I have a pathological dislike of lists masquerading as blog posts. Too many “bloggers” spend a couple of minutes googling around on a random subject, find a couple of links, and then decide that they’ve collated the “Top 10 Best Navel Lint Collections“.
That said, I’m all about the community-voted lists of awesome stuff, especially music videos. I always look forward to the Triple J (Australia’s publicly funded “youth” radio station) Hottest 100, as it generally heralds a weekend of fantastic music video programming.
Videos.Antville is one of my favorite music video sites. The community posts an eclectic mix of great stuff, both new and old, and the group of filmclip-heads often lock horns in the lively comment threads.
Inspired (or perhaps disillusioned) by the Pitchfork “Top 50 Videos of the 2000s”, they got together, nominated and voted for the “‘Ville.2K 101 Best Music Videos of the Decade“.
Just as interesting as the end result, I think, is the list of nominations. This really has been the decade in which video production and distribution escaped from the big studios, and it’s great to see low budget pieces like Chairlift – Evident Utensil, OK GO – Here It Goes Again and Architecture in Helsinki – That Beep are inhabiting a similarly cherished space to money-burning productions like, well, Cochise.
This decade has really been about advancing tools and capabilities. Those advances will never stop, but realistically, there’s no longer an exponential gap in capabilities between “indie producer in a home studio” and “big budget juggernaut”.
The next decade is going to be mesmerizing.