveres, defying its strange premise to become an anthem of cosmic questioning and understated hope.

Featured on the 2002 album “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots“.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

8 . Red Hot Chili Peppers – Fortune Faded

“Fortune Faded” takes its place in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ catalog as an intriguing crossroads between their polished studio work and the raw energy of their live performances.

Originally shelved during the “By the Way” sessions, the band’s dissatisfaction with the initial recording led to a rework for the 2003 “Greatest Hits” album, signaling a peculiar relationship with their own material.

The final version, produced by Rick Rubin, is an airy blend of funk rock grooves and wistful lyrics, riding the tension between optimism and disillusionment.

Despite its commercial success, including charting at number one on Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, the song eludes the anthemic qualities of the band’s more celebrated hits, leaning instead on subtler, melancholic charm.

The accompanying video, directed by Mark Romanek, juxtaposes the band’s charisma with a canvas of surreal and fragmented imagery—simultaneously engaging and opaque.

Live renditions, like their Reading Festival set, present the song as a mutable piece, allowing Anthony Kiedis’ vocal inflections to play off Flea’s basslines with a looseness that studio perfection lacks.

Its B-sides, “Eskimo” and “Bunker Hill,” underscore the session’s experimental undercurrent but remain curiosities, enriching but not redefining the release.

Functioning as a bridge between eras, “Fortune Faded” glimpses the band’s restless creativity at a point when they could still surprise themselves, if not always their audience.

Featured on the 2003 album “Greatest Hits”.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

9 . David Bowie – Lazarus

“Lazarus” emerges as David Bowie’s swan song, released just days before his untimely passing; it feels less like a pop single and more like a poignant farewell note scribbled in ambient rock textures.

The track flirts with experimental elements, employing sparse saxophones and haunting vocals that unfold like a slow-motion descent through existential quicksand.

Its themes—death, resurrection, legacy—aren’t just autobiographical but unapologetically theatrical, a hallmark of Bowie’s sly genius, blending the lines between performer and parting gift.

Written for his own Off-Broadway musical of the same name, the song doubles as a reflection on Newton, the alien anti-hero from *The Man Who Fell to Earth*, and Bowie, the mortal helmsman reckoning with the void.

The accompanying music video refuses to hold your hand; blink, and you might miss its unsettling imagery—a blindfold here, a hospital bed there—turning every frame into a morbid puzzle you’d rather not solve but can’t look away from.

Johan Renck’s direction presses uncomfortably close to Bowie’s own mortality, presenting a performance so raw it feels stolen from a deathbed diary rather than a storyboard.

Critics were right to pile acclaim onto this elegy, though the metrics of Billboard charts and Spotify streams feel laughably irrelevant next to its artistic weight.

If it missed a Grammy nod, it’s only because sometimes a piece transcends the ceremony altogether, standing instead as a spooky monolith at the edge of the cultural psyche.

Bowie’s parting shot might have been dressed in rock’s vestments, but its heart beats as something far richer, eerier, and utterly unclassifiable.

Featured on the 2015 album “Blackstar“.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

10 . The Fray – You Found Me

“You Found Me” arrives as a moody, searching anthem from The Fray, a band often pegged as purveyors of emotional vulnerability wrapped in radio-ready polish.

Released on November 21, 2008, as the flagship single for their self-titled second album, the track captures a sense of existential frustration—imagine a conversation with some elusive, higher power where answers aren’t just unsatisfactory but almost mocking in their elusiveness.

Isaac Slade’s wavering voice carries the weight of the lyrics, which came from a place of personal pain and loss, making every syllable feel like it’s reaching into some stark void for meaning.

Musically, the song leans heavily on piano-driven melodies and anthemic crescendos, polished to a pristine gleam under Aaron Johnson and Mike Flynn’s production skills—slick enough for mainstream rotations but loaded with enough gravitas to avoid slipping into mere sentimentality.

Notably, its initial debut doubled as a marketing coup—a backdrop for promos of TV juggernaut “Lost,” which proves fitting since both concern themselves with themes of disconnection and searching for answers that never fully materialize.

Despite peaking impressively at No. 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100, the song’s cultural depth was often overlooked, reduced to background noise in Starbucks queues and introspective montages on CW dramas like “The Vampire Diaries.”

Certified double platinum by the RIAA in 2009, it remains commercially robust, bolstered by 3.6 million downloads in the U.S. by January 2015, while thriving on stations specializing in Adult Top 40 balladry—a format it dominates effortlessly.

Josh Forbes’s black-and-white video interpretation is a visual meditation on urban loneliness, threading together stark imagery with the band’s plaintive performance. This, combined with live renditions rebranded as “Amistad,” underscores the song’s ability to reboot itself for different contexts without losing its cathartic pull.

Though far from revolutionary, the track stakes its claim in that liminal space between self-pity and a yearning for greater significance, standing tall as a radio-friendly cry for answers in a world frustratingly void of clarity.

If “You Found Me” had feet, they’d be planted firmly on a cracked sidewalk, staring at an overcast sky—not quite hopeless but far from resolved.

Featured on the 2009 album “The Fray”.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

11 . R.E.M. – Animal

“Animal” by R.E.M. arrives as a curious addition to their compilation album “In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003,” proving that even a greatest hits setup can hold some fresh surprises.

The track, accompanied by another new recording, “Bad Day,” feels like a side glance at their repertoire rather than a mission statement—an introspective alternative rock piece that flirts with lyrical ambiguity and understated energy.

Released in 2004, “Animal” didn’t roar up the charts, landing at modest positions like 20 in Italy and 33 in the UK Singles ranking—hardly groundbreaking but respectable for a song packaged alongside decades of career-defining tracks.

Pat McCarthy, a longtime ally of the band, is at the production helm, ensuring the song stays within R.E.M.’s sonic world—a blend of layered instrumentation and Michael Stipe’s distinctively reflective vocal delivery.

The accompanying video leans into metaphor with a solar eclipse motif, a clever if slightly self-conscious visualization of energy and transformation.

Conceptually, the track wrestles with themes of inner existence and change, encapsulating the band’s knack for coupling intimacy with abstraction.

Of course, “Animal” doesn’t bite too hard; it’s not a standout moment of reinvention but rather a comfortable show of form from a band deeply entrenched in their identity.

Whether live or recorded, it carries that unmistakable R.E.M. tension: caught between poetic thoughtfulness and rhythmic ease.

Neither a towering achievement nor a throwaway, “Animal” quietly reinforces R.E.M.’s ability to make even their smaller moments feel like deliberate chapters in a wider creative story.

Featured on the 2003 album “In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003”.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Official Site

12 . HIM – The Funeral of Hearts

Released in 2003, HIM’s “The Funeral of Hearts” stands as the melancholic centerpiece of their album *Love Metal*, sealing its place in gothic rock history.

Its success is as cold and sharp as a Nordic winter, with the track reaching #1 in Finland and dominating charts across Austria, Germany, and the UK—an expansive footprint for a track so rooted in emotional despair.

Sonically, the song splits the difference between hard rock edge and gothic metal introspection, with Ville Valo’s smoky baritone draped over haunting melodies that ache with the torment of romantic decay.

The visual counterpart, directed by Stefan Lindfors and filmed in Umeå, Sweden, transforms the band into spectral storytellers amidst snow-laden landscapes, complete with mythical beasts and a chilling Lapland atmosphere that practically seeps frost onto the viewer’s screen.

The video’s acclaim was deserved, earning a Kerrang Award for Best Video in 2004, and for good reason: it is both cinematic and profoundly eerie, breathing life into the song’s message of love as a simultaneous gift and curse.

HIM doesn’t hold back creatively either; the song exists in several forms, including an acoustic version for the tender-hearted, a supernatural remix pulling it into Lovecraftian terrain, and even a dub mix that feels like a punchline for a track so desperately sorrowful.

Lyrically, it explores the exquisite agony of love’s contradictions—where devotion becomes a funeral and intimacy lays its own tombstones.

The band often closes their live sets with this dirge-anthem, a fitting farewell drenched in distorted guitars and the bittersweet ache that underscores their self-styled “love metal” ethos.

It’s no wonder the track resonates as one of HIM’s defining moments without pandering to commercial formulas or trends—its moody grandeur speaks for itself without fanfare.

Featured on the 2003 album “Love Metal”.

Lyrics >> Review >> More by the same : Wikipedia