Charli XCX, Lana Del Rey… The editors’ favorite music videos of 2024

360 by Charli XCX: the “hot internet girls” reunited in a fashionable and wild video

Nine years after Taylor Swift’s music video for Bad Blood, Charli XCX has brought together her own girl squad on the track 360 from her new album Brat.

Kiss the sweat Gigi Hadid and Selena Gomez goodbye and say hello to Charli XCX’s new crew of post-Internet it girls, including models Gabbriette and Alex Consani, the unclassifiable Julia Fox, actresses Rachel Sennott, Chloé Cherry and Hari Nef, youtuber Emma Chamberlain and make-up artist Isamaya Ffrench.

In this music video directed by Aidan Zamiri, Charli XCX and her guests get together to find the ‘new hot internet girl’, i.e. the new star of social media. The search ends with the appearance of the ultimate it girl: Chloë Sevigny.

In addition to the sleek, fashion shoot aesthetic – the British singer is wearing Saint Laurent, Marni, Diesel and Vaquera – the video’s quirky and provocative tone is a real eye-catcher. Blowing cigarette smoke while sitting on a hospital patient, drinking red wine during a training session or crashing her pickup truck into parked cars are just a few examples.

That show of self-confidence and individuality has turned the woman known as the princess of hyperpop into a new icon of pop culture. (Léa Zetlaoui)

Tough, or the ultra-sexy pastoral symphony by Quavo and Lana Del Rey

We still have fond memories of Lana Del Rey’s music video for National Anthem (2012), in which the singer had a passionate romance with rapper A$AP Rocky, who was not Mr Rihanna yet.

This month, the American singer has brought that old aesthetic out of the shadows, combining vintage film grain, pin-up look, love story and a hip-hop star in the video for her new track Tough. Ahead of the release of her country album Lasso, due in September 2024, the star embodies an enamored, yet blues free, sensual cowgirl.

She and Quavo – one of the members of rap group Migos – are seen holding each other and enjoying a bucolic scenery. These images are an americana fantasy that makes us long for a weekend in the countryside this summer.

We can already picture ourselves in a little wooden house, with a (fully) tattooed rapper, star-spangled cowboy boots on, an acoustic guitar that we can play by the fire, if we know how, and above all, playing this beautiful country-rap duo on repeat while waiting to see the American singer perform at Rock en Seine at the end of August. (Violaine Schütz)

Please Please Please by Sabrina Carpenter featuring Barry Keoghan: a badass and suave short film

They are probably one of the sexiest (and most scrutinized) couples of 2024, if the videos and photos of Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan that have been flooding my Twitter feed and Instagram for months are anything to go by. Perhaps the algorithm is on to something.

It is a match made in heaven between the most coveted pop star of the moment and the actor, whose strange and charming face has left no one indifferent – or maybe just me – and is hard not to look at since the release of Saltburn (2023).

In short, it is but the perfect recipe for the new music video of the American singer’s latest single, Please Please, Please. Barry Keoghan embodies an insatiable crook, who embarks Sabrina Carpenter on wild journey involving robbery and muscular confrontation, while she tells him to stop embarrassing her, adding the affectionate nickname ‘mother fucker’ to her chorus.

The icing on the cake? The threats that the star sings to her new boyfriend: “I heard that you are an actor, so act like a stand up guy”. A warning for him to watch out – maybe one day, an album dedicated to their future break-up could be released… (Camille Bois-Martin)

Illusion by Dua Lipa: the sensual choreography that set our spring (and summer) on fire

As the first buds of spring slowly appeared and the gloominess of the Parisian sky lasted for weeks in April 2024, Dua Lipa unveiled a sensual, revitalizing, and highly physical music video for her new track Illusion.

The sexy, perfectly orchestrated choreography delivered by the British-Albanian artist, alongside the swimsuit-clad athletes who danced with her, immediately lifted the spirit of everyone, while the bass line of this club-tailored single resonated in our headphones.

After the successful releases of Houdini and Training Season, Dua Lipa’s Illusion was the continuation of the long teasing of her album Radical Optimism, which is now undoubtedly one of the most invigorating albums of 2024 (Nathan Merchadier).

BOA by Megan Thee Stallion: the 1990s video game nostalgia

What happens when rap takes on the world of video games? Megan Thee Stallion has her idea. In the music video of BOA, the third single from her new album Megan, the American rapper drops us into the bedroom of a gamer from the late 1990s. Convinced by the fact that he has unearthed a rare gem, the young man plays a CD-ROM called The Curse of Thee Serpent Woman on his computer, and invites his friends to join him in some wild gaming sessions.

At that moment, the rapper appears on vintage screens and successively transforms herself in a series of scenes familiar to video game fans. She first appears as a dancer on the flashing carpet of Dance Dance Revolution, then as a warrior in hand-to-hand combat reminiscent of the iconic Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, or as a jungle adventurer in Jumanji, and finally, as a protagonist from Snake, the iconic mobile game available on Nokia phones in the early 2000s. Snake is the leitmotif of the American singer’s third album, whose first two singles are Cobra and Hiss. In the final shot of the video, a boa constrictor clutches the body of one of the players until her head explodes.

Just like Megan Thee Stallion’s new opus, BOA bears witness to the singer’s passion for Japan, especially for the kawaii aesthetic. A nod to Japan can also be found in the song’s arrangements, which include a sample of Gwen Stefani’s hit What You Waiting For? (2004). As a fan of the Land of the Rising Sun, the pop star never went out without her Japanese-American dancers, the Harajuku Girls… (Matthieu Jacquet)

Blueslides by ScHoolboy Q: a splendid tribute to his friend Mac Miller

On Blue Lips, his sixth studio album released with a bang in March 2024, ScHoolboy Q delivers an anguished track, evoking in turn the betrayals of his relatives and the bloody shootings happening on American campuses.

But most importantly, the Los Angeles-born rapper pays tribute to Blue Side Park, Mac Miller’s first opus, who tragically died in 2018. The latter was ScHoolboy Q’s counterpart and friend.

As the flag-bearer for the American hip-hop label Top Dawg Entertainment (Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Jay Rock…), ScHoolboy Q takes on the artistic direction, alongside James Mackel, to produce a sober, yet elegant video that layers timeless capsules… just like his own record, in which jazz samples abound. Definitely one of the best rap albums of the year, and a serious challenger in the race for the Grammy Awards (Alexis Thibault).

Santa Fe by Shay: by far the best (and hottest) music videos of 2024

Santa Fe, the third track on singer Shay’s album Pourvu qu’il pleuve (2024), seduces us with its super sultry lyrics and video. As always, the artist perfectly maintains her ‘pretty bitch’ image, a woman who is both strong and fatale, independent and proud.

Directly inspired by the 1996 film Barb Wire starring the iconic Pamela Anderson, the music video has been shot in a garage lit by blue spotlights and a single red neon sign. It plunges us into a dark, sexy universe resembling a biker bar.

With her wet hair and black leather total look, from gloves to thigh-high boots, the rapper appears in a wire cage where she slowly dances in front of a captivated audience. And if that wasn’t enough to raise the temperature, Shay finally sets the stage on fire as she rides a huge glittering motorbike. Directed by Guillaume Doucet, who also made the 2024 award-winning short film for Commando, Santa Fe will undoubtedly go down as one of the hottest videos of the year. (Louise Menard)

Translation by Emma Naroumbo Armaing.