The best (non-AI) music videos of 2025… so far
In a world where Artificial Intelligence’s grip only seems to be getting tighter and tighter around the neck of the artists, let’s shut the door on that and celebrate the work of human hands.
A few weeks ago, Nick Cave’s Instagram comments were filled with disappointment as he unveiled a new AI-generated music video for ‘Tupelo’, made for him by Andrew Dominik. The battling thing is that Dominik is a film director, so why would he ask a machine to do his job for him, adding to the threat of it becoming obsolete? We’ll never know.
Any true artist sees that as lazy. In every town or city, in every country around the world, there are people dreaming of creating visuals, people training to create visuals and people working hard, making them come to life. Especially for people who love both music and film, the music video, since its dawn, has forever stood as a sparkling dream.
Combining sound and sight in the ultimate way, being a music video director, or playing a part in bringing a song to life visually, is the lifelong aim of so many. So many who have made it happen have contributed to pop culture massively, as the history of the music video has created some truly iconic moments.
It’s an art form we can’t and shouldn’t lose as something that allows fans a whole new way to engage with a track or understand their favourite act. Luckily, in 2025, it’s clear that the talent is still bright and the form is going no where with these five videos as the brightest examples.
The ten best music videos of 2025 so far:
Noura Mint Seymali – ‘Guéreh’
One of the many troubling undercurrents to AI’s deployment in a creative setting is that it implies a limit to human invention. The majestic footage for ‘Guéreh’ is the perfect inverse of that. Even in the most literal sense, the stunning landscape photography captures a world you might not have known existed.
The sprawling shots of Atar in Mauritania and its deeply human celebrations are masterfully shot by Michele Cattani and perfectly mingle with the folk-psych blend of Noura Mint Seymali’s music. Somewhere between the local dances and the lunar shots of a parched world, you are instilled with a sense of what Seymali’s music is all about and how important it is to Atar.
Sam Fender – ‘Remember My Name’
Place is important when it comes to music. Every song is tied to the specifics of somewhere. And specifics, like human hands, eyeballs, and the estates of North Shields, are not something that AI can muster. Hector Dockrill, however, carefully honoured the sentiment of places and their importance in the touching video for Sam Fender’s tear-jerking and honest single, ‘Remember My Name’.
The video’s monochrome depiction of a couple and the life they share perfectly adds to the gut-punch message of the song and how it lovingly addresses dementia. Dockrill captures the flickbook scenes of a life, and as we all know, they don’t just happen anywhere, they happen in real, lived-in places whose names are later recited around dinner tables and shouted through kettle steam in kitchens for years to come.
The Last Dinner Party – ‘The Scythe’
A song nine years in the making deserves a beautiful visual.
The Last Dinner Party can always be relied upon for delivering stunning visual after stunning visual. Upon the release of their debut, they also shared a short film made in collaboration with rising star director, Harv Frost. With each and every music video, they’ve expanded upon their luscious aesthetic world with Shakespeare adaptations, Sofia Coppola references and even shutting down a Soho street to transform into mythological creatures.
But none of them can top the video released for ‘The Scythe’, directed by Fiona Jane Burgess. Starring Eileen Nicholas and Richard Durden, the band’s unique and anthemic bittersweet love song gains an equally cinematic visual. Unlike any of their other videos, this one feels both separate from the band, but also still just as vitally tied into the building of their legacy.
Black Country, New Road – ‘Happy Birthday’
As we rally to protect the arts from AI, we must throw our weight behind traditional and deeply human art forms – like puppetry.
Black Country, New Road did exactly that when they shared the video for ‘Happy Birthday’, utilising delicate animal puppets and an intricate set for a painstakingly made animated video. The band released a behind-the-scenes video of how it was made, and that alone could be up there as one of the year’s best clips simply because it is so moving to see creatives put so much care and heart into their work.
It matches the song beautifully, perfectly suiting the band’s pastoral energy. As two strange little duck-like creatures wander through the woods, it’s so nice to simply relax and get lost in this clip, dedicating the four minutes of focused attention that it deserves, given just how long the making of it must have taken the creatives behind it.
Camille Schmidt – ‘Stanley’
Even without major label backing or big budgets to blow, you can create a great video as long as you have a camera and a willingness to mildly embarrass yourself.
Camille Schmidt proves that with the video for ‘Stanley’ as she’s found racing around a subway station, spitting her matcha on the floor and writhing by the feet of innocent by-standers on the elevator. No doubt the experience of making it alongside director Henry Nelson and camera man Will Curry was likely a painstaking exercise in public humiliation for the sake of art.
But the final video is evidence for why it’s always worthwhile. Allowing Schmidt to make a visual worthy of the incredible song, and expand the world of her debut album Nude #9 with something cinematic, seeing independent artist team up with other creatives and simply make something together will always be inspiring as a testament to how talent will always push past blockades in the way and make something regardless.
Sabrina Carpenter – ‘Tears’
There is nothing I love more than seeing an artist with all the weight of fame, fandom, and money on their side use all of that to create something truly, truly insane. By insane, I mean completely over the top on a scale that artists from the MTV age could have only dreamt of. By insane, I mean something like Sabrina Carpenter essentially remaking Rocky Horror Picture Show into a three-minute-long video for a pop song.
Using every penny of that music video budget is clearly something Carpenter is passionate about. The video for ‘Manchild’ is another of the year’s finest visuals, while last year’s clip for ‘Taste’ had her and Jenna Ortega becoming scream queens, or for ‘Please Please Please’ she roped in her then-boyfriend and, you know, Oscar nominated actor, Barry Keoghan for a pocket-sized crime drama; so she’s not new to this at all.
But ‘Tears’ levels it up again. Starring alongside new rising name Owen Thiele, Carpenter transforms into Janet from the cult musical and moves through the movie in hyper-speed, hitting key moments like the ‘Sweet Transvestite’ scene or the finale ‘Floorshow’. It’s so infectiously fun and so perfectly in-keeping with Carpenter’s brand of culturally-informed silliness. This is how you spend that money.
Dodie – ‘I Feel Bad For You, Dave’
Given that Dodie managed to get Jeff Goldblum to star in this video, it’s no surprise that it’s a good one.
Dodie has by far proved her worth beyond being just another YouTube star from back in the day. Her debut album, Build A Problem, was a masterclass in composition, with the follow up EP, Hot Mess, showing her ability to take skill and turn it into experimentation.
As she launches her sophomore release though, the scale kicked up as she proves herself again alongside another old youtube name, Bertie Gilbert. As a testament to the way talent can be spotted young and then nurtured and grown over time, the two deliver a short-film style video of Wes Anderson-eque quality, packed with quirky nostalgia. Led with gorgeous colouring and lighting, it’s a true display of skill, craft and vision.
Fontaines D.C – ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’
Throughout musical history, iconography has been made when great artists pair up with great artists. When musicians and visual creatives come together, a match made in heaven can change everything and level it all up. Think Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe. Think Sex Pistols and Vivienne Westwood. Think Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol. Or, now, think Fontaines D.C and Luna Carmoon.
I wish that Fontaines had been slightly more cohesive with their visuals for Romance as they jumped between directors from song to song. But on ‘Here’s The Thing’, ‘In The Modern World’ and then this year’s deluxe offering ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’, the band teamed up with the new British director to merge their own gothic-dripped indie with her twisted visionary. Fresh off the release of her debut feature Hoard, Carmoon’s own weird and wonderful imagery when it comes to the topic of love, lust and desire was a perfect fit for Fontaines’ album on the topic.
As the video for ‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’ tied them all together, it unveiled a full cinematic world in perfect collaboration between the sounds and visuals.
Addison Rae – ‘Fame Is A Gun’
A good music video can change everything. It can take you from a mere 2020 dancing TikTok influencer, into a pop sensation. Need an example? Look at Addison Rae.
The second Rae dropped ‘Diet Pepsi’, she was transformed. It wasn’t just because of the gorgeous hook of the song, but a lot of it came down to the high glamour and hyper style of the music video where Rae’s dancing skills were suddenly transported into a full vision and a full cinematic world. As she moved towards the release of her debut, this kept stepping up with ‘High Fashion’ being another full-glam masterpiece, and ‘Headphones On’ stripping things back to a new brand of cool girl on a beach in Iceland.
But with the video for ‘Fame Is A Gun’, it felt like the prophecy was complete. It’s clear that for a long time, Rae had been considering the 2000s, Britney Spears brand of popstar and the implications fame like that can have on a girl. In the music video here, it’s analysed with true artistic edge, combining thoughtful choreography, enviable style and simply Rae’s undeniable star power.
Wolf Alice – ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’
To mark a brand new era, and their first on a major label, Wolf Alice were not fucking around. The band clearly saw that new big budget and thought ‘go on then’ as they announced The Clearing with an all-singing, all-dancing video unlike anything else the group have ever done.
That’s not to say that they’re strangers in this field. In the past, they’ve made plenty of truly beautiful and truly cinematic visuals, like the extended 45-minute-long film to accompany Blue Weekend. But there was something different here. As Ellie Rowsell sings “I’ll bloom, baby, bloom / Watch me, yeah, you’ll see just what I’m worth,” the video becomes that proving show. Not only is she delivering vocals stronger than ever before, but when backed up by a whole dance troupe, the ‘Bloom Baby Bloom’ video makes her star power utterly impossible to ignore or underestimate.
No holding back and no shying away from the limelight, this was a music video that made a statement that this time round, Wolf Alice are giving it their all and coming for the power they deserve.
