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Eight of our favourite Easter eggs in music videos
From sweet tributes in the sky to quite literally clashing with the director, we hunt for Easter eggs hiding in our favourite music videos
If you came here looking to find your favourite artist in that weird stage of singing about colourful foil-covered confectionary, I’m afraid you’ll be bitterly disappointed and please see here instead.
Instead, these are the cheeky moments in pop music history where knowing nods, quick cameos and subliminal messages presented themselves to those canny enough to find them. From sweet tributes in the sky to quite literally clashing with the director, here we go on the hunt for Easter eggs hiding in some of our favourite music videos.
Machine Gun Kelly‘s message in the clouds
Unless you’ve been living under a big stone for a year — that’s the one and only Easter joke, folks — you’ll know how obsessed Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox are with one another. It’s like their love was written in the clouds, something Kelly takes literally in the first few seconds of his acoustic version of ‘Bloody Valentine’.
Taylor Swift in… every video
The queen of Easter eggs, Taylor Swift has surely made as many as Mr. Cadbury himself. There are endless articles, fan sites and most likely even a couple of university papers unpicking every single detail of her videos, from red scarfs to pseudonyms on tombstones. On the 2019 MTV Video Music Award-winning ‘ME!’, featuring Brendon Urie, we see a snake turn into butterflies (a previous symbol of bitterness and feud turning into something beautiful), Urie telling Taylor the name of her next single in French and a cameo from her kitten Benjamin Button. And that’s just the start…
Blink and you’ll miss it
On Blink 182’s 2003 classic ‘Always’ we see a seemingly jaded, confused and suited Tom DeLonge enter the door to an ex’s flat. You’re never going to guess what the door number is…
Dave Grohl enjoying elevator music
At the beginning of Foo Fighters’ raucous 1997 rock hit ‘Monkey Wrench’, we see frontman Dave Grohl entering an elevator with some groceries and particularly enjoying the harmless muzak. Wait a minute, that sounds familiar…
The Chemical Brothers‘ greatest sporting achievement
It wasn’t just rock stars having all the fun in 1997. UK electronic duo The Chemical Brothers normally let their pioneering dance music steal the show. But at the end of their video to ‘Elektrobank’ the camera zooms out from a photo on a trophy cabinet. Who are those two nerdy basketball players in the picture below?
Slim Shady cramping Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg‘s style
The year was 1999. Dr. Dre was still being D.R.E and Snoop Dogg was still being Snoop D-O-Double-G. Eminem, Dre’s young Padawan, was about to take the world by storm, but he still had time to crash the video for ‘Still D.R.E.’ and chase the ladies away.
Childish Gambino symbolic epic ‘This Is America’
The Grammy-winning video for Donald Glover’s landmark outcry ‘This Is America’ is built with layer-upon-layer of cultural and socio-political references and symbolism, from dancing on a car à la Michael Jackson’s ‘Black and White’ to brutal depictions in the background while cheaper, escapist scenes attempt to steal your attention in the foreground. A difficult but necessary watch.
ABBA‘s Frida gets meta
A cheeky one, this. On ABBA’s 1981 video for ‘Head Over Heels’ (an often overlooked banger, by the way), we see Frida rushing through town seemingly looking for an outfit more glamorous than that gold number she dons around the 53 second mark (impossible!) But, the gentleman she bumps into in a hurry is none other than Lasse Hallström, who directed almost all of the group’s videos — though this is his only appearance in any of them. And not a lot of people know that…
