12 Best Country Videos of 2015
In 2015, many of country music's best videos aimed for cinematic grandeur. Old Dominion paid homage to an Eighties classic, Little Big Town and Kacey Musgraves aimed for David Lynchian dream states and Sam Hunt set a sexy love song to a harrowing account of violence.
But it was Eric Church's depiction of a misfit kid — possibly based on his own upbringing — in the "Mr. Misunderstood" video that got the most viewings. Seeing the young daydreamer triumph and start his own band should ring familiar to anyone who's ever felt a little different and a little out of place.
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Eric Church, “Mr. Misunderstood”
A young outsider finds his footing in this coming-of-age clip, which follows a teenaged mini-Chief as he learns the guitar, discovers rock & roll and, eventually, winds up fronting a band. Church and his backing band make a few appearances too, playing "Mr. Misunderstood" — perhaps the first mainstream country song to namecheck Elvis Costello and Jeff Tweedy instead of standbys like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson — at the front of a classroom.
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Dawes, “All Your Favorite Bands”
A love letter to some of Dawes' best-loved musicians, "All Your Favorite Bands" cycles its way through home footage of more than 20 famous friends, all of them singing along to the fist-pumping power ballad. Brandon Flowers, Gillian Welch, Shovels & Rope, My Morning Jacket, Robert Ellis, Conor Oberst, Blake Mills and Sam Outlaw make appearances, as does the song's creator, Jonny Fritz. Capping off the video is a clip of Taylor Goldsmith performing with a kindergarten-aged choir in a school auditorium, a fitting end for a song that could double as the prom anthem for Americana's newest class.
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Kacey Musgraves with Willie Nelson, “Are You Sure”
Shot days after Willie Nelson's Fourth of July Picnic, this dreamy clip finds Kacey Musgraves and Shotgun Willie performing together in a hazy honky-tonk, backed by a slow-motion swirl of bar lights, pool players and sidemen dressed up in the same old-school western wear as Riders in the Sky. With help from some woozy camerawork worthy of David Lynch, the video pays tribute to Texas's country scene, casting two Lone Star State heavyweights — the icon and the relative newcomer — who represent the community's past, present and future.
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Sam Hunt, “Take Your Time”
Moody and cinematic, the "Take Your Time" video expands the storyline of Sam Hunt's surprisingly disarming love song, recasting his heart's interest as a new mother struggling with domestic abuse. Hunt plays a barroom singer who falls in love with the lady in distress. At first, he watches helplessly as her life slides into violence. Later, he takes action, allowing the woman to escape town — as well as her no-good boyfriend — and point her car toward brighter beginnings. Hunt gets left behind, of course. . . but sometimes, it's more important to be the hero than the boyfriend.
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Brandi Carlile, “The Eye”
Recorded live in one continuous shot, "The Eye" finds Carlile harmonizing with bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth, their three voices accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. It's a simple, stunning video, one that showcases Brandi Carlile not as a solo project, but as a genuine band. Extra credit goes to Phil, whose sky-high descant soars well above Carlile's melody during the chorus. "He's our Graham Nash," Carlile proudly told Rolling Stone Country in March, three months after the video's premiere. "He's our Bee Gee."
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Little Big Town, “Girl Crush”
While a disco ball traces patterns across the stage, Karen Fairchild and the rest of Little Big Town perform their CMA-winning ballad with class and poise. It's a simple, slow-moving video, one that plays up the old-school vibe of "Girl Crush" by nodding to the classic variety shows that used to showcase vocals bands like Little Big Town on TV. The only quibble? A silhouette of a man and woman slow dancing in the audience, which clears up some misconceptions about the song's intent but also robs it of the mystery that caused such an uproar in 2015.
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Dierks Bentley, “Riser”
For this video accompanying Bentley's moving anthem of strength and resilience, director Wes Edwards wisely opted not to focus on the artist but instead on the story of a real-life "Riser" named Amy. Edwards met Amy through Nashville-based housing organization Safe Haven and the black-and-white clip has an actress retrace Amy's difficult journey from sleeping in her car with her kids to a dingy motel room to, finally, a place they can call home. At the end of the video, Bentley stands with his arm around Amy's shoulders while all around them is black, empty space — as if to suggest that sometimes all we have against the darkness is our own strength.
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Jake Owen, “Real Life”
The video for Jake Owen's "Real Life" might be the best Nineties rock video ever made of a country song. Combining the colorful whimsy of Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" with the best grocery-store dancing this side of Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing," "Real Life" uses its video-within-a-video technique as a way to support the song's message of the simple pleasures regular folks get out of life. The greasy spoon down the road is often preferable to the place with fancy flatware and miniscule servings and the backs of trucks are better for drinking beer than for the gyrations of preening, bare-chested models. Beware: this one may make you want something scattered, smothered and covered.
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The Deslondes, “The Real Deal”
For "The Real Deal," New Orleans' own the Deslondes cooked up a video that's as quirky and fun as their dance-friendly sound. Each one of the guys has a life that's separate from the band — including a bass player who does magic tricks for kids — but when co-frontman Sam Doores pulls the van around they're suddenly on a mission to entertain. They play, people dance and the party extends into the wee hours. It's how it should be when friends get together — for a little while, anyway, all is right in the world.
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Cam, “Burning House”
Presumably, Cam was never in any peril for the filming of the "Burning House," but the director sure made it seem that way. Initially it looks like a literal approach to a song that was inspired by an anxiety dream, with Cam observing a raging inferno and entering through the front door. Inside it's more like her dream space — shafts of light, hazy smoke and a warm, orange glow. She encounters people she knows, including the guy she hurt. Try as she might, she can't save him so she holds him as the flames get bigger. It's a pretty apt metaphor for the abrupt end of a relationship: someone's inevitably going to get burned.
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Old Dominion, “Break Up With Him”
This — 2015 — would have been the year that Doc Brown and Marty McFly visited the Hill Valley, California, of the future and bore witness to hoverboards and flying cars while saving the world from a rip in the space-time continuum. And Old Dominion, a group of guys who undoubtedly grew up on Back to the Future, paid loving tribute with the "Break Up With Him" video. Singer Matthew Ramsey is the hapless McFly, rocking out with the band and wooing a young woman (presumably not his mom) away from the musclebound jock with the help of multiple time-traveling versions of himself. He's physically no match for the big dude, but the apple of his eye uses her mean right hook to save the day and they ride off in the DeLorean. We may not have flying cars in 2015, but at least the world is a safer place for guys who aren't so tough.
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Kip Moore, “Lipstick”
Like a brighter, buzzier update of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," "Lipstick" unfolds like a home movie, filled with footage of concerts, bus rides, soundchecks and the half-lit shenanigans that inevitably occur whenever a group of young men travel the globe together. There's plenty of smoke, sweat and screaming fans, as well as more than a few slow-motion shots of Kip Moore, who apparently never wears sleeves onstage. For an artist who's built most of his audience on the road, the whole thing functions as a supersized tour diary, shining a light on a frontman whose shows owe just as much to rock & roll as country.