Top 5 Supermodel Music Videos
With Agyness Deyn's voice-over in Rihanna's "We Found Love" and Duran Duran's "Girl Panic!" supers spectacular, a new era of model-saturated music videos appears to be upon us.
Still, there are some mighty big shoes to fill if they want to compete with the iconic videos that had us glued to MTV back in the day. One piece of advice: Hire Naomi Campbell.
She appeared in Bob Marley's "Is This Love?" at age 7, Culture Club's "I'll Tumble 4 Ya" at 12, George Michael's "Freedom '90" at 20 (more about that later), Michael Jackson's "In the Closet" at 21, and Duran Duran's aforementioned "Girl Panic" at 41. Clearly, this model knows what she's doing.
Below, our all-time favorites ...
1. "Freedom '90," George Michael: Does it get any better than this? With a call sheet that included Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, and (of course) Campbell, this is the supermodel video against which all others (including Michael's 1992 follow-up, "Too Funky") are judged. The lip-synching, Cindy's steamy bath, Christy's sweater dancing ... it's just too good. Fun fact: The video was directed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's David Fincher, and features a cameo by photographer Mario Sorrenti, still in his male modeling days.
2. "November Rain," Guns N' Roses: Axl Rose appointed then-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour to play his doomed love interest in this epic video. Highlights include Seymour's short and sexy Carmela Sutera wedding dress with matching garters (also available in, sniff, black), best man Slash's killer guitar solo outside the church, and perhaps the most disastrous wedding reception ever. Seymour also appeared in the band's "Don't Cry" video before moving on to bigger things, i.e., billionaire Peter Brant.
3. "Wicked Game," Chris Isaak: Regarded as one of the sexiest videos of all time, "Wicked Game" cleaned up at the 1991 MTV VMAs and put Helena Christensen on the map. Shot in black and white by legendary photographer Herb Ritts, the video sees a shirtless (or briefly tank top-clad) Isaak cavorting on a Hawaiian beach with the topless and tousled Danish beauty. Tighty whities have never looked hotter. Nice work if you can get it!
4. "Uptown Girl," Billy Joel: The Piano Man reportedly wrote this upbeat ode to a classy dame in honor of then-girlfriend Elle Macpherson. Then they broke up, and a certain blonde by the name of Christie Brinkley entered the picture. The couple tied the knot two years after filming this flirty mechanic-meets-model love story, but eventually split in 1994.
5. "Drive," The Cars: Paulina Porizkova was a 19-year-old Czech model when she was cast in this moody black and white 1984 video, randomly directed by actor Timothy Hutton. And though band member Ric Ocasek was already married at the time, the two apparently hit it off and married five years later. Porizkova appears to be something of a musical muse, having also inspired The Rentals' "Friends of P" and No Doubt's "Paulina."
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