BAMM Rundown: 5 Best Animated Music Videos

No matter how visually exciting a band or artist may be, sometimes sticking to the ‘real world’ can put something of a limit on creative imagination. Sculpting a whole new universe from scratch has always been one of the imperatives for any good animator: be they the 1920s pioneers who knocked together those first flickering Disney cartoons, or the computer whiz-kids who sculpt the next Pixar masterpiece.

What happens when this animated wonderland is combined with the world of music? Great, great things – as our rundown of the five best animated music videos will attest …

5. The White Stripes – ‘Fell In Love With A Girl’

Superstar director Michel Gondry combines two of the greatest inventions of the latter half of the 20th century – lego and rock ‘n’ roll – into this whirlwind high-octane blast.

4. Dire Straits – ‘Money For Nothing’

Okay, okay, so the music itself may sound like the kind of thing your parents used to play on the car stereo, but no-one can deny the innovation of this video. In the mid-80s such computer animation was as incredible as flying to Venus on a robot eagle.

3. Radiohead – ‘Paranoid Android’

How best to translate the paranoid netherworld inside Thom Yorke’s head into an animated nightmare? Like this.

2. Peter Gabriel – ‘Sledgehammer’

One of those rare instances in which the viewer can be impressed by the technical profiency of a production, while also become swept away in the fact that the video itself is a three-minute odyssey of pure joy.

1. A-ha – ‘Take On Me’

Smartly taking on a timeless element (pulp comic book artwork) to ensure that its aesthetic will never date, this still remains a jaw-dropping experience from start to finish.

BAMM.tv and Flingo – a great new partnership!

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Here’s some awesome news: BAMM.tv is excited to announce a great partnership with Flingo. If you have a smart TV, there’s a good chance Flingo—the leading app publisher for smart TVs—is either on it or will be on it very soon. This partnership means the same can be said for BAMM.tv. We’re talking 7.8 million screens in 118 countries featuring the killer emerging artists we’ve had the pleasure to work with. How cool is that?

Don’t get it wrong: everybody here at BAMM watches videos on the laptop at work, on our tablets, or on our phones, but performance videos, band docs, and episodic content — projects we’ve had a blast shooting, editing, and producing — are a real treat while sitting on a couch with your feet up. Most importantly, this partnership means more people — millions more — will be able to discover the emerging artists we love.

Our partnership with Flingo is the latest in a slew of platforms on which BAMM.tv content is currently available, including Samsung phones and tablets (Bada and Android), Chunghwa Telecom, Select TV, and more (click here for complete partner list), meaning all the artists on BAMM.tv are reaching over 10 million smartphone and feature phone users in Asia, Europe, and Latin America (150 countries in total). And in case you didn’t already know, we’re working hard on an awesome BAMM.tv iPad app – due out in the next few months. Trust us: this is something really special, and you’re going to be amazed when you see it.

Thank you for all your continued support. It’s always great to give you—our earliest of adopters—some good news. Check back soon for the iPad app, and if you’re new to BAMM.tv, make sure to check out our “about” page.

Prepare For The Grammys With This New App

Regardless of how you perceive the Grammy Awards – either as an exciting musical showcase or a bloated embodiment of the old-school music business – you can’t deny that it’s a pivotal event on the industry calendar. It also seems that some of the more … ahem … ‘traditional’ head honchos within the biz have finally latched onto the notion that this whole ‘digital thing’ might not be going away any time soon.

Step forward, then, Grammy Live – a new app to accompany the 54th Grammy Awards. There’ll be three days of live events and interactive goodies leading up to the night itself (this Sunday, Feb 10th). So if you’re hoping to a) spot some of your favorite superstar artists, or b) complain how lame certain superstar artists are, this iOS gateway will provide you with the opportunities you need …

BAMM Legends: Mazzy Star

In our series of predictions for 2012, we quite feasibly announced that the ever-growing phenomenon of ubiquitous band reunions wasn’t going anywhere. And – while cultural mainstays like The Stone Roses and Black Sabbath are getting in on the action – it seems that a good number of cult icons are putting their differences aside too. At The Drive In have famously reunited to play at Coachella this year … and that same festival will also see firm indie favorites Mazzy Star treading the boards.

Even if you’re too young to remember Mazzy Star in their first incarnation, you’ll almost certainly know the voice of Hope Sandoval. The Mazzy frontwoman has been busy with her own band (Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions), but has also carved out a prolific niche as a great guest vocalist for acts such as Death In Vegas, The Chemical Brothers and The Jesus And Mary Chain. Her sultry modernist country-twang is instantly recognisable, even if her name (shamefully) isn’t as well-known as it should be.

Mazzy Star was where it all began, though: an alt-rock bunch of shoegazers from Santa Monica whose 1990 debut ‘She Hangs Brightly’ is easily one of the decade’s best guitar albums. It wasn’t until their 1993 follow-up ‘So Tonight That I Might See’ that they enjoyed (relative) commercial success with their crossover tune ‘Fade Into You’, however.

After years of being unfairly overlooked, 2011 saw Mazzy Star enjoy a whole new reappraisal. The reason? A video game. Gears Of War 3 featured the sublime ‘Into Dust’ on its launch trailer, and suddenly a whole new generation were Mazzying themselves into a tizzy.

Reunion rumblings had been floating around since 2010, but the 2011 popularity surge also saw the release of ‘Common Burn’, their first new material in 15 years:

Mazzy Star are also working on a new album which is due for release later this year. Let’s hope their uniquely flavorful, ambient dream-pop stylings start to gain more of the recognition they deserve – both in terms of their future work and the wider influence their back catalog has cast over rock music in general.