Thanx to everyone who gave me suggestions about powerful messages in music videos. From what you guys submitted to me and my personal favorites, I was able to come up with 10. I could have gone further but shit is over 1,300 words and it’s getting late. Anyway, here are 10 music videos with compelling messages.
- Rise Against – Make It Stop (September’s Children)
If there was a video that made me stop and realize how fucked up our world is, this is the video. Rise Against felt the urgency to produce a music video dedicated to all those kids who committed suicide from bullying in September 2011. He mentions a few of those kids in the video as well (Tyler Clementi age 18; Billy Lucas, age 15; Harrison Chase Brown, age 15; Cody J. Barker, age 17; Seth Walsh, age 13). The lyrics are beautifully written and, yet, it still isn’t enough to keep our kids from choosing this path in life. “Too much blood have flown from the wrists of the children shamed for those they chose to kiss.” What’s the message behind this song? It’s in the song: It will get better. If you see someone being bullied, fuck it, beat the shit out of the bully. You saw what happened to that dick who was bullying the blind kid. That asshole got his ass dropped! Well deserved. - Beyonce – Pretty Hurts
I know, it’s girly but it’s appropriate. Now, guys may not find this relevant but most, if not all, women do. Men really don’t know the pressure women are constantly under. It doesn’t matter how confident we may come off in public, we all have insecurities and there will always be someone to point them out. “Blonder hair, flat chest, TV says, ‘Bigger is better,’ South Beach, sugar free, Vogue says, ‘Thinner is better.” It is painful being a woman. Body hair waxing, bleaching your hair or even your skin, getting your nails done, spending money on your make up. Social media and society keeps forcing us to look a certain way and it feels like we can never do enough to fit in this impossible, bubble we are told to view as the “perfect body.” - Lady Gaga – Born This Way
Talk about an artistic form of giving birth! Lady Gaga stands for all LGBT kids, teens, young adults, “grown ups,” and she let it be known in her video Born This Way. This music video may not make too much sense the way her lyrics do but… oh, well, it’s my blog! Her song is powerful because she is encouraging us to do the unthinkable: Be ourselves and love ourselves. “Whether life’s disabilities left you outcast, bullied, or teased, rejoice and love yourself today, cause, baby, you were born this way.” - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Same Love
“No freedom until we’re equal, damn right, I support it.” This has always been my favorite line of the entire song. I love this video because it shows the birth of a child who struggles with being gay. A child. This child grows up and has to deal with such fear no one should ever suffer through. The heart warming part of this video, to me, is when he marries his love and you see his mother at his wedding. It’s a beautiful video of a strong relationship. It’s not perverted by religion. It’s funny, the religions that claim being gay is a sin and yet touch and rape little innocent boys, preach such hypocrisy and its followers eat that shit up. I find it pretty ironic that those pedophiles influence a mass amount of people who scream out, “Gay is wrong!” but still worship these religious pedophiles disguised as idols but that’s none of my business… - M.I.A. – Born Free
This is a pretty graphic video and when I mean graphic, I mean, you see people blowing up. M.I.A. was dubbed the anti-popstar because she, truly, isn’t afraid of taking on political issues. Maybe that’s why we don’t see her videos on MTV or VH1… but Miley Cyrus is okay. Anyway, this video shows a genocide happening towards red-headed individuals. That’s right, gingers being round up, shoved up in a bus, and being forced to run through a minefield. For what? For just having red hair. But Ally, isn’t that what happened with the Jews, gypsies, Christians, and everyone else Hitler didn’t like? Why, yes, my little buttercup, that is exactly what happened. You see, when a group of people who have such hate against a certain type of person, the human race can become ruthless, blood thirsty, and inhumane and what’s worse, as humans, we don’t need reason for our actions. - P!nk – Family Portrait
This video may be a little lighter on the eyes for viewers, unless you have lived through this exact situation. The words that really touched me were, ” You fight about money, about me and my brother and this I come home to, this is my shelter. It’s ain’t easy growin’ up in WWIII. Never knowing what love could be, you’ll see. I don’t want love to destroy me like it has done my family.” P!nk tapped into her childhood and decided to write a song conjuring up hard memories of her parents’ divorce. She wrote exactly what every child wants to say to their parents when they are going through problems resulting in divorce. - Serj Tankian – Empty Walls
This was another video that got me thinking as well. It starts off clearly with a little girl building her two “twin towers” and then a little boy throws his airplane causing her towers to fall. She calls for reinforcement and that is went shit hits the fan. The kids declare war and begin bombing each other, forcing the kids playing “house” out, killing them or throwing them in prison. Other kids opt for suicide car bombs until there is no one left standing but a floor of dead children. The children hear a funeral happening outside and see two parents of a soldier about to be buried. They are all someone’s child. “I loved you yesterday, before you killed my family.” The image that really stuck out to me was the image portraying Ali Shallal al-Qaisi. For the sake of having the FBI kicking down my door, I’ll keep my opinions about this to myself. - Lady Gaga – Til It Happens To You
This video inspired me to do this post. I wasn’t surprised to see Lady Gaga talk about this issue but I wasn’t ready to see the images of rape being so raw. The images that burned my head were the thrusting and the girl passed out on the chair with her panties down to her knees. Her lyrics are harsh but true. “Tell me how the hell could you know? How could you know? Till it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels.” College campus rape is hitting the spotlight more often than we’d like to admit and what’s worse, these are just the cases women are building the courage to talk about. This doesn’t include the silent stories from women who have been shamed, forcing them to keep quiet about their nightmare. - Pearl Jam – Jeremy
You know, for a song like this to come out when I was a child and then have my generation have kids to only mistreat them is so mind boggling. Parents, listen to your kids! I was too young to grasp the words to this song and I didn’t watch the full video in its entirety until I was an adult. I knew it was banned because the ending of the video (and b/c of the Hilter salute) but I don’t think it should have ever been banned. We are not the age of innocence and there are far too many children committing suicide because no has is telling them they are loved, they matter, they are worth something. - Madonna – Like A Prayer
The real and the original Shock Queen, Madonna certainly pissed a lot of people off with this video. Where can I begin? Black Jesus, burning crosses, killing a woman and blaming the black guy, a black saint. Madonna, what didn’t you cover in this video? Racism makes everyone uncomfortable and for her to put it right there, in front of viewers, was kinda her saying, “This is how ignorant you sound.”
Hope you guys enjoyed them! Like, Share, & Comment. If you liked it, great! If you think it sucked, boo! Leave comments below and tell me what video you like that isn’t listed and why it’s awesome.
Organized Chaos 