Music
Year in review
The best music videos of 2024
From a Sabrina slasher to a high-flying rapper, our picks of the year's best vids from around the world
While many continue to question the relevance of music videos today, 2024 was certainly proof that the format shows little sign of disappearing.
Production houses took big budget risks on up-and-comers with forward-thinking ideas. Pop stars recruited friends to hammer home the importance of storytelling and world building. Taylor Swift dropped another video full of so many cross references that the most devout Swifties’ would cover their bedroom walls in cut outs and sticky notes like a crazed detective.
Without further ado, here are Ticketmaster’s picks of the best music videos of 2024.
Sabrina Carpenter – ‘Taste’
Though no other song by Sabrina Carpenter – let alone anyone else – could match the streaming heights of ‘Espresso’ in 2024, it was the breezy anthem ‘Taste’ that was awarded the most creative and fun music video from Short n’ Sweet. Harnessing the horror credentials of Jenna Ortega, who as well as playing Wednesday Addams also starred in X and the recent Scream films, ‘Taste’ leans into the slasher genre with comedic, gory effect.
Captain Ants – ‘AntsLive’
Fair play to UK rapper AntsLive for getting the globetrotting idea for this multi-award winning music video off the ground. Even more fair play for actually attaching himself to the top of the plane – yes, that is actually him performing that stunt.
RM – ‘LOST!’
At this year’s UK Music Video Awards, BTS’s band leader Kim Nam-joon, aka RM, won in both the Best Production Design in a Video and Best Alternative Video – International categories, and it’s certainly the set design and production that makes this a winner.
Ezra Collective – ‘God Gave Me Feet For Dancing’ (ft. Yazmin Lacey)
The standout track on Ezra Collective’s joyous, kinetic third album was undoubtedly ‘God Gave Me Feet For Dancing’, in which Yazmin Lacey sums up its mantra in simple terms. The track’s video needed to be a feel-good doozy, then – and that’s exactly what it is, as a couple of strangers leave their friends in a London pub to dance together in their own dreamy spotlight.
Eminem – ‘Houdini’
![Eminem - Houdini [Official Music Video]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/22tVWwmTie8/0.jpg)
Say what you want about ‘Houdini’, in which Eminem bids to get cancelled by renovating ‘Without Me’, ‘Just Lose It’ and ‘My Name Is’ with a bit of weird and updated prodding controversy: the video certainly fits the brief. Not only is its crude comic book style peak early 00s Slim Shady, we actually see that familiar bleached blonde rapper enter a portal into the modern world, threatening to ruin his future self’s career. There’s only one man for the job…
Alaskan Tapes – ‘Of Woods And Seas’
More likely to be found on MUBI than MTV, this Juno Award nominated video from Canadian producer Alaskan Tapes is a gorgeously produced vignette on fatherhood, childhood and time, in which the ambient song modestly accompanies the film’s own emotive power.
A$AP Rocky – ‘Tailor Swif’
The whackiest video of the year certainly goes to this one, a rich tapestry of imagery blending together with an AI generator-like uncanniness. Importantly, though, it’s not AI generated, leaning instead on the genius of some good old surrealism. An absolutely huge cast and crew attests to this. Pretty sure the rabbit drinking red wine in the sink isn’t real, though.
Charli xcx – ‘360’
It wouldn’t be a 2024 round-up piece without at least one mention of Charli xcx, but on the video for ‘360’ she collates an ensemble of all those who embody what it is to be brat, a who’s-who of online it girls, from the pouting Rachel Sennott to “literally Julia Fox”. “Act like a brat” was even the direction for original it girl Chloë Sevigny, who thought “A brat?’ I have a 4-year-old. I know exactly what a f*cking brat is.” Sounding a bit more like Bob Mortimer there, Chloë.
Charli xcx headlines Parklife and LIDO festivals in summer 2025 – find tickets here
Khruangbin – ‘A Love International’
Khruangbin took the woozy, wah-wah tones of Thai funk and took it global, so it’s fitting that the warm tale of young love that unfolds in the video of ‘A Love International’ unfolds on a Thai beach. Sweet as mango sticky rice, this Scott Dungate directed film will take you back to those hazy memories of your first holiday romance.
Tyler, The Creator – ‘NOID’
The first single off Chromakopia, ‘Noid’ introduced the album’s exploration of the darker side of fame thanks to the sepia-toned paranoia of its music video. There’s a Hitchock-like suspense to the visuals that tense, breathe and tense again like the disjointed musical sections of the track.
Tyler, The Creator brings the CHROMAKOPIA tour to the UK in May 2025 – find tickets here
Yvnnis – ‘GARE DU NORD’
The editing on this Ferina-directed video for French rapper Yvnnis is truly something else, as an Parisian district is pulled down to the size of a toy train set, while zooming shots back in life size create a dynamic, overstimulating urban experience.
Taylor Swift – ‘Fortnight’ (ft. Post Malone)
Taylor Swift called her self-directed video for ‘Fortnite’ the “perfect visual representation” of The Tortured Poets Department. “Pretty much everything in it is a metaphor or a reference to one corner of the album or another.” It’s far too late in the year to start dissecting each easter egg and call back here, but you don’t even have to be a Swiftie to notice the cameos from Josh Charles and Ethan Hawke who of course starred in the 1989 classic Dead Poets Society.
Amyl and the Sniffers – ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’
Just another reminder to get some Amyl and the Sniffers into your life. It’s a simple video idea, in which a sleazy looking guy (played hilariously accurately by Steve ogg) loiters outside a liquor store before embarking on becoming the ultimate hype man. Coaching Amy Taylor, easily one of the most energetic bandleaders out there right now, is some undertaking.
Find Amyl and the Sniffers tickets here
The Smile – ‘Wall Of Eyes’
There’s a kind of stop motion-esque, candlelight flicker to this black and white film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson that perfectly matches the brooding atmospherics and quiet mania of this track from Thom Yorke’s The Smile.
Kamasi Washington – ‘Get Lit’ (ft. George Clinton & D Smoke)
Saxophonist and modern jazz stalwart Kamasi Washington returns to his roots in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, in this 13 minute short that explores movement and pace with staring moments of Afro Surrealism. It’s a more cerebral experience than the song’s hedonistic title might suggest, but pretty wowing nonetheless, and also features cameos from Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Robert Glasper, Willow Smith and more.
Kamasi Washington is on a UK tour throughout April 2025 – find tickets here
