'00s Video Hits

"Video killed the radio star," sang the Buggles in 1979, presciently anticipating the rise of MTV. Three decades down the line, it looks like the Internet has killed the MTV star . . . but fear not, video cadets, because the art of the music promo has — if anything — become more inventive, refined, and entertaining. OK Go's superb running-machine choreography for "Here It Goes Again" pulled in nearly 50 million YouTube hits, while Eric Prydz took a little leotard a long way with "Call On Me," and the Veronicas turned up the heat in the classroom with "Hook Me Up." For more sassy video lassies, head to Next Steps.

"Girls on film" is usually a cast-iron formula for music video success — especially when those girls are giving men the runaround, as Gabriella Cilmi does so nonchalantly in "Sweet About Me" (she literally has them tied up in knots), while Lady GaGa shows she's holding all the killer cards, wrapping blokes in grundies round her little finger on "Poker Face." Beyoncé takes booty-rumblin' choreography to the next level with "Crazy in Love," setting the streets of L.A. ablaze with Jay-Z before cooling off under a fire hydrant, and Mariah Carey leads a smitten computer geek to Fantasy Land on "Touch My Body." The tracks in Deep Cuts kept raising the AV bar . . .

It takes a great video to stand out from the pack, and many of these tracks were accompanied by images that have been seared onto our memories and are instantly recalled whenever the music plays. "What's a Girl to Do?" by Bat for Lashes puts Natasha Khan on a bicycle at night, followed by BMX-ers with freaky animal heads, and CGI innovation engineers the terrifying monkey men in Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At?" Weezer, meanwhile, cuts through to the very heart of the new video age with "Pork and Beans," which hilariously references DIY YouTube culture.

The '00s has been a decade of astonishing, eye-popping, brain-shaking music videos — and these magnificent tracks prompted some of the very best. Some were approached in a high-tech way, others were tackled with lo-fi D.I.Y. enthusiasm, but all of them held our full attention for around three-and-a-half minutes. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog makes a guest appearance on Eminem's sharp sideswipe at generic booty videos, "Ass Like That," Robbie Williams' does a flesh-ripping striptease in "Rock DJ", Kylie pulls on her gold shorts and cavorts memorably on a bar counter in "Spinning Around," and Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" (featuring a levitating, shoe-shuffling Christopher Walken) is quite simply unmissable.