History Main / SurrealMusicVideo

** So is Peter Gabriel's "Music/{{Sledgehammer|1986}}".

* Music/{{Aerosmith}} has "Pink" and "Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)". "Livin' On The Edge" is mostly a ConceptVideo but it also has some surreal imagery as part of the footage of the band performing.

* Music/AnimalCollective, "Water Curses". I don't know, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7GZLRxVzvg you figure it out]].

* Music/{{Bastille}}: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOrbfQpdLKo Good Grief]]". The music video starts off with lead singer Dan Smith trying to call someone on a pay-phone, then quickly veers off into complete and utter MindScrew involving female roller skaters, burning buildings, [[LivingToys giant living teddy bears]], game shows, bank robberies, and [[LosingYourHead Dan's disembodied head]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking lying on the ground by some sports equipment]]. All this set to the eponymous song: [[LyricalDissonance an upbeat song about grieving after losing a loved one]]. You may need a shower after watching it...and that's only the uncensored version.

* Practically every Music/{{Beck|Musician}} video besides "Where It's At". Especially "Loser" and "E-Pro."
** And "Jackass".

** "[[http://vimeo.com/28689 Gameboy/Homeboy (Que Onda Guero 8-Bit Remix)]]". Given that it was made by the same people that brought us ''WesternAnimation/TheProblemSolverz'', it's not really that surprising.
* Bestial Mouths' cover of Music/TheHumanLeague's "[[https://youtu.be/1HS_RAVjlNU Being Boiled]]".

* The video for Music/ChildishGambino's "3005" just has him singing the lyrics while on a Ferris wheel next to a living teddy bear that gets more and more mutilated as the video goes on. Even the official lyric video (which is usually just the lyrics printed over an album cover or an image related to the song) is presented as Gambino in one of those online "chats" with "sexy girls".

** He also directed the video for The Horrors' song, "Sheena is a Parasite". It involves a great deal of strobe lights (which caused the video to be banned from MTV) and as the band plays, Samantha Morton's guts spew out all over the screen.

* Music/DavidBowie: A TropeCodifier. If the Bowie video you're watching is post-1979 and not a ConceptVideo, there's a good chance it's this. Examples include "Fashion", "Loving the Alien", "Miracle Goodnight", "Hallo Spaceboy", and "Little Wonder".

* David Crowder Band's video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id76Qhu7AGQ Forever And Ever Etc]] is an AnimatedMusicVideo that tells a story about a battle between the band and a group of angry squirrels, all done in an {{animesque}} style. It's weird enough as it is, but even ''weirder'' when you remember the group is a Christian band and the song is a fairly generic praise and worship song. (Think "modern church music".)
* Music/DavidGuetta & Music/{{Sia}}'s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVzljDmoPVs She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)]]".

* Andrea Giacobb did a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqh7U8R4RUM genuinely unsettling video]] for Death in Vegas' "Dirt".

* Dog Police had two, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0359hSerDeE the eponymous song]] ([[FunnyAnimal actual dog people!]]) and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4zjHCbHVA0 1-800]]".

* Music/FaithNoMore has some pretty weird videos, especially "Epic".

* Music/FleetFoxes has "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yAxIdkF2Qo&nohtml5=False The Shrine/An Argument]]". It's a BreakupSong. The music video features an antelope, the severed heads of other animals on pikes, tribal dancers around a fire, and a two-headed dragon having, well, an argument with itself.
* Music/FlorenceAndTheMachine , the original video for "Dog Days Are Over". Florence wakes up in a forest wearing a tuxedo and then get's chased by creepy clowns who then dress her as a clown.

** Music/MarilynManson, "The Beautiful People". It's very creepy and surreal.
** Music/{{Incubus}}, "Megalomaniac". It alternates between collage-like images of the band playing in a UsefulNotes/WorldWarII setting, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler ''with airplane wings and ballerina shoes'', a UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush lookalike that is eventually revealed to have an eagle head and a protesting crowd. Oh, and people with fish-heads. And a family pouring oil on a fake baby.
** Music/TheWhiteStripes, "Blue Orchid". Features a model (Karen Elson, who would later become Jack White's wife - they met at this video shoot) with incredibly long heels, a horse, a creepy Jack White, and Meg White eating dishes (literally).
* The Future Sound of London's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc9l7pygQRo We Have Explosive]]". I do not want to explain it.

* Music/Interpol, "The Heinrich Maneuver". The video begins in the middle of the story line, on a closeup of the main subject's face. From here, the main character goes forward in the story, while the background characters go backwards in motion (you see looks of fright frozen on their faces at the beginning, which is explained later in the video as it is revealed the main character [[spoiler:had stepped in the path of a bus and has most likely been killed]]). Oh, and it's all in super slow motion of what we're led to believe is about 20 seconds of action slowed down to the length of the song.

%%* Music/JessieJ has "Price Tag" and "Nobody's Perfect".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTwlAT_AwU This]] video for Ladytron's "Destroy Everything You Touch". It appears to be about frost giants that have been fused to mountains and a lady with a blizzard hidden in her dress.

** Her video for "[[http://www.vevo.com/watch/miley-cyrus/we-cant-stop/USRV81300234 We Can't Stop]]".

* To some extent, Music/{{Muse}}'s "Music/KnightsOfCydonia". While technically it tells a story, it's a very bizarre one that seems to be entirely designed to appeal to the RuleOfCool.

** "Supermassive Black Hole". Not even the band itself knows what the hell "Supermassive Black Hole"'s video is about, according to the making-of documentary. But it sure looked cool, so they went along with it.

** In addition to that, there's the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AZxUtZ2ZgI fifties-theme video where everyone has fish tank heads]] and, more recently, the video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUc_jXBD9DU Miss Jackson]] that takes a rather dark turn at the final chorus. If you're wondering whether the band has an explanation for that video - nope. Brendon can only offer "I guess I had a lot of anger. So I [[spoiler:chopped a girl's head off]]".

* Music/CarolinePolachek has "Door", featuring multiple sets of concentric portals, an alternate universe where the horizon line bends over on itself, a 3D animated abstract marble track, and, as a final course, Caroline's disembodied eyes and mouth singing the song's outro.

** Without a doubt, their strangest video has to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih2Ftq3hJoI&ob=av3e Push Pulk/ Spinning Plates]]. It is [[MindScrew impossible]] [[BodyHorror to]] describe in words alone.

* The Replacements, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9KQ1Mub6Q Bastards of Young]]". [[LeaveTheCameraRunning A mostly still shot]] of a stereo system playing the song at the wrong speed. At one point a guy walks in and smokes a cigarette on the couch. Later, he kicks the speaker in and leaves. The end.

* Music/{{Santigold}}, "L.E.S. Artistes". It's an homage to ''The Holy Mountain'', which is pretty much all you need to know about in terms of surreality.

* Music/{{Soundgarden}}, "Black Hole Sun".
** Most of the band's other videos (as well as their entire discography in general) are just as surreal, notably the clips for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxvGHQHiY70 Peacebone]]", "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxhaRgJUMl8 Summertime Clothes]]" and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQjyGT1-mc Brother Sport]]".

** Take for instance "Music/OnceInALifetime". The entire video is Music/DavidByrne doing a very unusual dance (inspired by marionettes and African rituals, and to a lesser extent epilepsy sufferers), with the [[TheInvisibleBand rest of the band missing]].

** Don't forget "Don't Let's Start". Five words: Dancing William Allen White heads.

* Music/{{Tool}} does this as a general rule. The best example is arguably "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiV_ue-PbL4 Parabola]]".

* Music/NineInchNails has "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RN6pT3zL44 Came Back Haunted]]" (directed by Creator/DavidLynch for extra surrealness) and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bZ7ePzWwhs The Perfect Drug]]".

* Hot Chip's video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvSjYYep3t4 "I Feel Better"]. Words alone can't express how weird it gets.

* The video for Sean Lennon's cover of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qygCpU6MKZg "Would I Be The One"]], which is part of an already surreal video collection called ''Friendly Fire'', features animated versions of Sean and his friends traveling to a distant planet on a carnival ride and being captured by aliens. However, the high levels of MindScrew were inevitable given that it's an homage to ''WesternAnimation/FantasticPlanet''.

* The video for Sean Lennon's cover of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qygCpU6MKZg "Would I Be The One"]], which is part of an already surreal video collection called ''Friendly Fire'', features animated versions of Sean and his friends traveling to a distant planet on a carnival ride and being captured by aliens. However, the high levels of MindScrew were inevitable given that it's an homage to ''Animation/FantasticPlanet''.

** "Living on Video" is about mirrored videos of dancing TVs with legs, and lips with stereos that engulf the scenery.

* Practically every Music/{{Beck}} video besides "Where It's At". Especially "Loser" and "E-Pro."

* OneHitWonder Trio's "Da Da Da" video is just a loop of a line of platform divers splashing into a giant bowl of Spaghetti-Os, accompanied by a motorcycle jumping off a ramp, a BMW(?) driving out of a tunnel, and a pair of dancers with drums on their heads.

There are a few basic routes you can take when making a music video. You can [[PerformanceVideo show the band performing the song,]] or [[ConceptVideo tell a story]] (which may or [[LyricsVideoMismatch may not]] relate to the song itself)... Or you can take the [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible artistic]] path and just throw a bunch of weird stuff on the screen in time to the music.

* Ed Tullett's very, [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible very unique]] video for [[http://youtu.be/eatcVtvyGpI "Oxblood"]]. An artistic expression of loss and sadness, a PostModernism take on drug use, an advocacy for gay porn... [[MindScrew You're guess on its symbolism is as good as mine]].

* At some point ''Music/{{Knorkator}}'' started making music videos, which usually tend to be even weirder than the lyrics themselves. The most surreal would probably be ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm4WQkJOlS0 Weg nach unten]]'' which seems to be about a person escaping from the world by digging a tunnel deep into the earth, away from everything. While digging a tunnel does appear in one part of the video, it has no other connections to the lyrics, and is really, really weird. [[note]]Yes, that ending show accidentally digging all the way to Australia.[[/note]] It also happens to be the [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible most artistic of their videos.]]

* Suede's "Stay Together", which features the lead singer [[BoundAndGagged gagged at the end]], among other things that have nothing to do with the song whatsoever. The band has [[CreatorBacklash denounced it]] as nothing more than [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible "empty symbolism."]]

* Ever feel like Japanese media was becoming too normal for you? Music/KyaryPamyuPamyu's "[[http://youtu.be/yzC4hFK5P3g PONPONPON]]" is here to [[WidgetSeries fix that.]]

* Interpol, "The Heinrich Maneuver". The video begins in the middle of the story line, on a closeup of the main subject's face. From here, the main character goes forward in the story, while the background characters go backwards in motion (you see looks of fright frozen on their faces at the beginning, which is explained later in the video as it is revealed the main character [[spoiler:had stepped in the path of a bus and has most likely been killed]]). Oh, and it's all in super slow motion of what we're led to believe is about 20 seconds of action slowed down to the length of the song.

8 Music/RoyalBlood has "Out of the Black," which consists of live-action and (rather gory) animated sequences of alien mascots battling the police and a gas-station attendant.

* Music/DirEnGrey's "Obscure" is pure NSFW nightmare fuel surrealism: foetuses growing on and being plucked from trees, foetus-shaped dildos being used to rape women till they bleed from the mouth, body horror involving tentacle-beings walking through walls and sawing through women strapped to tables, and the band vocalist Kyo vomiting with every word he utters. How everything relates to everything else, God only knows. Other notable and equally MindScrew-y videos of theirs are "[[DerangedAnimation Agitated Screams of Maggots]]" and "[[{{Hentai}} Different Sense]]".
* The video for Music/{{Disturbed}}'s "''Asylum''" borders on this. Schizophrenic and {{Undercrank}}-heavy camera editing give the [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness insane delusions within]] a deranged and erratic quality similar to psychosis. The brutality of the asylum's doctors and staff add a sadistic touch.

* Most of Information Society's videography fits the bill:

** Their 2016 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQH4qnUU68 take on]] "[[WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh Heffalumps and Woozles]]" (featuring Music/{{Ayria}}) cranks the trippiness of the film's DisneyAcidSequence up.

* In Inna's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LK48dtjRl4 Wow]] video, she gets knocked unconscious at a beach party and dreams of being a {{stripperific}} Snow White [[ThreeMinutesOfWrithing erotically dancing]] with the Seven Dwarfs, then after "falling dead" from consuming the poisoned apple, she becomes a similarly oversexualized [[Film/TheWizardOfOz Dorothy Gale]] on the Yellow Brick Road. Cut to her as sexy ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' performing some more erotic movements in a tiny house and at the Mad Hatter's tea party, where the characters from the previous stories join in for the final dance.

* The Music/PetShopBoys' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SezoGW_z9w0 Go West]].
* Music/DavidGuetta & Music/{{Sia}}'s "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVzljDmoPVs She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)]]".
* Another band that has hellaciously trippy sound and videos is [=DyE=]. Probably the best example of their work is the aptly named [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QFwo57WKwg "Fantasy"]] ('''NSFW'''). What the video has to do with the lyrics is anyone's guess, but this teenage getaway turned ''Film/{{The Thing|1982}}''-style BodyHorror has to be seen to be believed.

* ''Music/PreschoolPopstars'' music videos sometimes have trippy visuals, especially in the choruses:
** "Wash Your Hands" has the girls standing on giant bars of soap and kicking MonstrousGerms. The sky is also orange in some scenes.
** "I Didn't Mean to Burp" has the background changing colour and shows scenes of the Asian girl shrinking and wandering through a world of food.
** "Juice Box" also has multicoloured backgrounds, along with many scenes of the girls swimming in juice.
** "Bounce" also has the background changing colour, along with the beginning showing jello and [[SolidClouds clouds]] being bounced on.

** [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Maybe it was made on drugs]], which is what the lyrics are about.

* ''Animation/TheMindsEye'' is a series of four animated films that consist entirely of Surreal Music Videos. They are also compilations of various CGI clips submitted to them, and thus fall under NoPlotNoProblem The coherentness of each song's video varies.

* Alpine offers a sexy example with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzHeNVMqKqg "Hands"]] which has a house full of girls doing a bunch of strange things, culminating in all of them making out with their hands.

* Alpine offers a sexy example with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzHeNVMqKqg "Hands"]] which has a house full of girls doing a bunch of strange things, culminating in all of them making out with their hands.

** Set in a spooky-looking hillside, the "Sour Girl" video involves extras in creepy bunny costumes with lolling tongues, gratuitous closeups of insects, and a [[WalkingShirtlessScene shirtless]] Scott Weiland dancing erotically with two versions of Creator/SarahMichelleGellar (one in dark, gothic-style makeup with straight, black hair, the other in lighter makeup and curly blonde hair).

** Set in a spooky-looking hillside, the "Sour Girl" video involves extras in creepy bunny costumes with lolling tongues, gratuitous closeups of insects, and Scott Weiland dancing erotically with two versions of Creator/SarahMichelleGellar (one in dark, gothic-style makeup with straight, black hair, the other in lighter makeup and curly blonde hair).

* "Keep A Lid On Things" by Crash Test Dummies involves a miniature Brad Roberts piloting a MobileSuitHuman version of himself, which mimes the lyrics and lumbers down the street in a very UncannyValley sort of way. Eventually, his mobile suit human gets low on power and he has to fly down to the ground with a jet-pack in order to retrieve some batteries... At which point we see powered-down versions of the rest of the band lying on the street: Apparently he was remotely controlling everyone else too.

* RATATAT with their song, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUthOxfpMo Shempi.]] It's a nose-dive into the UncannyValley after having suffered serious head-trauma.

* Music/{{JR JR}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq0mpgHNapc "Gone"]] features a chorus of [[UncannyValley uncannily creepy]] dancing disembodied legs.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDygS0a6Tgo The Riddle]] by Music/NikKershaw is screwy from beginning to end, with the singer rambling around in a nonsensical house filled with weird items, of which none have the slightest to do with the song. The song itself is a string of WordSaladLyrics that Kershaw himself admitted were meant to be a placeholder but ended up the real lyrics when he couldn't make any coherent ones work with the melody. The end of the video? It turns out the house Kershaw was trapped in was a question mark, picked up by none other than ''The Riddler'' of Franchise/{{Batman}} fame. The same Riddler shows up a number of times, along with figures from Literature/AliceInWonderland. Does not make the video more understandable, though.