The Top 10 Most Depressing Music Videos

For those who are intimately familiar with my tastes in music, they’re in fact not confined to bubblegum pop;actually, I adore depressing music. This probably stems from the fact that because in eighth grade the least cool thing ever could be to love life, and since I had pretty much an ideal childhood with loving parents and siblings (that’s not sarcasm either), I couldn’t exactly extract any despair from that; so I just relied on other people’s traumatic experiences to quench my thirst for misery. And, well, the habit stuck. I can hardly relate to the music, but I empathize with their pain and I find listening to songs (and their accompanying videos which serve to accentuate the plight depicted in the song) like these to be almost cathartic.

I obviously excluded anything with Puffy or Nickleback or anyone else whose videos teem with pageantry as well as others that lacked sincerity or true torment. Bands like Simple Plan and Blink-182 whose attempt to portray heartbreak is almost amusing in its dearth of authenticity were  definitely not included (Note: it’s a ‘shame’ Stabbing Westward videos categorically suck because they would’ve been ideal candidates for this contest). Here we go: 

-Pearl Jam: Off of Pearl Jam’s epic album “Ten,” mega-single “Jeremy” caused a stir because of its disturbing music video, which eerily foreshadows the Colombine and other school shootings

-Corneille: “Seul au monde.” This Quebec-based hip-hop artist was raised in Rwanda and was the only member of his family to survive the genocide. He frequently sings about his trials and triumphs dealing with this tragedy and this song is no exception; “Alone in the World” depicts his life in a world eons away from his childhood friends and family.

-Johnny Cash: Originally composed by Trent Reznor, “Hurt” is supposedly about Cash’s deceased wife. A powerfully mournful ballad: I admit, I cried when I heard it.

-Jay Chou: The first song on “November’s Chopin,” Ye Qu (meaning “Nocturnes”) tragically tells the tale of love loss. Even though it’s in Chinese, it doesn’t take a minor in the language to understand his pain.

-Elliot Smith: “Needle in the Hay.” Gaining notoriety after the release of the movie “Royal Tenenbaums,” this song was an integral part of the most heart-wrenching scene in the film, when Luke Wilson attempts to commit both suicide and alopecia. Elliot Smith, after writing this album, would later commit suicide.

-Kyo: The title of “Je saigne encore” translates to “I Still Bleed” and discusses in alarmingly precise detail the pains of witnessing the one you love in love with another.

-Bloc Party: Though I don’t believe this is the real “Positive Tension” music video, this representation of the devastating effect of heroine abuse is extremely poignant.

-Ben Folds: I don’t care if you call me a fag, “Brick” is an emotionally exhausting song, chronicling a young couple’s decision to have an abortion and then confronting their parents with this information.

-The Cranberries: “Zombie,” a song illustrating the horrors of the “Terrors,” as the Northern Irish struggle for independence is colloquially known, serves as a grounding for people who like to conceive the war in more idyllic terms (though I do take exception to some of the idolatry in the video).

 

-Placebo’s cover of “Running Up That Hill” is pretty much the opposite side of the spectrum from the Kate Bush original. The band allowed fans to send in their own videos, spliced them, and created the official music video. Though some folks are obviously just trying to get on camera, the anguish in the eyes of others jumps through the computer screen, and you know they understand.