21 Best Animated Music Videos: Top Music Videos Of All Time

Animated music videos are a special type of video that combines the elements of a music video with animation. They can be used to promote a single song, or an album as a whole.

A lot of popular artists have created their own animated music videos, including Lady Gaga and Rihanna.

Music videos have become more popular in recent years because they have become easier to create than ever before.

The simple computer programs that were once required to create these videos are now available online for free or at low cost.

This means that anyone can make an animated music video, regardless of their technical skills or budget.

Best Animated Music Videos

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What Are Animated Music Videos?

Animated music videos are clips in which drawn, painted, rotoscoped, or computer animation carries a song, on its own or mixed with live action. Fan edits that set anime footage to music are usually called AMVs. The clips below are commissioned videos, plus one animated feature sequence.

Steamboat Willie (1928) is a Walt Disney short, animated by Ub Iwerks, and one of the first cartoons with a fully synchronized soundtrack. It is a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Disney did not put it out as a music video for a song of his own. A film often cited as the first fully animated music video is Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “Accidents Will Happen” (1979), made by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Will Vinton’s clay-animation studio dates to the mid-1970s.

MTV went on the air in 1981. Animated videos stayed uncommon until the mid-1980s, when clips such as a-ha’s “Take On Me,” Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” made the form a hit. Total Request Live, a later MTV countdown, premiered in 1998.

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Get your groove on with these best animated music videos. Eighteen videos are covered below.

Every pick in this guide

Jarvis Cocker – Aline

Jarvis Cocker, the Sheffield singer who formed Pulp in 1978, sings Christophe’s 1960s song “Aline” in character as Tip Top. The recording is on Chansons d’Ennui Tip Top (2021), his companion album to Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch.

Anderson directed the animated video, and Javi Aznarez illustrated it. Tip Top moves through the film’s fictional French city in traditional and digital 2D. The song itself was written by Daniel Georges Jacq Bevilacqua, the singer known as Christophe.

The drawings do the traveling. Tip Top is not filmed walking a real street. Aznarez’s traditional and digital 2D builds the city from The French Dispatch, and Anderson’s direction keeps Cocker inside that drawn place for the length of Christophe’s song. The frames are illustration from start to finish, which is why this 2021 clip sits with the commissioned animation in the table.

Mac Miller – Good News

“Good News” opens Circles (2020), the album Mac Miller was making with Jon Brion when he died in 2018. Brion finished the record from their sessions. It is a separate project from Miller’s 2014 mixtape Faces.

Anthony Gaddis and Eric Tilford directed the video. It begins with Miller in the studio, then follows him through an animated collage of landscapes, memories, and images from his career. The studio Luxx animated much of that passage.

The clip begins in the studio. It belongs on this list because of the passage after that opening. Luxx’s collage, under Gaddis and Tilford, replaces the studio with drawn landscapes, memories, and older images from Miller’s career while “Good News” keeps playing. That handoff, from a person in a room to animation, is the video. Circles is the record those pictures accompany. Faces is not.

Jay-Z – The Story Of O.J.

“The Story of O.J.” is on JAY-Z’s album 4:44 (2017). The black-and-white video, co-directed by Mark Romanek and JAY-Z, was animated by The Mill and Titmouse in the look of American cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s. JAY-Z and Romanek used that imagery to face stereotypes, wealth, and what success means. The track samples Nina Simone.

The picture is not a modern stage shoot. The Mill and Titmouse draw a black-and-white world in the manner of those older cartoons, and Romanek and JAY-Z aim that style at stereotypes, wealth, and success. Nina Simone’s sample sits under a picture that looks decades older than the 2017 album it comes from.

Post Malone, Swae Lee – Sunflower

“Sunflower” came out on October 18, 2018, as a single from the soundtrack to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Post Malone and Swae Lee had already worked together on “Spoil My Night.” The song later appeared on Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding (2019).

The clip released with the single is a lyric video built from the film’s animation, with the words placed into scenes in the movie’s comic-book style. A separate live-action video, shot around the recording session, followed in January 2019.

This entry counts the lyric video. It does not invent a separate cartoon. It takes animation made for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and sets the words inside those scenes, so the song is carried by Sony Pictures Animation’s pictures. The January 2019 live-action video, shot around the recording session, is a different clip. The single date remains October 18, 2018, with the same recording later included on Hollywood’s Bleeding.

Childish Gambino – Feels Like Summer

“Feels Like Summer” was released on July 11, 2018, with “Summertime Magic,” as the Summer Pack EP. Donald Glover and Ludwig Göransson wrote and produced it. It later showed up on 3.15.20 under the title “42.26.”

The animated video, released on September 1, 2018, was directed by Donald Glover, Ivan Dixon, and Greg Sharp. Gambino walks through a neighborhood whose residents are drawn as well-known musicians and public figures. The song was nominated for Best R&B Song at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Glover, Dixon, and Sharp send him through a neighborhood that exists as drawings. The residents are drawn as musicians and public figures, so the street is a cartoon of a summer crowd rather than a filmed block. The track began on the Summer Pack EP with “Summertime Magic” and later appeared on 3.15.20 as “42.26.” The video stays the September 1, 2018 film of that walk. Donald Glover and Ludwig Göransson wrote and produced the song.

A-Ha – Take On Me

“Take On Me” was written by Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen, and Pål Waaktaar, produced by Alan Tarney, and released in 1985 on a-ha’s debut album, Hunting High and Low. The hit version reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 in the UK.

Steve Barron directed the video. Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger rotoscoped the pencil-sketch animation, tracing roughly 3,000 frames of live action so Harket’s character could pull a woman, played by Bunty Bailey, into a comic-book world. That video, rather than an earlier performance clip, is the one that spread the song.

Rotoscope is why this clip is still a reference for the form. Patterson and Reckinger traced Barron’s live action, about 3,000 frames, into pencil. Harket’s character can then pull Bailey’s character across the line between a cafe and a comic. The recording on Hunting High and Low is the hit version: No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 in the UK, written by Harket, Furuholmen, and Waaktaar and produced by Alan Tarney. The earlier performance clip is not the one that spread the song.

Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc.

“Feel Good Inc.” is the lead single from Gorillaz’s second studio album, Demon Days. The single came out on May 9, 2005, and the album on May 11, 2005, with a guest rap from De La Soul. The single reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Demon Days opened at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 6 on the Billboard 200. “19-2000” and “Rock the House” are singles from the 2001 debut album, Gorillaz.

Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland directed the video, mixing 2D animation with CGI. Hewlett has said some of the imagery, including the windmill-powered landmass, was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki.

Hewlett and Candeland put flat drawings and computer animation in the same frame. The windmill-powered landmass is one of the images Hewlett has tied to Hayao Miyazaki. The single leads Demon Days, with De La Soul as the guest rap, and it is not a retitle of the 2001 debut. “19-2000” and “Rock the House” stay with that first album, Gorillaz. The 2005 single reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Demon Days opened at No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 6 on the Billboard 200.

The Strokes – Ode To The Mets

“Ode to the Mets” closes The New Abnormal (2020). Comedown Machine is an earlier album, from 2013.

In July 2020, longtime collaborator Warren Fu put out an animated video and gave a chapter to each of eight animators. The chapters run from a prehistoric setting to an underwater New York, with visual asides about the New York Mets, including the 1969 World Series team.

Fu’s video is a relay. Eight animators each take a chapter, and the song plays across all of them, from a prehistoric setting to an underwater New York. The Mets asides include the 1969 World Series team. One director, several drawing styles, one track from the close of The New Abnormal. Comedown Machine, from 2013, is an earlier album and not the record this video illustrates.

R.E.M. – Man-Sized Wreath

“Man-Sized Wreath” is a song from Accelerate (2008). Gary Thomas and Stefan Woronko directed the pixel-art video, produced by Crush: a short animated trip through a shifting city. Murmur (1983) is an earlier album, and this video is not its cover.

Pixel art is a small grid doing the work of a camera. Thomas and Woronko move that blocky, shifting city around the song, and Crush produced the short trip. The picture is not the cover of Murmur. That album is from 1983. This video belongs to Accelerate, in 2008.

Bill Wurtz – Got Some Money

Bill Wurtz writes, performs, and animates his own songs on YouTube. “got some money” premiered on his channel on April 19, 2021, a self-made animated music video of a little over three minutes.

No outside animation house shares this credit. The person who wrote the song drew the frames and posted them on his own channel on April 19, 2021. At a little over three minutes, the upload is the finished video. That self-contained credit sits at the other end of the scale from a large studio roster, such as the team on “Heartless.”

Dua Lipa – Levitating

“Levitating” is a 2020 single from Dua Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia.

An official animated video followed on September 13, 2021. The Japanese studio NOSTALOOK made it, with Yu Tsubaki as creative director and Yuta Ueno as producer. Drawn in the style of 1980s and 1990s anime, it shows her driving off Earth and playing on the Moon.

NOSTALOOK treats the song as an anime scene. Tsubaki’s creative direction and Ueno’s production put Dua Lipa in a car that leaves Earth and then on the Moon, drawn with a 1980s and 1990s anime line. The recording was already a 2020 single from Future Nostalgia. The cartoon arrived later, on September 13, 2021.

Billie Eilish – My Future

“my future” (2020) is a song about being in love with one’s own future. Andrew Onorato directed the animated video, and Chop Studio produced it, with a team that included Onorato among the animators. The clip was made with Eilish and her team in the weeks before the song’s release.

Onorato’s drawings are timed to that idea. Chop Studio produced the clip, and Onorato is in the animation credits as well as the directing credit. The team made it with Eilish and her team in the weeks before the 2020 release, so the video and the single arrived as one piece of work. The pictures are drawn 2D, not a filmed performance with graphics laid on top.

Daft Punk – One More Time

Daft Punk is a French electronic music duo composed of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter. “One More Time,” sung by Romanthony, is the lead single from their second album, Discovery (2001). Homework (1997) is the debut. It reached No. 1 in France, No. 2 in the UK, and No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Kazuhisa Takenouchi directed the anime video, and Leiji Matsumoto supervised it, including the character designs. The same sequence opens Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003), the animated film set to Discovery.

Takenouchi’s anime does not stop at a short promo. Matsumoto supervised the animation and the character designs, and those shots open Interstella 5555, the 2003 feature set to all of Discovery. “One More Time” is the door into that film and the lead single of the 2001 album, sung by Romanthony. Homework remains the 1997 debut. The single reached No. 1 in France, No. 2 in the UK, and No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. The duo is Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter.

Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two

“Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” is from Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1979). Roger Waters wrote it about abusive schooling. A choir of students from Islington Green School sings the hook, and David Gilmour plays the guitar solo. In 1980 the single spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Gerald Scarfe directed the video and built it from his animation for The Wall, along with footage of the teacher puppet used on stage.

Scarfe’s drawings for The Wall are the picture. The video also uses footage of the teacher puppet from the stage show, so the drawn animation and that puppet both appear in the clip. Waters wrote the song about abusive schooling, the Islington Green School choir sings the hook, and Gilmour plays the solo. The 1979 album track became a four-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 in 1980 with that imagery attached.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Sick Love

Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons founded the Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Sick Love” is from The Getaway (2016), the band’s eleventh studio album, produced by Danger Mouse.

Beth Jeans Houghton directed and illustrated the animated video, released on December 5, 2016, with Joseph Brett as chief animator. It follows an Australian woman who moves to Los Angeles and finds a grotesque, cartoon version of the city, including a drawn Anthony Kiedis.

Houghton’s illustrations are the city. She directed and drew a Los Angeles that turns grotesque as that woman arrives, and Brett led the animation. A drawn Kiedis appears inside the cartoon. The release date is December 5, 2016. The song is on The Getaway, produced by Danger Mouse, the band’s eleventh studio album. Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Hillel Slovak, and Jack Irons are the founding lineup named with this entry.

American Pop – Night Moves

American Pop is a 1981 rotoscoped feature directed by Ralph Bakshi and released by Columbia Pictures on February 13, 1981. It follows several generations through American popular music.

Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” is the song Pete plays when a band hires him near the end of the film. Bakshi later said he had wanted Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” for that scene; “Free Bird” plays over the end credits instead. Kanye West’s “Heartless” video, lower in this guide, was designed as a homage to this film’s look.

Bakshi’s rotoscope covers a feature, released by Columbia Pictures on February 13, 1981, not a single’s promo. This guide uses the late moment when a band hires Pete and he plays “Night Moves.” The director had wanted “Free Bird” in that scene. “Free Bird” waits until the end credits. The rotoscoped look of American Pop is what “Heartless” later quotes. The film follows several generations through American popular music.

Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution

“Do the Evolution” is on Yield (1998), Pearl Jam’s fifth studio album. Eddie Vedder wrote the lyrics and Stone Gossard the music. Todd McFarlane and Kevin Altieri directed the animated video, which premiered on MTV’s 120 Minutes on August 24, 1998. It was the band’s first video since “Oceans.”

At the 1999 Grammy Awards the video was nominated for Best Music Video, Short Form, and the song for Best Hard Rock Performance.

McFarlane and Altieri’s comic-style frames are the band’s first video since “Oceans,” and they premiered on MTV’s 120 Minutes on August 24, 1998. Yield is the fifth studio album. Vedder’s lyrics and Gossard’s music play under a cartoon rather than a concert shoot. The 1999 Grammy nominations split that credit: the video for Best Music Video, Short Form, and the song for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Kanye West – Heartless

“Heartless” is from 808s & Heartbreak (2008). It reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ye is a later album, from 2018.

Hype Williams directed and produced the video as a rotoscope homage to Ralph Bakshi’s American Pop. Live footage of West was drawn over by a large animation team. Editorial house Chomet and visual-effects studio Optic Flavor handled the post-production, with Stephan Zlotescu as art director and VFX supervisor.

Williams’s crew drew on top of footage of West, which is rotoscope at the scale of a large team. Zlotescu was art director and VFX supervisor. Chomet handled the editorial. Optic Flavor handled the visual effects. The target look is American Pop. The song is the 808s & Heartbreak single that reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ye, from 2018, is a later album, not the record this video promotes.

Related on Filmmaking Lifestyle

Read next: Best Animated Movies: 18 Top Animated Films Of All Time, Best Background Music For Videos: Top Resources, and Best Cameras for Shooting Music Videos in 2026: 9 Cameras Awesome For Music Videos.

Animated Music Videos – Wrapping Up

There are a lot of reasons why people love animated music videos. They’re fun, they’re catchy and they can be really creative. If you want to create one for your song, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Make sure it matches the theme of your song. If your song is about love, make sure the video has scenes of love. If you have a song about friendship, make sure there’s lots of friends in the video.

Keep it simple. What makes animated videos so popular is that they can be done quickly and inexpensively.

Don’t try to do too much in one shot or else it will be difficult to edit down later on.

Don’t go overboard with special effects. The best way to get people interested in your video is by making it as simple as possible without losing any quality or clarity of images/video footage used in it.

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