Music Video Roundup: May 2025

Hello everyone out there in Music Video Land!

It’s been another month of music videos. There are some highs and some lows. Some laughs and some cries. Some silly and some serious. And a surprisingly high amount of line dancing.

So whether you’re full human, half-human/half-puppet, or zombie-internet AI bot here to drive up views, please enjoy the best and worst videos of May 2025.

Best Music Videos of the Month

Ryan Heffington is a once in a lifetime creative voice that reshaped how dance is used in music videos forever, and any self respecting music video fan should already have a Google alert setup for his name. But what elevates this video above some of the others he’s choreographed is how well all the elements work together. The casting, styling, camera movement, pyro, wire work, and directorial vision are all world class. But nothing tops the performance from Ellie Rowsell. The US might be in the middle of a global trade war, but London’s greatest export, Wolf Alice, will always be worth the tariffs.

Joe Cappa is living in an alternative reality where YouTube’s golden era of music videos never ended. The puppeteering technique is equal parts brilliant and off-putting, and I’m pretty sure the puppets themselves have real human teeth in them. This is one of the most fucked up and beautiful things you’ll see this year. This is OUR generation’s Windowlicker.

This video is like Duck Amuck meets Celery Man meets the Windows 98 maze. A lot of videos go for this retro in-screen aesthetic and kinda whiff, but the post work here is legitimately impressive and absolutely nails the style. In all their posts about the video, the band keeps talking about how much fun they had on set, and that really comes across in the final product. It’s like the music video version of a high five. Teaser alert! Tune into our podcast on Monday for our conversation with director Amanda Kramer and DP Patrick Jones.

Eric Rahill is a very funny internet person. He fits into a lane of comedians like Conner O'Malley and Jack Bensinger that toe the line between character and reality, whose comedy is deeply tied to the language, rhythms, and absurdities of the internet age. One of the brilliant things this video manages to do is take the Eric Rahill you know from Instagram and drop him into a universe where social media doesn’t exist. Old tech, old computers, old cars, old interfaces, old chat applications, but the same Eric, still longing for a human connection in a chaotic world. But what is perhaps most satisfying for us Rahill-heads is that in this world, he actually finds it.

In the five years since releasing her last album, Fiona Apple has gone from full time musician to full time courtwatcher. Volunteering with the organization Court Watch PG, Fiona has observed thousands of court hearings and witnessed firsthand the harms caused by the US criminal punishment system. In this protest anthem, released on Mother’s Day, she focuses on the mothers and caretakers she observed, who were not convicted of a crime, but had to spend time in jail because they could not afford bail. The craft of the video itself is raw, focusing more on the photos and images of the women that have experienced pretrial detention.

Every few years, a new line dance or participation song emerges and takes the world by storm. From the “Tootsie Roll” and “Da Dip,” to the “Cha Cha Slide” and the “Cupid Shuffle,” long before TikTok, there have been songs designed to teach us dance moves and encourage group participation. And it’s pretty safe to say that “Boots On The Ground” is going to be 2025’s version. It’s unclear if it has the juice to rise to the level of “Whip/Nae Nae” or some of the other more recent viral giants, but what makes this one notable is that it feels genuinely community-driven. This song will be played at SC State football games long after the algorithm forgets about it.

I’m sorry to report I find this video very endearing. mgk’s hard pivot to Target pop is clearly a cash grab, but I find it way more tolerable than when a failing hiphop artist does a struggle-pivot to country. Pivoting to country feels like you’re two pivots away from MAGA, while pivoting to boy band feels two pivots away from a daytime talkshow. It certainly doesn’t come off as effortless, but if you tell yourself it’s all part of the joke, there is enough to grab onto to convince yourself it’s true.

We are all lucky that Erin Murray is willing to lend her many talents to directing music videos. She has been on a tear lately, releasing multiple short films this year as well as several commercials. But she still found time to make this charming video for gen-z crooner, aron! Starring Sethward, a comedian that holds the records for most rejections on America’s Got Talent, the video manages to be heartwarming, silly, and DIY all at once. Just extremely good vibes.

Another DIY banger to round out the best of section. This feels like one of those videos where the special thanks list is longer than the credits, because it had more friends showing up to help than crew members paid to be there. But everyone brings their A game and the result is really joyful, spirited, and dialed in vid. A for effort. A for awesome. A for friendship. The spirit of music videos is alive!

Worst Music Videos of the Month

I don’t understand how this happens. How does Russell Crowe end up producing something that feels like it should be playing on loop over a hotel TV menu screen. He has seen good things before, he has to know this is terrible. If you’re famous enough to unironically put your name on something like this then you have officially gotten too famous. No more fame for you, Russell. Save the rest for Zucchero.

Italian Brainrot is a series of slop memes of AI-generated animals with fake, Italian sounding names. It is so popular that NFL players are being asked to react to them. This slop content has now infiltrated music video spaces, as versions of it are now being uploaded to YouTube using music video SEO. Based on the comments, most of the views and interactions are from bots, creating a strong example of the zombie internet theory. Although, there do appear to be some real people in the mix, although who can tell anymore. While this is not the first type of content to use music video SEO to game the YouTube algo, it’s a pretty dark sign of things to come.

I know what you’re thinking, dunking on Kidz Bop is low hanging fruit. Theater kids singing pop songs is inherently cringe and gimmicky, but the audience for this content is children and this is safe, harmless fun. But for this particular cover, I’m not actually convinced that it’s harmless. One of the touchtones of a Kidz Bop song is they’re often heavily censored, going beyond simply removing the curse words, but actually changing the meaning behind lyrics, sanitizing all sorts of themes and ideas from the pop songs they’re covering. Chris Dalla Riva talks more about this in his post, “The Infuriating Savviness of Kidz Bop.” Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” is a song with significant LGBTQ themes, and those themes have been removed from the Kidz Bop version. By scrubbing the queerness from a song about liberation and self-acceptance, Kidz Bop isn’t just sanitizing content, they’re reinforcing the idea that LGBTQ identity is inappropriate for kids. Which is bad and wrong. If you’re not old enough for queer joy, you’re not old enough for pop music.