1. Vitalic, "Poney Part 1"
It's no surprise that imagery of dogs bouncing in slow-motion with lasers in the background proves striking, but it's amazing just how striking. The clip for Vitalic's "Poney Part 1" is simple and dreamily dramatic, in stark contrast to the banging electro-house track in the background. The footage features many different kinds of dogs plummeting through the air, faces fluttering, expressions varying from cute-and-confused to fierce-and-fangy. Special praise goes to the bulldog that blasts off through blue rays of light, and the basset hound whose baggy skin looks even weirder than usual.
2. Peter Gabriel, "Shock The Monkey"
Peter Gabriel isn't usually an overly literal guy, but he nonetheless felt the need to put an actual monkey (a macaque, to be precise) in the video for his 1982 semi-hit "Shock The Monkey." Luckily, the poor simian doesn't really get shocked—but he sure does look upset as close-ups of his fuzzy mug are interspersed between shots of Gabriel in some horrific office, Gabriel in tribal facepaint, and Gabriel fighting off a gang of little people. And while the monkey is the only animal in the video, one of the song's verses begins with the lines, "Fox the fox / Rat the rat / You can ape the ape." Damn those budgetary concerns. Those who might have assumed "Shock The Monkey" is some antivivisection manifesto, rest easy: Gabriel has admitted that it's just another rock ditty about jealous lovers.
3. Timbuk 3, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"
In retrospect, Timbuk 3's 1986 hit "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"—which boasts lines like "I've got a job waiting for my graduation / Fifty thou a year'll buy a lot of beer"—is a painfully transparent attempt to pump out an instant college-rock anthem. But like many such lame attempts, it worked: Set to a bland blues-rock track swiped directly from Huey Lewis' "The Heart Of Rock & Roll," Timbuk 3's deadpan sentiments resulted in a minor hit, due mostly to a video that prominently featured a donkey with a TV tied to its back, wandering across the desert. That donkey also adorned the cover of the band's debut album, Greetings From Timbuk 3. Or is it a mule? Whatever.
4. Madonna, "Like A Virgin"
Is there a better visual metaphor for losing one's virginity than a bored lion slinking around a Venetian palazzo? Probably. Still, it's impossible not to grasp what director Mary Lambert was going for with that image in her second video collaboration with Madonna, "Like A Virgin": namely, lions will seduce you. Why else would a wedding-dress-clad Madonna be so drawn to that palazzo? Why else would she writhe so perilously close to the gondola's edge as it navigates the canals to reach her lion-love? Why else would there be a close-up of the lion panting in perfect staccato with the music? But Madonna and Lambert thankfully restrain themselves from showing the pop star and the lion together. Instead, Madonna hooks up with a dapper man wearing a lion mask—which, though ridiculous-looking, is the safest form of bestiality.
5. "Kitty Kat, " Beyoncé
So far, Beyoncé has only released a one-minute video for the song "Kitty Kat," but if an animal's role in a video is measured by its size in the video, then the one in "Kitty Kat" probably has the biggest role of any animal in music-video history. At first, the audience believes that Beyoncé, clad in a leopard-print cat suit and lounging next to a giant ball of pink yarn, is going to be the video's only "kitty kat." But then a black cat bounds onscreen behind the continuously writhing singer, dwarfing her thanks to the power of green-screen technology. The two play with some gigantic yarn, Beyoncé waves from atop the giant cat like a beauty queen on a parade float, and then she leads the mammoth feline out of frame by a gold leash, putting an end to one of the weirdest uses of green-screen in a music video ever.
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