The Most Iconic Music Videos of All Time
Rolling Stone's 2021 hundred greatest music videos leaves Thriller off the page, so treat the iconic canon as unsettled and rank this one yourself. What qualifies is what this rests on rather than the sequence, and a video has to be a promotional clip made for one commercially released song, uploaded by the artist, the artist's Vevo or the label holding the master, which cuts live performances, lyric videos, third-party remaster channels and album-length films. Then three of five published all-time rankings have to carry it, one per masthead: Rolling Stone, Slant, NME, Time Out and Collider, with every entry printing its own denominator. Four mastheads or five makes the upper tier, whatever else qualifying makes the second, and the vote arranges each. Ten of the nineteen here are from the 1990s and 2018 is the newest year on the roster. Publication dates explain only part of that: four of these ran between 2011 and 2022 and the fifth prints no date, so no 2020s video reaches two mastheads, and only two videos from the 2010s reach three.
Beastie Boys — Sabotage (1994) is #1 on “The Most Iconic Music Videos of All Time”.
- 1
Beastie Boys — Sabotage (1994)
Spike Jonze shot it as the opening titles of a 1970s cop show that never existed, somewhere between Starsky and Hutch and Hawaii Five-O. The fake character credits carry the joke: Nathan Wind as Cochese, Vic Colfari as Bobby the Rookie, Alasondro Alegré as the Chief. Sabotage is on all five of the mastheads counted, and all five were eligible.
- 2
Nine Inch Nails — Closer (1994)
Mark Romanek built a decaying laboratory out of nineteenth-century medical illustration: a beating heart wired to a device, a severed pig's head spinning on a machine, a monkey tied to a cross. MTV ran a censored version instead, dropping title cards that read Scene Missing over the gaps, so the official upload, labelled Director's Cut, is the fuller one. Closer is on all five of the mastheads counted, with all five eligible.
- 3
Peter Gabriel — Sledgehammer (1986)
Stephen R. Johnson shot it over a hundred hours, because Gabriel had to hold twenty-five different positions for every second that reached the screen. Clouds moving across his face were painted on frame by frame. The finale rotates a crowd of extras around him, his daughters Anna-Marie and Melanie and the animators among them, and it won a record nine VMAs in 1987. Sledgehammer is on four of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 4
Missy Elliott — The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) (1997)
Hype Williams put Missy Elliott in a patent leather blow up outfit, the inflated trash bag suit, and shot her in it through a fisheye lens. Ron Norsworthy designed it. Timbaland, Lil' Kim, Da Brat and Sean Combs all appear in cameos. The Rain is on four of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 5
Johnny Cash — Hurt (2003)
The House of Cash museum in Hendersonville, Tennessee had been shut for years when Mark Romanek filmed Cash inside it, in what he called "such a state of dereliction". Around Cash sit fruit and flowers in various states of decay, staged like a vanitas painting. Hurt is on four of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 6
Nirvana — Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
Samuel Bayer staged a high school pep rally that comes apart: apathetic students on the bleachers, cheerleaders wearing black dresses with the Circle-A anarchist symbol, a janitor played by Tony De La Rosa dancing with a push broom handle. By the end the students have wrecked the set and the band's gear. Smells Like Teen Spirit is on four of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 7
Michael Jackson — Thriller (1983)
John Landis directed it as a horror film built around one song and not an album, which is the distinction the scope rule turns on. Jackson warns his date that he is not like other guys, then turns into a werecat. Later they pass a graveyard where zombies rise from their graves. Rolling Stone's 2021 hundred leaves it out, which puts Thriller on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 8
a-ha — Take On Me (1985)
Steve Barron shot the live action at Kim's cafe on Wandsworth Road in south London, then had roughly three thousand frames traced by hand over sixteen weeks into a montage of pencil drawings in a comic-book style. A woman reading a comic gets pulled into the page by the hero drawn on it. Take On Me is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 9
Madonna — Like a Prayer (1989)
Mary Lambert sent Madonna into a church after she witnesses an assault in the street, where she finds a caged statue of a saint with the face of the man she saw. Inside, a choir surrounds her. Outside she dances in front of burning crosses. Like a Prayer is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 10
Michael Jackson — Billie Jean (1983)
Walking down a pavement where each tile lights up at his touch, then up a hotel staircase that does the same. A photographer trails him the whole way and never gets the shot: the prints come back with nobody in them. Steve Barron directed it two years before Take On Me. Billie Jean is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible to include it.
- 11
The Smashing Pumpkins — Tonight, Tonight (1996)
The concept came off the Mellon Collie cover, and the Moon the couple climb toward has a face copied straight from A Trip to the Moon. They board a zeppelin held to the ground by people dressed as sailors, which shows how much of MTV's Video of the Year was built rather than drawn. Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton co-directed. Tonight, Tonight is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 12
Radiohead — Karma Police (1997)
Jonathan Glazer put the camera in a car chasing a man down a dark road, with Thom Yorke in the back seat saying nothing. The man drops to his knees, the car reverses, and the trail of leaking fuel becomes visible. He takes out a match and lights it. Yorke is gone and the car is burning. Karma Police is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 13
The Verve — Bitter Sweet Symphony (1997)
Walter Stern gave Richard Ashcroft one long walk down a crowded London pavement, bumping into passersby and never breaking stride or looking up. His bandmates fall in behind him near the end and they walk off into the distance. Bitter Sweet Symphony is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 14
Weezer — Buddy Holly (1994)
Filmed in a single day at Charlie Chaplin Studios by Spike Jonze, with the band cut into footage from Happy Days until the two look like one broadcast. Al Molinaro in character as Al Delvecchio introduces them as Kenosha, Wisconsin's own Weezer. Drummer Pat Wilson says there are no computer graphics in it, just camerawork and editing. Buddy Holly is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 15
UNKLE — Rabbit in Your Headlights (1998)
Denis Lavant walks along a road inside a tunnel for Jonathan Glazer, muttering, and cars hit him one after another. He gets up each time. Eventually he takes off his coat and carries on shirtless until a car strikes him at speed, and he stands with his arms outstretched as smoke swallows the shot. Rabbit in Your Headlights is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 16
Sinéad O'Connor — Nothing Compares 2 U (1990)
Twice, in the middle and again at the very end, John Maybury cuts away to a shot from O'Connor's photo session for the I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got sleeve, so the record's cover appears inside the video. Between those inserts it is her shaved head and a walk through a Paris park, and it took MTV's Video of the Year. Nothing Compares 2 U is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 17
Beyoncé — Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (2008)
Beyoncé's cheapest and quickest video to that point, shot by Jake Nava with no change of hairstyle, costume or set. Ebony Williams and Ashley Everett dancing with her, inside an infinity cove alternating black and white. J-Setting choreography by Frank Gatson Jr. and JaQuel Knight. The upload adds Video Version to the song's common name, and a year later it took MTV's Video of the Year. Single Ladies is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 18
Lady Gaga — Telephone (2010)
Jonas Åkerlund opens on a women's prison where two guards put Gaga behind bars and the other inmates mock her. Wearing sunglasses made of half-smoked cigarettes, she kisses an inmate in the exercise yard and lifts her phone. Later, in the Pussy Wagon with Beyoncé, she poisons a diner full of customers. Telephone is on three of the five mastheads counted, all five eligible.
- 19
Childish Gambino — This Is America (2018)
Hiro Murai keeps the camera moving through a warehouse while Donald Glover dances viral steps in the foreground and the scene behind him falls apart. Fifty-three seconds in he raises a handgun and shoots a man in the back of his head. Later he picks up a Kalashnikov patterned rifle and guns down a church choir. This Is America clears three mastheads, and only four were eligible to name it: NME's list ran in 2011.
How this list was ranked
Readers rank this list by voting items up and down. Items are ordered by reader votes.
