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. Here’s the proof: The videos below — the most popular clips on the site so far this year — have amassed tens of thousands of views. And there’s plenty more where they came from: Just click the Video Premiere and Sponsored tags at the bottom of the page to see tons of others clips that have debuted and screened here. Now, on to the countdown:
1 | Justin Kawika Young | Still Can’t Get Used To The End
Justin Kawika Young reflects on the loss of a great love on his soaring and graceful single and video Still Can’t Used To The End. A bittersweet and beautiful pop ballad that exudes the pain and loss of the last few years, Still Can’t Used To The End offers a fitting preview of the Hawaiian-born singer-songwriter’s upcoming album Back To The Blue — a collection of songs that reflect back on the incredible highs and lows of his past and very emotional recent life experiences.
2 | 3D The Boss | Heaven and Paradise
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Atlanta pop/R&B trio 3D The Boss explored the essence of true love and vulnerability in their video Heaven and Paradise. Taken from 3D The Boss’s award-winning album Push It, this single finds the group singing “My heaven and paradise is with you” over a soulful, harmonized R&B groove. The members of 3D The Boss are all trained musicians and professional wellness coaches serving musicians and other creatives, with each bandmate bringing a wealth of wisdom and skill to the table.
3 | Johnny Dowd | Call Me The Wind
Johnny Dowd breezes through a darkly surreal dreamscape in the animated video for Call Me The Wind. A single from the twisted roots troubadour’s recently released album Homemade Pie, Call Me The Wind is a slowly swirling, sinisterly romantic duet between Dowd’s grim dried hickory pipes and bandmate Kim Sherwood-Caso’s angelic croon. “You can call me the wind,“ she offers. His disturbing promise: “I’ll be creeping through the pines. I’ll be one step over the line … It’s all or nothing at all.”
4 | 1st Base Runner | Near Me
1st Base Runner takes a trip without leaving his chair in his psychedelic video for Near Me. The new single comes from the Austin singer-songwriter and producer’s sophomore EP Ellis. Directed by Ellis Bahl and Johnny Chew, the video captures 1st Base Runner’s inner world at its most surreal, psychedelic, dream-like and dangerous. Rich with hallucinatory symbolism and harrowing archetypes, this visionary music video successfully merges the worlds of Bates Motel and Alice in Wonderland.
https://youtu.be/7MtHIXf8gHU
5 | Norine Braun | The Burning
Norine Braun turns up the heat in her compelling video for The Burning. The first preview of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s upcoming 13th album Songs For Trees, The Burning was truly a trial by fire. Written during the ongoing pandemic and while a heat dome and heat wave ravaged Braun’s British Columbia homeland, the powerfully heavy yet irresistibly flowing cut was recorded during the searing, out-of-control wildfires that devastated the province. Inspired by the need to save the ancient trees and to live sustainably — and using Dante’s Inferno and his descent through hell as inspiration for her potent lyrics — Braun ponders the times we are living in and takes you on journey through the forest filled with joy, wonder and movement.
6 | Opal Canyon | Come Ashore
Opal Canyon offer safe harbour to love in their video for the comforting single Come Ashore. The first preview of the band’s sophomore album Tomorrow To The Sea, the lofty and lilting Come Ashore is a song of hope and endurance borne from struggle and strife. It shares a sense of eternal optimism for those that choose to embrace it. That’s evident in its uplifting lyric: “Hope lives out on the ocean, sometimes it comes to shore. Like the spotlight on the singer, and a lover through the door. Let me be the light, let me be the oar. Let me be the calm in the storm. Be the light.”
7 | Li’l Andy | I See Jesus Comin’ Down The Road
Li’l Andy introduces us to the immortal sounds of enigmatic roots-music pioneer Hezekiah Procter with his old-timey single and video I See Jesus Comin’ Down The Road. A scratchy-sounding side of vintage gospel-blues captured on a wire recorder and rendered on fiddle, banjo and four-string tenor guitar, I See Jesus Comin’ Down The Road has all the hallmarks of a long-lost cut pulled from the venerated vaults of Paramount, Vocalion or Okeh Records. And the mysterious Procter — a cantankerous, talented, self-destructive and possibly homicidal medicine-show singer who is now the subject of a box-set anthology and companion memoir — could easily be the musical discovery of a generation. Except he never existed. “He’s a completely fictional country musician that formed in my head over the past 10 years,” reveals Montreal singer-songwriter Li’l Andy.
8 | Tone Of Voice Orchestra | He Loves Her For It
Tone Of Voice Orchestra put you under their spell with the video for their uniquely irresistible single He Loves Her For It. Boasting a primal shamanic groove, a potently propulsive sax and a vocal hook belted out by four strong female vocalists, He Loves Her For It — an instantly addictive yet strangely sweet portrait of sexual dominance and submission — showcases the essential elements of the Danish ensemble, a 10-piece powerhouse of a band with an unconventional instrumentation and a genre-fluid approach to songwriting.
9 | Johnny Dowd | Silk Scarf
Johnny Dowd sells you with a Silk Scarf for Valentine’s Day with his single and video. Never one for half-measures, the eccentric troubadour delivers a dark treat for lovers and loners everywhere in this cut from his latest album Homemade Pie. Because what could be more seductive than a slow blues shuffle that begins with the words “You don’t love me anymore,” before moving on to the desperately misguided proclamation: “I love you more than I love my mother.” More romantic than roses, sexier than chocolate, cheaper than a Ferrari.
10 | I Am The Mountain | Overthinking Conversations
I Am The Mountain go through some momentous changes over the epic course of their magnificent single and video Overthinking Conversations. Clocking in at over eight minutes, the Calgary sextet’s ambitious track is far from your typical indie-rock offering. After kicking off as a tender emotional ballad, the expansive musical triptych busts open into a blisteringly heavy and propulsive middle section before downshifting into a full orchestral reprise that closes the cut. Clearly, they put a lot of thought into it — which is sort of the whole point.
