Playlist: Henry Dean

What’s the best music video you’ve seen recently and why?

A recent one that jumped out at me was Matthew Dillon Cohen’s video for Zach Bryan - Oklahoma Smokeshow. It’s a genre of music I’d never usually be gravitated towards, but the video mines the soul of the song so well, and places it so perfectly in a visual universe that it made me love the track more fully than I ever would have with the song alone. 

I think this is the key role of a music video. Matthew Dillon Cohen always does so well in grabbing an emotional hook and extrapolating that into a beautiful little world in such a short period of time. Having spent time living in the American Southwest myself, this video both distils the wistfulness of the region and captures a romantic sense of nostalgia for me. As far as narrative music videos go, this is top shelf stuff; making the most of America.

What’s the first music video you remember being impressed by?

My proper introduction to the world of music videos was totally beholden to the curation of MTV Base and Channel U. I remember Outkast - Ms. Jackson from the legend F. Gary Gray standing out to me from a very young age. I grew up on a steady diet of hip-hop and André 3000 showed me how cool it was to be yourself; he had no fear of being different. This video is still grounded in some hip-hop tropes, but is packed full of visual metaphors that hit me even as a kid. It’s simultaneously intimate and larger-than life – a perfect marriage of poetic images and cinematic scope. Who doesn’t love a car exploding in the rain?

Also a special mention must go to a Channel U classic Sway - Little Derek, directed by Brendan McNamee. As someone whose young mind was moulded by grime 1.0 and its presentation of British culture, this video showed London in a way I’d never seen it before. It was ahead of its time, stylistically it wouldn’t feel too out of place today.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

Can anyone really pick just one? So many linger in the back of my brain for a ton of different reasons. The professional, self-made director version of me would pick something like Carlos Lopez Estrada’s video for Clipping - Summertime. Such a well executed idea, coming to life at a time when we were all realising we could do it ourselves. It’s a massive undertaking that is made to feel effortless alongside the easy flow of the track. It also does one of my favourite things, which is when the track drops out for a little scene… even better if it’s something that happened in “real life” while you were filming like getting bothered by the police or accosted by a busybody.

Me as a 2023-music-enjoyer would pick Bourne - Ere We Go directed by Truman & Cooper. It’s a deliciously slick mashup of small-town British rudeboy attitude and continental fugitive action. It’s recent, but it’s very ‘me’.

The teenager camping out inside me would choose Gym Class Heroes - Peace Sign/Index Down. My favourite band and Busta Rhymes doing shit-hot performance takes, standing super close to the camera, looking like they’re having so much fun. In spite of everything I hold dear about filmmaking, I’d be fine with every music video being a version of this.

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspiration?

When it comes to music videos and a lot of filmmaking in general, I tend to take a lot of inspiration from fine art. Its forms are so unbounded by trends or expectations – galleries are the most fertile grounds for ideas. It’s an overload of concepts, shapes, stories and forms that usually stirs up some latent creative realisation.

However I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get inspired to create by the music of sad boys like Dijon, Q, Yeek, Bakar and Choker, and avant garde acts like Shortparis, Paris Texas and Ichon.

Every other director inspires me. Especially the fellow hustlers. I just like to see people taking a big swing, whether it hits or not. Shout out to my friend Pavel Buryak, he makes it happen in the most uncompromising, relentless way.

What are you listening to at the moment?

It’s an ever-changing international jumble. Recently: a lot of Berwyn when I’m in my feelings, some Meechy Darko when I’m feeling greazy, Kojaque while I put together my Irish Foreign Birth Registration documents, and a Belgian rapper called Primero while I dream of Europe. My wonderful partner Lina Alnadi has also been blasting a lot of Cream Soda, especially of late after one of their members passed away in a tragic accident. Play their new album Internet Friends on the biggest speakers you have and give in to the techno-driven melancholy.

This list will be outdated by the time you read it. But I’m listening to Mac Miller forever.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use? 

Professional use: my Fuji GA645Wi point-and-shoot medium format film camera. It’s an expensive, disappointing pain in my ass and I love it. I’ve always shot film. I keep considering selling this for a ‘proper’ digital camera. I probably never will. For me photography is all about the moment, imperfections included, this camera and its quirks suit me just fine.

Personal use: Fortnite. The game and everything about it. It is so much fun and a welcome distraction from the real world. Find me and Donny Johnson (DoP) on duos… you don’t want this smoke.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why? 

Freddie Gibbs because I know he can act, his music doesn’t miss, he’s self-aware on the Internet and his art direction is always on point. Young Fathers because their sound is always movie material. Skepta, for the culture.