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The 20 best Dancing Songs Movies of all time

From pioneers like Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers to modern-day YouTube-breakers like Important Lazer and M.I.A., electronic music boasts lots of visionaries keen to pour a good deal of love (and budget) into bringing their music to life. Here, we have counted down 20 more of the ideal dance movies ever — did your favourite make the cut?

Number20 Big Lazer –‘Pon De Floor’

Back in ’09 Big Lazer constituted of only Diplo and Switch, and Pon De Floor has been the single that introduced them into the world. In these days, Caribbean noises took center stage in the pair’s songs — that was way before Diplo would start calling on pop’s fine for toplines — it made sense that the movie to their breakthrough hit was an ode into Jamaica’s dance style-of-the-moment: daggering.

The following year, within a competitive fondness for its movement left a spate of broken penises in its wake, the Jamaican authorities would crack down on daggering by exposing all movies with “blatantly sexual content” out of television. The Pon De Floor clip stands as a bright, brash and strange reminder of this rather wonderful moment ever. (Interesting fact: it had been led by Eric Warheim of Tim & Eric fame.) [Katie Cunningham]

#19 The xx –‘Islands’

The xx’s self-titled debut album introduced us into some group that has been unshowy in each manner. From the restraint of these songs to the extreme shyness of their early live shows, those Londoners were not going to give us bombastic music movies.

It’s unsurprising, then, that the clip for Islands stands out of this record for its striking simplicity. The xx members feature at center stage, but the focus is squarely on the dancers who move around them in an unbroken loop. The repeating sequence feels perfectly suited to the dreamy depression of the vocals, demonstrating you only need one room and a smart conceit to make a video that is captivating.

There’s an additional bonus here also: watching Jamie xx, who might still be the group’s shyest member despite his impressive solo success, attempting to look invisible at the close of the couch. We view you, Jamie. [Jack Tregoning]

#18 Avalanches –‘Frontier Psychiatrist’

What an unenviable job it must’ve been to try and assemble a visual version of what you hear in an Avalanches song. The Melbourne group — who assembled their iconic debut record on samples, pinched from hundreds of disparate sources — have been already collages in themselves. How can you even start to put that into a music video?

To get Frontier Psychatrist American directors Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire (who’d go on to do these Old Spice advertisements) approached their job with the same spirit of playfulness that The Avalanches sewed into the tune, assembling a number act stuffed with oddballs and right-fitting misfits that bring each small part of the puzzle to existence. Watch it, recall why you loved it and try not to smile. [Dave Ruby Howe]

Number17 Chemical Brothers –‘Elektrobank’

Spike Jonze — among the masters of ’90s music movie with his wild, cartoonish style — played it straight for once for this improbably moving clip, essentially a short movie starring Sofia Coppola, fellow director (Lost in Translation) and Jonze’s future ex-wife.

Coppola plays a gymnast who copes with personal turmoil at a huge contest. The graceful performance (including a pro gymnast double) is a beautiful contrast to the Compounds’ pulverising beats and squelching sound, including The Prodigy’s Keith Murray. Much like Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice, what gets the clip unforgettable is its sincerity — no understanding satirical winks; it lets the attractiveness of the gymnastics be what they are. And also the melodrama is performed to the hilt; it might be a ’80s afterschool special. [Jim Poe]

Number16 Important Lazer & DJ Snake –‘Lean On’

1,535,399,281: that is just how many YouTube perspectives the movie for Lean On had last time we checked. That’s 1.5 billion eyes on Major Lazer’s handiwork, along with a figure equal to over 20-percent of the planet’s population. Those numbers alone could probably make Lean On a reference in this record, but the viewcount is not all that is important about Diplo’s very prosperous minute thus far.

As well as being a great deal of pleasure, Lean On is significant because it proved that dance fans want to watch their own artists in music movies — would it have been such a runaway success if Diplo, Jillionaire, Walshy Fire, DJ Snake and MØ weren’t at the movie, cutting shapes in their mixture of sportswear and Bollywood finery? Or in a even bigger question, could Lean On have become the undisputed song of the year with this movie? [Katie Cunningham]

#15 Justice –‘Stress’

There couldn’t have been a much better candidate to interpret the frenzied, aggressive intensity of Justice’s Stress to movie than incendiary French director Roman Gavras.

Conceived if the French electro duo were in the peak of their powers in 2008 as “a clip unairable on television for a course unairable on the radio” Gavras’ no-holds-barred depiction of a day in the life span of wayward French youths triggering calls of racial profiling and fetishising violence in the wake of the 2005 Paris riots. Wayward is a barely fitting description though, the themes of Stress stalk the outlying suburbs/banlieues of Paris enacting casual ultra-violence and civil destruction where they move, all backed by the ominous whir of Justice’s creation.

Speaking to Flux on the controversy that the music video generated upon its release, Gavras appeared to relish his status as a provocateur — two decades before the ginger genocide of M.I.A’s Born Free clip. “For a couple of months, I had been among the most despised men in France, but it had been enjoyable. It was amazing free promo…that you can only get that much media if you have sex with children.” [Dave Ruby Howe]

#14 Huge Strike –‘Teardrop’

London filmmaker Walter Stern made his name working with The Prodigy at the 90s, when he helmed their inflammatory movies such as Firestarter and Breathe. Those credentials created Stern a somewhat unexpected choice, subsequently, to take on one of Massive Attack’s most fragile songs.

The Bristol collective recruited Stern to bring his arresting visual design to their 1998 single Teardrop, which Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja called a “period of light relief” on their brooding third record Mezzanine. It was Stern’s thought to coordinate with the tune’s dreamy atmosphere with shots inside a uterus, as a human fetus lip-synchs along to Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals.

The concept sounds unnerving on paper, but the extreme closeups produce a strangely meditative mood that is great for both Teardrop. In addition, it helps that the unborn baby is so clearly an animatronic model made of silicon rather than, you know, the actual thing. The movie won a string of awards, entered a lifetime of permanent Rage rotation and also gave Stern a much-needed reprieve from filming mad Keith Flint. [Jack Tregoning]

#13 The Prodigy –‘Firestarter’

While most of dance music’s biggest stars seem painfully embarrassing on camera, The Prodigy were constructed for songs videos. The theatrical personas of Maxim and Keith Flint are created for electrical onscreen performances, with possibly the most overblown of all happening inside the scummy ‘gator-infested flat of Breathe.

Though other videos inspired more heat for The Prodigy, there is something starkly powerful regarding the Firestarter clip. Director Walter Stern took the shameful action inside a deserted London Underground tunnel, with Keith because the central star. The frontman’s unhinged shtick was at its most persuasive in the mid-90s, and he actually dialed it up here, holding the attention with his hectic charisma. Firestarter is so much the Keith Flint Show, in fact, that the participation of Liam Howlett, Leeroy Thornhill and Maxim is restricted to operating at the shadows and giving quizzical looks.

The movie did manage to stir up controversy in britain for giving kids nightmares, with some TV channels carrying it off day rotation. Without a doubt The Prodigy also discouraged a couple of people from adventuring through abandoned railroad tunnels at night. Nobody would like to meet a dancing Keith Flint in the dark. [Jack Tregoning]

#12 Duck Sauce –‘Big Bad Wolf’

“It’s no Windowlicker,” the director behind Big Bad Wolf defended when Rolling Stone went in on 2011’s most head-turning movie. “That was disturbing.”

Duck Sauce’s most memorable clip might not be Aphex Twin-level bizarre, but it sure does push the envelope. To be able to produce their movie tour de force, collaborators A-Trak and Armand Van Helden spent just two weeks on their hands and knees at green screen jumpsuits, heads at the crotches of other men. A good deal of impressive post-production later and they came away with a traditional boy-meets-girl story, only with some — err —unusual sexual acts.

For the ideal assessment of why Big Bad Wolf wants to go down with the greats, render it Kanye West: “You shot a risk as a artist to piss out of your mouth,” he reportedly told A-Trak on email. [Katie Cunningham]

#11 M.I.A. –‘Bad Girls’

When M.I.A. tied up with director Romain Gavras to make a movie for her 2010 tune Born Free, the collaborators came up with an incendiary short movie. Over nine intense moments, we observe a violent raid of an apartment block, and with the officers targeting only residents with red hair. It turned out to be a provocative political statement, using redheads because of stand-in for oppressed and vilified groups, and the two M.I.A. and Gavras recognized the controversy.

When the singer and filmmaker worked collectively in 2012 on Bad Ladies, they picked a much more celebratory tone. Mesmerised from YouTube movies of “Saudis drifting on two wheels” in the desert, they travelled to Morocco to give it a try. The result is bright, daring and bad-ass. On its release, Bad Girls sparked debate regarding its subversion of Arab stereotypes, while also bringing the visceral thrill of M.I.A. cruising the window out of a vehicle that is nearly airborne. Not a lot of pop movies combine style and substance similar to this one. [Jack Tregoning]

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