3. David Arnold & David McAlmont, "Diamonds Are Forever"
What I love about this video: McAlmont's performance is completely unsmiling, unwinking, and stony until his last note, and it is way funnier than it ever would be if he'd gone in all flaily and queeny. He's not playing it like a man dressed as a diva; he's playing it like a diva. Add that to the way David Arnold looks at him, like "lamest fantasy EVER, dude" and you have fucking gold.
Word is that Dame Shirley Bassey was not impressed by this version of "Diamonds Are Forever," possibly because many people were suggesting that it was better than the original. I'd have to agree--McAlmont is totally owning it harder than she ever did.
2. Indochine, "Stef II"
I find Indochine videos more surreal than most, because I don't speak any French. Unless I'm simultaneously reading the lyrics and their translation while I'm listening, I don't really have any cues as to what the song is about, so of course their video concepts just seem totally insane to me.
Like this one: there's some non-work-safe girl-on-girl, and the band playing, and then the band is dressed in drag and half of them look like Liza Minnelli, and suddenly the frontman is participating in the girl-on-girl while dressed in drag and WHAT. IS. GOING. ON. Reading the lyrics helps; as they all pop up in dresses, he's singing "And you'll see, I'm a girl, we'll look like girls." Quite literal, this one.
But why is it ranked so high, you ask? Because everyone in this video is beaming like putting on a skirt was the best thing that has ever happened to them. Awww.
1. The New Pornographers, "Sing Me Spanish Techno"
Oh gosh, is there anything that isn't delightful about this video? Real, pageant-quality drag queens! A coherent storyline! Adorable! I'd love to find out more about the actors in this one, but I have no clue where to start.
People like to talk about the CRAZY PLOT TWIST halfway through, so I don't want to go into too much detail and ruin it for you, but I will say this: I don't believe the implied homoeroticism and the video's outcome are mutually exclusive. In either case, the moral seems to be that you should try new things and be fabulous, which is what Queerics is all about.