August 1st marked the 40th anniversary of the launch of MTV. Its original purpose and claim to fame was its dedication to airing music videos and other music themed content. In honour of its anniversary Rolling Stone has ranked the 100 greatest music videos of all time.
It's not the first time that they have done this but it is the first time Beyonce occupies the top spot. The outlet picked "Formation", the single from her 2016 album Lemonade, as the best music video of all time. The magazine feels that the video is "a striking commentary on significant moments in Black American history."
To support their reasoning for selecting it as most important Rolling Stone said, "If Beyonce's self-titled visual album established her as one of the greatest artists of all time, her surprise-released "Formation" video (and ensuing album Lemonade) marked her as one of the most important.
Other notable entries from the urban space include Childish Gambino's "This Is America" at number 4, The Beastie Boys "Sabotage" at number 6 and D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" at number 7. The King of Pop makes his first appearance at the 10 spot on the list, not with "Thriller" but another iconic video of his "Billie Jean."
One thing that certainly sticks out about the list is that Michael's "Thriller" doesn't make an appearance at all as "Billie Jean" is his only entry in the entire list. His sister Janet doesn't even make an appearance until #60 with the video for her song "Got Til It's Gone." It's arguable that Michael and Janet both helped define the power of the music video and what makes one great with what they produced between the two of them during the 80s and 90s. And no hate on Beyonce from us here, she would certainly have a video in the top 10 easily, we just don't even know if we would consider "Formation" even her own best video.
There were some surprising selections like The Carters "Apeshit" at #29 and "Bound 2" from Kanye West at #34. For those wondering the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion collab "WAP" did make the list coming in at #93.
You can check out the full list here. In our eyes its certainly questionable. What are some of your top music videos of all time, let us know. We might just have to do our own ranking.
