Indie Sleaze selects: 10 of the all-time best 00s music videos

A Deeper Guide is a new monthly column from pop-up cinema club Deeper Into Movies, where actors, directors and other creatives share their most inspiring cinematic pleasures. For more information about upcoming screenings, visit their website.

The @indiesleaze Instagram account is the true archivist of the mid-to-late 00s. Her page is an ode to the indie scene, and has become an online museum dedicated to the era – think American Apparel bodysuits, warehouse parties, bloghouse, skinny jeans, Skins, iPod shuffles and digital cameras. For the latest edition of A Deeper Guide, we invited the anonymous admin to compile her definitive list of the best indie sleaze music videos – so set your iPod to shuffle, and let’s go.

Indie Sleaze: Uffie’s “Pop the Glock” is hipster concentrate. The song’s music video, directed by Nathalie Canguilhem, was filmed at the mansion from Boogie Nights. It features a cast of characters that define the indie sleaze era, like BJ Panda Bear (AKA Unchill Azn Bro by Hipster Runoff) and Sky Ferreira. There’s also plenty of Jeremy Scott and scene-girl swag for everyone to enjoy. Uffie split the filming of this music video between the birth of her daughter, and it remains one of the most iconic music videos of the era.

Indie Sleaze: Not only is this song guaranteed to have you feeling yourself on the dance floor or on summer walks through the city, but the music video is hot. It features a game of broken telephone that eventually turns into a wild makeout session between a group of hipster girls. It’s a super simple concept, very DIY, and very indie sleaze.

Indie Sleaze: A bunch of Lord of the Flies coded hipsters taking acid (Caroline Polachek included) with Andrew Van Wyngarden riding a giant cat, singing a song that defined millennial malaise against a trippy Windows movie maker background – what more can you ask for? It’s a song that made me weirdly emotional when I first heard it back in 2007, and one that takes on new meaning as you get older. The music video, directed by Ray Tintori, is the perfect blend of a DIY college art project and self-awareness; made up of intentionally crude effects like jagged green screen edges around people and things, ridiculous duplication effects, and references to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain.

Indie Sleaze: I love this music video because it encapsulates the wardrobe of every indie boy I had a crush on in the late 2000s. It was shot by French directorial duo Jonas and Francois, with animation by So Me. The music video is shot in the style of Pop Art, and includes a reference to the song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles, with the word radio replaced by “Internet”. Augé and de Rosnay walk, and the images on their t-shirts constantly change and morph from cars, mouths, and thunderbolts, to lollipops, numbers, letters, and lyrics. It’s very Ed Banger, and this feels like peak bloghouse. This song defined 2007.

Indie Sleaze: When this music video, directed by Huse Monfaradifirst, was first released in 2004, it was hard not to be mesmerised by a scantily clad aerobics class gyrating to “Call On Me”. It’s part of the trilogy of sweat-sleaze, along with “Satisfaction” by Benni Bennasi, and “Perfect (Exceeder Mix)” by Princess Superstar and Mason – music videos of hot sweaty people hard at work, which probably led to a lot of sexual awakenings.

Indie Sleaze: The music video for “Pass This On” is one of my all-time favourites. Directed by Johan Renck (Chernobyl), It features an outstanding drag performance by Rickard Engfors at a local football club meeting. The viewer might be concerned as Olof Dreijer (one half of the duo of The Knife, brother to bandmate Karin Dreijer) approaches the performer as she sings “I’m in love with your brother” – is he going to end her song by force? Instead, they’re both moved by the music, and soon everyone is dancing. There is something so magical about both the song and the music video; it’s like an electro-pop snake charmer. The drag performance becomes a sort of spell for the audience regardless of sexualities and labels, and seems to be simultaneously challenging homophobia and creating an air of intrigue around queer sexuality.

Indie Sleaze: The White Stripes has a lot of music videos that I could watch over and over again, and this is one of four directed by Michel Gondry that I love the most. The music video takes place in 2000s New York, and utilises pixilated animation to create dozens of drum kits and guitar amplifiers multiplying to the rhythm of the song. Gondry really used 32 identical Ludwig drum kits, 32 identical amplifiers, and 16 identical microphone stands during the shoot (which he later donated after filming). They had a ton of people on set who would rush another item out so they could take the next shot quickly. There’s also a short cameo by Beck, who plays a man in a white suit presenting Jack with a “box with something in it”.

Indie Sleaze: This music video, which might as well be an American Apparel ad, features people licking ice cream, getting slapped, and doing interpretive dance. It’s directed by my favourite directing crew, CANADA. The music video reminds me of Jean-Luc Godard, late 00s summers and Flickr photography. Fun Fact: All the juxtaposed images from 1:20 to 1:36 of the video make an ice cream cone – it’s a masterpiece in montage!

Indie Sleaze: There’s nothing I like more than girls who get rowdy. I spoke to Lovefoxxx of CSS about wrestling with your friends at parties on my podcast, and this music video for “Alalala” is just super fun and representative of that. It features the band – wearing what looks like thrifted prom dresses – having fun at a garden party that gradually descends into cake-throwing chaos, like something out of a hipster fight club.