Music videos selected for The Stash Permanent Collection will always value the director’s design/animation/VFX craft over the popularity/sales of the performer, which makes our year-end list refreshingly different than most.

On occasion, massive popularity and exceptional craft collide as they did this year in Francois Rousselet’s extraordinary work for Pharrell Williams and friends above – but we find that most often (as you’ll see below), the truly exciting projects are found a fair distance from the budgets and egos of the music mainstream.

All eight of these films were published in The Stash Permanent Collection during 2022.
 
 
(Above)
PHARRELL WILLIAMS FT. 21 SAVAGE, TYLER, THE CREATOR “CASH IN CASH OUT” Music Video
Issue: Stash 154

Division director Francois Rousselet and the CG animation team at Electric Theatre Collective obviously had a blast pushing the zoetrope to new levels of complexity in this ode to excess for Pharrell Williams and friends.

Produced during the pandemic, the four-minute video took over a year to make with animation of Williams and rappers 21 Savage and Tyler, the Creator crafted by hand after studying show footage plus video shot by the artists performing their verses from the track.
 
 
 

JANEK MURD “AVA” Music Video
Issue: Stash 151

Joosep Volk and Maido Hollo, directors at TOLM in Tallinn, Estonia: “We had worked with Janek before on a successful commercial project and when he was finishing up on his new album, he reached out to us for collaboration.

“We knew right away that we were going down the abstract 3D animation route which is something that works great in short form but three-and-a-half minutes seems like an eternity if you want to keep the viewer interested. You can’t just throw different motion tests together and edit them to beat.”
 
 
 

TEARS FOR FEARS “BREAK THE MAN” Music Video
Issue: Stash 152

Mihai Wilson, director at WeWereMonkeys in Montreal: “It was an open brief, but we did get a quote from Curt Smith that was helpful in cementing our concept: “It’s about a strong female – which is obvious – but it’s really about breaking the patriarchy.”

“That patriarchal concept of ‘The Man’ translated naturally into a world of intransigent concrete structures and endless hierarchies; a place built by mechanical devotion to unstable and unsustainable dogmas; a place populated by legions of drones robotically going up and up until they crash down, only to start over again.”
 
 
 

MAX COOPER “SYMPHONY IN ACID” Music Video
Issue: Stash 154

Polish designer/animator/programmer Ksawery Kirklewski fuses the words of German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein with the music of Max Cooper in this fascinating exploration of generative typography.

Ksawery Kirklewski: “I always hope for my projects to stay alive as long as possible, and be more engaging with each play. In this case, with every visit to the website, the track follows a specific plot, the outcome however stays different.”
 
 
 

ODESZA “LIGHT OF DAY” Music Video
Issue: Stash 155

Balázs Simon, director at Blinkink in London: “When Odesza came to us, they had a clear vision of a character walking up a mountain, fighting the elements in a cold world. When I listened to the track, it had a transcendental vibe. It was uplifting and driven but filled with loads of intimacy.

“With the old hermit, I wanted to bring that forward. He’s a character who, against all odds, refuses to be at the end of his journey.”
 
 
 

UMMET OZCAN “OBLIVION” Music Video
Issue: Stash 155

Director Kouhei Nakama in Tokyo: “In order to express the tune’s uneasy atmosphere, we created a video on the theme of ‘the human body as a pattern.’

“There is a scene in the middle of the song where the singer speaks his lines. I wanted to break him up into blocks as he spoke but I was short on time and had some technical difficulties. In the end, I solved it by using Implosia FX for Softimage by Exocortex Technologies.”
 
 
 

GAYLE “FMK” FEAT. BLACKBEAR Music video
Issue: Stash 156

Chris Ullens, director/animator at Friends Electric in London: “As the song is called FMK (for Fuck Mary Kill), the client wanted the video to focus on the Kill aspect and see Gayle kill Blackbear in multiple ways in a short looping Groundhog Day style.

“The kills also had to be light and fun, not realistic or dark, and there could absolutely not be any love interest or hints of it in the video.”
 
 
 

SNAKEHIPS ft. DUCKWRTH “ALL AROUND THE WORLD” Music Video
Issue: Stash 156

Russ Murphy (aka Ruffmercy) director/animator in Bristol, UK: “The label and band wanted the video to tie in with the album and single campaign artwork and there was a suggestion that the visuals should draw on the lyrics about travel and touring.

“The video had to be turned around quickly so I had to work with a DOP remotely to capture the footage in Los Angeles where Duckwrth is based and then the footage was transferred to my studio via good old fashioned internet.”
 
 
Watch all the Best of Stash 2022 Collections.