We'll be exploring a wide range of genres and mediums, from Japanese rock duos and American EDM to traditional stop motion and boundary-pushing 3D computer animation. This list, much like animation itself, won't be limited to a single category. Today, we'll be discussing some of the best of that animated art. Animation in music videos understands this, and takes full advantage of the medium to birth truly groundbreaking art. It's no secret that animation can portray and convey situations, thoughts, movements, and characters that live-action simply cannot. This brings us to today, where music videos are becoming even more experimental, more daring, and more envelope-pushing, especially when animation is involved. With this, the implementation of animation began seemingly as early as the 1980s, less than a decade after the birth of the art. Though promotional clips were primarily live-action, once MTV came around and music videos hit their stride, more and more experimentation within the form began to occur.

Though it might not initially seem like it, animation has actually been a fairly important part of music video history, or at least, played a strong supporting role. But what of the subcategory of animated music videos? Music videos are an incredibly unique art form with a surprising amount of artistic variation and relatively expansive history.

Pencil animation music video