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 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 | 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.
2 | 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
3 | 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.
4 | Of Limbo | Let’s Go
Of Limbo put the pedal to the metal with their hard-driving, headbanging new single and video Let’s Go. Fuelled by a groovy guitar riff hailing straight from the stoner-rock desert, a stop-start arrangement with more twists and turns than a sack of pretzels, and a lung-busting chorus that’s every bit as urgent and insistent as a frat boy rading to the bar before last call, Let’s Go is 2:22 of high-octane lunacy that blasts off the line like a nitro-burning funny car and never looks back.
5 | A Short Walk To Pluto | You Are Not The Only One
A Short Walk To Pluto consider the possibilities in their electrifying new single and vibrant video You Are Not The Only One. Kicking off with thunderous percussion and a catchy guitar riff, You Are Not The Only One is a shot of adrenaline to the ears, along with a cerebral commentary on the importance of emotional fulfillment between partners. The song is told from a first-person perspective to capture the hardship and vulnerability of starting difficult but necessary conversations in a relationship that isn’t fulfilling for all parties. The storyteller in the song is begging their partner to show passion, determination, and commitment.
6 | Roberta Battaglia | Truce
Roberta Battaglia waves the white flag in her poignant new ballad and video Truce. Even though it can be hard to let go, it’s often the mature decision to end something that’s not working rather than to keep forcing it forward, even if that something is just a fight. That’s the message of Truce, the soaring first single from wise-beyond-her-years America’s Got Talent finalist Battaglia.
7 | 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.”
8 | Vivian Bryce Jones | Pomegranate Heart
Vivian Bryce Jones slices open her Pomegranate Heart for you in her hauntingly romantic debut single and animated lyric video. The first preview of the Vermont singer-songwriter’s upcoming LP Something To Complain About, Pomegranate Heart offers a tender slice of textured, dreamy — and vaguely disturbing — indie-rock seduction and obsession. Lush vocal harmonies and elegantly floating piano melodies open the track as Jones sweetly promises to “bleed your favourite flavours” and “taste the way you crave” — before bursting open into a potent mix of trippy distorted guitars and big drums as Jones pointedly croons “I know that I’m just something sweet, to satiate your constant bloody teeth.” Say no at your own peril.
9 | 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 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.
10 | Grant Boyer | Album Bells (Never Drinking Again)
Grant Boyer captures all the joys of a pounding hangover on his latest single Alarm Bells (Never Drinking Again). Inspired by ’90s bands like Nirvana and Weezer (and infused with the fun, kitschy brattiness of Wheatus and Ugly Kid Joe), Alarm Bells is a wild romp through the morning after the night before: “My head is pounding and I woke up on the floor / Alarm bells are sounding and my landlord’s at the door / Drank all the rent again / Drunk dialed my girlfriend / Now she’s not my girlfriend anymore.” “I just wanted to make a fun and relatable song that hopefully makes people laugh,” Boyer says. “I think most people can relate to the struggle to not drink anymore.”
