Popular With Us 2020: Buzz Bands LA’s Favorite Videos of the Year
Kevin Bronson on
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One thing is certain about 2020: Our screen time was up.
There were abundant music videos to soak up our time on YouTube, and as is our annual habit, we’ve compiled our favorites. Whether they are big-budget productions or DIY adventures, personal or political, animated or live-action, funny or poignant (or both), solo or with cameos, Popular With Us 2020: Buzz Bands LA’s Favorite Videos of the Year offers a bunch that made us forget we were stuck at home.
BIG BLACK DELTA, “Summoner”
Collaborating with Warren Kommers and Nina McNeely, Big Black Delta’s song “Summoner” turns into a riveting piece of experimental cinema.
TAYLOR LOCKE, “Dying Up Here”
Taylor Locke headlines the Starlite Bowl in Burbank … after breaking in to the place.
BILLIE EILISH, “Therefore I Am”
Billie Eilish cuts loose at the Glendale Galleria.
STEADY HOLIDAY, “Living Life”
Hitching a ride on a mail truck, Steady Holiday makes a buoyant delivery.
WINNETKA BOWLING LEAGUE, “CVS”
Hilary Duff, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elisha Yaffe and Winnetka Bolding League — the CVS on Sepulveda Boulevard is a happening place.
PHOEBE BRIDGERS, “I Know the End”
Not even the L.A. Coliseum is big enough to hold the closing song on the album “Punisher.” Special mention also goes to the unembeddable “Savior Complex.”
BLEU, “I Wanna Write You a Symphony”
A fan-made video in which the fan finds Bleu’s lyrics everywhere.
HAIM, “Don’t Wanna”
The Haim sisters take a victory lap around the Forum parking lot. Then it becomes a race.
MIKE VIOLA, “Drug Rug”
Mike Viola stars as a vampire in L.A. in director Caitlin Gerard’s video, co-starring Mandy Moore with Christian Lee Hutson, Allie Crow Buckley and more.
OPEN MIKE EAGLE, “Bucciarati”
A lot of script-flipping goes on as Open Mike Eagle faces off against Paul F. Tompkins in court.
SEGO, “Life With Pam”
Maybe, for all of its 17 minutes, this is what 2020 was really like.
MOVIE CLUB, “Driftwood”
The L.A. duo pays tribute to eight shuttered L.A. houses of music by playing in front of them.
CONES, “Outside”
The brother duo create an alternative nature in the 360-degree VR video for their only single of 2020.
ST. PANTHER, “Highway”
Maybe you have wheels. But do you have Hot Wheels?
ANDERSON .PAAK, “Lockdown”
Both the song and the video capture the tectonic tension between pandemic lockdown and witnessing racism and murder unfold on camera.
SOKO, “Being Sad is Not a Crime”
It really isn’t, and we’re so glad the Bob Baker Marionette Theater is still with us because of community support. Watch to the end.
JENNY O., “Old Habits”
The singer-songwriter picked up some amazing graphics skills during quarantine and put them to good use.
RACHEL GOODRICH, “The High Song”
All the cameos of people we miss seeing at shows and around town, especially when this was released at the beginning of the lockdown.
CUFFED UP, “Danger, Danger”
Tension so thick you could cut a Scrabble tile with it.
WAJATTA, “Don’t Let Get You Down”
This hybrid animated-live action video is mood-levitating fun. We didn’t realize how much we’d need it a few weeks later.
MOANING, “Ego”
Singer-guitarist Sean Solomon wears the costume of every character of alienation while director Ambar Navarro provides the emo-est of contexts.
MELTED BODIES, “Ad People”
Can’t click that ad away? That’s because Ad People are brilliant, but we don’t think YouTube let them make any additional ad revenue off of that.
THE AQUABATS, “Pajamazon!”
This one’s for the kids, by the kids. And it also features Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, Steve Jones and more. We dig it, since we also spent most of 2020 in our PJs.
CARTALK, “Noonday Devil”
Sigh…
CHICANO BATMAN, “Color My Life”
A breath of fresh retro-psychedelic fun infusing our L.A. cityscapes, from palm tree-lined streets to concrete bridges and rivers to cemeteries to beaches. It could be grim, but Chicano Batman prefers to enjoy the sunshine.
CLARA-NOVA, “Lives”
With just two shots, four dancers, two scuba divers, subtle-but-creative animation and just plain cleverness, Clara-Nova and her brother Julian Wayser (who directed) choreograph a lively romp from isolation to togetherness and back again, conveying an ebb and flow.
CROWDED HOUSE, “Whatever You Want”
Beautifully art-directed and directed with wit by Kills Birds’ Nina Ljeti, Mac DeMarco is told by all sorts of figures he’s the man of the hour. Sometimes the deer head on the wall is the only one who’ll be honest with you.
BECK, “Saw Lightning (Hyperspace: A.I. Exploration)”
Awe-inspiring and reminding us that we are stardust and there is a world beyond the walls we’ve been hunkered down within.
DUCKWRTH (FEAT. ALEX MALI, RADIO AHLEE AND BAYLI), “Find a Way”
Color us absolutely impressed by directors Mark Rubbo and Chad Tennies’ as well as production company “Hi From the Future’s” 3-D animated renderings of DUCKWRTH and his guest performers in this highly realistic yet fantasy-like work of art.
DEEP SEA DIVER (FEAT. SHARON VAN ETTEN), “Impossible Weight”
Released six months into the pandemic, this song was (and still is) hardcore relateable. Directed by Orange County native frontwoman Jessica Dobson with Peter Mansen and Tyler Kalberg, the video conveys the desolation of isolation in beautiful landscapes. Sharon Van Etten’s cameo appearance gives it even more gravitas.
ELVIS PERKINS, “See Monkey”
Just because something is free doesn’t mean it’s worth taking. The Shwalami design team (Joshua Levy and Greg Wilk) pair this Sgt. Pepper’s-reminiscent tune with appropriately Monty Python-like visuals hocking all sorts of snake oil absurdities.
FANA HUES, “Desert Flower”
A beautiful story unfolds in silhouette for Fana Hues’ endearing fourth single from her debut album, “Hues,” animated by Aaron Hymes from a story by Amira Hadiya.
THE GOOMS, “Ska Ska Blah Blah”
Grandma Goom gives no f*cks and lives her best life with a to-do list that coddles no one.
GRANDSON, “Dirty”
Director Karl Jungquist captured the psychology of 2020’s dystopian nightmare perfectly with Grandson’s series of videos confronting alter-egos of himself and his neuroses.
HOLY WARS, “Little Godz”
When millennials question the age of the selfie they were born into and the purpose of consumer technologies, there is hope for the future.
MADAME GANDHI, “Waiting For Me”
Director Misha Gose choreographs brilliant visuals for Madame Gandhi’s siren call for female empowerment and breaking free of societal oppressions, set in Mumbai, India.
MARA CONNOR, “Wildfire”
The feeling of love can transcend sentience, but just like any other longer term relationship, imperfections eventually reveal themselves. Mara and her mother, director Kate Connor, create a fantasy with a mannequin man with tongue-in-cheek humor. A cameo by Andrew McCarthy would have put this over the top.
NOBUKO MIYAMOTO, “Black Lives Matter”
With a lifetime in activism and the arts as well as a mixed race family, Nobuko Miyamoto, who turned 80 years young last year, compacts decades of injustice with an urgent plea for Black and Native equality in this impactful video. Her album “120,000 Stories” will be released by Smithsonian Folkways Jan. 29.
THE MARÍAS, “Hold It Together”
Bethany Vargas directs this visually stunning video with the band’s sultry frontwoman, María Zardoya, slinking around pinballs of every dimension surrounded by the color of passion.
MASON SUMMIT, “Doomed from the Start”
A spooky night in a mansion among friends (with a reference to Brad from the “Rocky Horror Picture Show”) results in mass murder in Isaac Sanchez’ horror flick, giving a dark twist to Mason Summit’s song about reaching the doomed end of a relationship. Like all good horror films, the end is unexpected.
NAOMI GREENE, “Over the Hills” (acoustic version)
Director Destefano Deluise makes the transition from day to night seamless and allows Naomi Greene to glow in her performance without getting in the way with anything except simplicity.
NEIL FRANCES, “Tuesday”
If this was the only video made in 2020, we would have been perfectly happy.
SCARYPOOLPARTY, “Millennial Love”
Alejandro Aranda’s self-directed video sheds light on the plight of the homeless in L.A. County. One may feel connected to distant wars, fires and floods through one’s cellphone, but attention is needed and yet neglected in our own neighborhoods.
ECHO PARK RISING
EPR 2020 livestreamed online with a full day of local bands we hope to see again when the pandemic is no longer, well, a pandemic. Check out Buzz Bands LA’s short (at 7:33) that was part of the opening of the day-long festival as well as our interview with Cosmo Gold (Thanks to filmmaker Phillip Soulliere for putting this together with us). Better yet, go back and watch it from the start.
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