10 Best Hard Rock Music Videos Of The 2000s
Are these the greatest and best rock music videos of the noughties?
Did MTV make music videos uncool? From its golden era in the 1980s through to the '90s, if you didn't get a video on MTV you probably weren't going to make it into the big time. Having a good music video was key to getting recognised.
Once the kids could put a face to a name then artists and bands popularity would sky rocket, and if an artist was willing to do something particularly eye catching (or demeaning) then it would only speed up the process. Leading to some truly creative short films and some utterly embarrassing ones - don't worry, Vanilla Ice has something for that burn.
When MTV started pulling back on its music video output, and instead started pushing a stream of mind-numbing reality TV shows (OK, Punk'd was pretty good), it didn't result in musicians moving away from the realm of music video; on the contrary, the money and effort record labels put into music videos increased exponentially.
With the 2000s came an abundance of music video channels showcasing the weird and wonderful art form in all its glory. And, although each genre had its cliched tropes to fall back on, there were plenty of examples of rock acts creating innovative and humorous videos to keep us entertained. These are some of the best examples of hard rock music videos from that fabled age of 2000s hard rock.
10. St. Anger - Metallica (2003)
If you're in any way a fan of rock music, then you've most likely watched Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster, a film documenting the rocky experience of a band trying to record a new album - while they struggle to reconcile their creative differences and wrestle their over-inflated egos into submission long enough to lay down a track.
St. Anger was the first single Metallica released after the turmoil that was the band's recording experience, post-departure of long-time bass player Jason Newsted. Fittingly, the lyrics explored the pent-up emotion felt by the various band members that had slowly been bubbling beneath the surface, particularly in the case of James Hetfield, who pointed to his long time dependency on alcohol as the main culprit.
Spoiler alert, the grand culmination of the documentary shows the band managing to pull itself back from the brink of collapse, and performing their new single to crowds of inmates at San Quentin Prison.
Perhaps not the most original of concepts, with Johnny Cash beating them to the punch by performing a concert at the very same prison back in 1969. But, symbolically the music video for St. Anger captured what it needed to, with the lyrics expressing an escape from the prison that had been the bands strained relationship.