Making a tune is one thing, but how do you elevate that from the studio into the bedrooms of millions? Even before the dawn of MTV, producers across the globe have been trying to crack that very question…

For bands perhaps it is easier, at least you can use the musicians ‘live’ doing their thing – or even just get them to jump around on a few treadmills – but if you’ve ever produced a track yourself, you’ll know that hours of knob tweaks and days spent hunched over a computer don’t make for a great movie.

With video possibly becoming even more important for exposure than we all could have imagined – especially over the past few months – we have taken a retrospective look back at the best dance music videos ever made.

These films don’t include the original artist ‘performing’ as previously mentioned, rather this is a list of the best dance music videos ever made that have used nothing more than the narrative, choreography, or song structure to explode the tune to the next level.

Jamie xx – Gosh

There is a half empty ‘fake’ Paris in China (as if you didn’t know) so where better to film 300 kids with bleached hair running around with an albino guy in a Subaru?

Romain Gavras obviously has ideas that most never will and we are very glad he had this one.

Fatboy Slim – Praise You

Spike Jonze has had a long and varied career – from skateboarding, to Jackass, to being a fully respected film director, but his music videos are some of his most famous work.

This flick for Fatboy Slim came from him being unable to direct the shoot for The Rockafeller Skank so he sent Norman Cook a video of him solo ‘skanking’ to make up for it.

That led to the Praise You film with Jonze dancing as the lead of the troupe.

It’s a flash mob well before advertising ruined the idea and cost the grand total of $800 to make. Tidy!

Aphex Twin – Windowlicker

Directed by Chris Cunningham – the English auteur of music videos – who has a habit of making something genius and then disappearing again for years.

It’s a great piece of choreography which is taken to another level by the photoshopping of Richard D James’ head on some very scantily dressed female dancers.

I’m sure there were a lot of confused teenage boners when it was originally released.

DJ Snake – Turn it Down for What

Filmmaking duo Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) made this belter for DJ Snake.

Apparently they wanted to explore male sexuality and they whipped up an idea where dudes are so pumped up on ‘their own dicks’ — that they want to  break shit with ‘their own dicks’.

It fits the tune perfectly, it is ‘incredibly absurd and awesome’ and perhaps might make you want to