Sometime around 2004 I downloaded a file called "100 greatest music videos of all time". It was an endeavor that probably lasted several days, and I was extremely pleased that the content turned out to be just what it said on the tin.
This one specific torrent file introduced me to a lot of great artists I hadn't known about, and many cool videos (most of them, it seemed, directed by either Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry). I had the videos saved on my computer for a long time, and I would watch my favourites often and show them to others.
This was, of course, many years and computers ago, and the videos are long gone.
Once every few years a wave of nostalgia hits me and I try to look up some of these videos, the ones I can still remember. The one up top is R.E.M.'s Imitation Of Life. It's a creatively made video, consisting of a short clip of footage of a big, lively scene, the video playing forwards and backwards and zooming in on different parts of the view, following different characters. The video is on YouTube but the quality is pretty bad - sure, it doesn't help that the original video is also mostly (digitally?) zoomed in, but it had to have been better than this! 19 million views on this pixelated mess.
I try to google this list. Torrent sites have come and gone but maybe somewhere it's still up, if I just find the right magic words? I'm not sure what I want, anyway. Just to have the complete list? Just to know where it's from? To remember something, and know I remember it? I'm too lawful lazy to torrent anything, anyway.
It wasn't quite the same list as this one, but probably influenced by it. I couldn't find any music video lists by Rolling Stone or NME from around that time.
Maybe someone in this thread made a list of their own, an improved version? Although it's just a coincidence that this site is still up, of all the forums of that time. Of course they're suggesting the same videos. I keep looking in vain for this specific list or a memory of a file from 2004 for a while, and then I give up again, to try again in a few years.
I often find myself on useless google quests like this, looking online to find something in my head, like a feeling or a memory of a past self. It's hard to consume information or create it, because it's hard to let go of anything. It might be useful one day, it might have some value.
Anyway, here's what I remember of it.
(the 20 songs that I probably most liked in 2004 because I still remember these from the list of)
100 Greatest Music Videos of All Time
(compiled by anonymous online person)
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button
R.E.M. - Imitation Of Life
Daft Punk - Around The World
Cibo Matto - Sugar Water
Björk - All Is Full Of Love
George Harrison - When We Was Fab
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
Korn - Freak On A Leash
Fiona Apple - Across the Universe
The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be
Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
Fatboy Slim - Praise You
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
Gorillaz - 19-2000
Weezer - Buddy Holly
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
A-Ha - Take On Me
Röyksopp - Remind Me
The Cardigans - My Favorite Game
Massive Attack - Butterfly Caught
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