I have said it before. I am saying it again: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from running this site, it’s that people love music videos. And here’s the proof: The 10 videos below — the most popular clips on the site this year — have amassed nearly 20,000 views since they all premiered exclusively on Tinnitist. There’s plenty more where they came from. Just click the Video Premiere tag at the bottom of the page to see dozens more clips that debuted in these pages. And keep watching: I’m always lining up more exclusives! Now, on with the countdown:
1 | How To Make People Like You | Wonderwall
Today is gonna be the day that How To Make People Like You celebrate the success of their awesome animated video for their cover of the Oasis classic Wonderwall — Tinnitist’s most-viewed video of 2019. The quirky Toronto pop trio’s clip is an ambitious offering, drastically revamping the Britpop landmark into an avant-garde “Trashcan Orchestral” ballad, then illustrating it with eye-popping animation that delivers a dramatic visual statement about war, loss and remembrance. Fittingly enough, the road the band had to walk to get here was winding. “I did an an arrangement of Wonderwall a few years ago for a female singer,” explains HTMPLY songwriter and producer Ryan Luchuck. “When the How To Make People Like You thing started, we were looking for a cover that we could really put our stamp on. We decided to try taking the traditional orchestral sound and overlay our raw trashcan noisyness. It worked pretty well.” You think?
2 | Midnight Shine | Heart of Gold
Indigenous rockers Midnight Shine bring a timely new sound to a timeless classic with their cover of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold. The single from the band’s third album High Road honours the heart and soul of the original folk-rock standard while taking it in a distinctly different direction by incorporating wailing vocals, a tom tom-heavy backbeat, slide guitar in the bridge and a verse sung in Mushkegowuk Cree.
3 | Halie Loren | Noah
Halie Loren is awash in a sea of emotion on her video for Noah. “Noah was sparked into being after the death of someone I knew, and it was associated specifically with that person’s memory for me at first,” says the Alaska-born jazz artist. “But as the song became more fleshed out, I started to see it as containing a more universal story involving the literal and metaphorical washing away of a world, which is something that everyone experiences in some way.”
4 | Leanne Pearson | Hot Pursuit
Crime pays for Leanne Pearson in the action-packed video for her single Hot Pursuit. Combining a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde-meets-Smoky and the Bandit tale of pistol-packing highway robbery with performance footage of Pearson and an all-female band, the clip makes it clear the Winnipeg country-rock queen takes a backseat to no one.
5 | Dany Laj & The Looks | Annie
Dany Laj & The Looks deliver a wake-up call to the queen of the underground in their single Annie. Taken from the Montreal-based band’s latest album Everything is New Again — cut in New York City with Matt Verta-Ray producing — the power-pop nugget is presented here in both English and French, and loses none of its punch and potency in the translation.
6 | Jessica Rhaye & The Ramshackle Parade | Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
Jessica Rhaye & The Ramshackle Parade give Bob Dylan’s Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands a makeover in the second single off the New Brunswick band’s Sept. 20 tribute album Just Like A Woman: Songs of Bob Dylan,. Their cover converts the cut from an epic rambling waltz to a leaner, poppier ballad. Not bad for someone who didn’t even know it was a Dylan song at first. “I first heard Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands covered by Joan Baez from her 1968 album Any Day Now,” Rhaye recalls. “I was just a kid and my dad would play it in the old family station wagon. In fact, I didn’t even realize it was Dylan’s song, I just associated it as being Joan Baez’s.”
7 | Jerry Leger | Canvas of Gold
Jerry Leger paints his dreams onto a distant Canvas of Gold in the opening track from the acclaimed Toronto singer-songwriter’s well-received Nov. 8 album Time Out For Tomorrow. Canvas of Gold’s world-weary country-rock weaves its magic to minimalist visuals reminiscent of The Replacements’ classic anti-videos from the ’80s.
8 | Pterodactyl Problems | Paresthesia
Pterodactyl Problems will have you on pins and needles with their video for Paresthesia. Written and directed by the Toronto alt-rock outfit’s frontman Davey White, the cinematic clip follows a troubled young woman fighting for her life after being trapped in a world where danger seemingly lurks around every corner — and her own dark, downwardly spiralling impulses may be her only real enemy as she struggles to find her path to escape and recovery.
9 | Kevin Breit | Stella Bella Strada
Kevin Breit dishes up a tasty Italian appetizer from his latest album with the single and video Stella Bella Strada. The instrumental title cut to the guitar master’s May 31 release, Stella Bella Strada loosely translates to “beautiful star of the road” — an apt handle for the video’s co-star: Breit’s stylish new guitar built by master luthier Joseph Yanuziello.
10 | Sultans of String | I Am A Refugee
Sultans of String welcome Somali artist Ifrah Mansour with open arms in their video for I Am A Refugee. The gorgeous and heart-gripping collaboration with the esteemed poet, multimedia artist, and refugee is part of the Juno-nominated world music collective’s ambitious seventh album Refuge. Set for release in spring 2020, the historic album spotlights talents that have come to Canada and the U.S. as immigrants and refugees.
