Best 2015 Effective Music videos- Pitchfork

From the pitchfork list the top 20 music video in 2015, I have chosen are analysed and I am going to find out why they are the top, what I can learn from this and how I can carry this to my own music video.I think the most effective music videos have a mix of the following features :   Instant impact, Non-linear editing , A sense of development , Strong sense of artist identity,  An engaging performance , Extremes, binary oppositions and repetitions , Are visually striking, Provoke a reaction, Different layers of meaning and  References to popular culture.

 At the beginning of the music video you see the location,where there is a black cage with a little girl and a man opposite each other . this gives the audience some sort of tension as the song arrives quickly zooming into the little girl and mans face. as they walk around the man and little girl are dancing around, this gives us a an isolation and haunting feeling about the scene. it makes the audience question why are they dancing in a cage?what does the cage represent ? Who are the characters in this video? throughout the music video you can sense some uneasiness and a unsettlement ,this come through of the expression used and the lyrics of the video.
The camera seems like it is hand held inside the cage, it is very edgy and it is moved by the hand. But outside the cage using track shot . No zoom in has been used around. The mise-en-scene  the lighting in this video is very light and doesn't have a dark atmosphere , which may connotes the fact that the characters might be a positive 
 This video is very powerful, what I assume in the video is that Sia represents ( Subconscious mind/Maturity( mature people doesnt change easily)/peace) Maddie represents (Alter ego (demon)/ Conscious mind/ child (children can change)/ energetic) Cage represents: Small blockage of mind (small area of mind/narrow mind Origin of two distinct thoughts Sia & Maddie (thought  Their first glance/analysis on each other. Start of showing each other’s power. As  (Maddie) knows she is weak, she screams to make thought one scare.  don’t want to listen to her. (Maddie) is terrified of not having control. They crawl like an animal to fight & to show their dominance. After some years (teen age) it gets the power to beat thought 1 (positivity).
 Years after years, we have awaken Demon under us …. It reuins our life aims & adds distraction.Now Our mind tries to defend ourself from negative thoughts.  Demon look of Maddie tries to save itself by climbing the cage. But gets tired as we are no more concentrating on it.
 Years later (adult age around 25-40)  As the topic is again touched.  He tries to control it in a friendly manner. She analyze it too. She still think that is wrong/ its over rated. She bites him as disagreement form the friendship.  She feels correct in doing so.  Now he is angry & want to end forever.  He struggles to settle her. She leaves him/ gets out to get the broader view about life. Get’s out of the narrow mind/ cage. **The fact is she was “discomfort” / She represents – struggle, truth, Life reality. 

 He is tired of living in comfort zone ( the cage) as now he has to pay the higher cost of it. Years later After seeing a broader perspective Maddie come back to the cage.  She hugs the maturity.  He entertain her as he feel good to meet a new developed thought/ Aim in life.  He feels sad for the pathetic condition he has made in the cage. She knows that to reach big aims the mind has ever thought, she has to take the body out of the comfort zone/ narrow mind. Body Age is around 45-65 the thought is Very scared & he feel he can never get out of the cage as its too late  Moral: Don’t be Stubborn, keep on changing with situation, before its too late ;) / Though I personally feel its never too late. 
I also think that there are other meanings because
  Sia was the embodiment of thought and reasoning (adulthood) while Maddie was the embodiment of freedom and carefree nature (childhood) all in the mind (cage which can also be formed by society among other factors). The dance I believe was meant to portray that the two cannot always co-exist in harmony. While your mind wants to be free it is still restricted to reasoning, thus they fight.

Your reasoning fights your freedom and carefree nature, trying to tame and control it, but the mind will always long for freedom and thus will never be tamed no matter what angles or whatever methods you use (sia using chains against maddie where she resists and escapes, then he tries to use the gentle approach to which he was bitten). Reasoning will get angry and lashout at this side of you, but you cannot truly hurt or banish your free side no matter how much you want, but your free side can injure your reasoning quite easily but truly wishes not to (notice how many times Maddie kicked him and threw him against the cage, but Sia could barely touch her. His hands are cut and bruised from the countless fights, but Maddie barely has a scratch).

There are then times that reasoning and freedom are harmonious, resulting in bliss. They have truly accepted one another for what they are and are not. They realize they both need each other fundamentally. At this point your freedom will try to pull you into other things, but while your freedom is as it says, free, your reasoning and thought is not. At this point I believe that it was intentional that the cage gaps was indeed big enough for Shia to slip through, but it was all in his head why he couldn't truly leave (the cage). The freedom is there, urging you and tugging you to step outside your cage, showing you the way, but your reasoning is forever trapped in the cage that your mind created (to why tears formed for Shia in the end, he saw the way but he could never leave). Freedom is puzzled and wants to understand why you cant leave but cannot due to her nature. Reasoning wants to understand how freedom can leave but cannot due to his nature. And so it will be an everlasting fight.

The more I watched the video the more I understood why SIA chose those actors to play those roles. The expressions needed to convey those ideas is not something you come across everyday (especially the last scene). It truly is unfortunate that some of us see it as something twisted instead of the piece of art it is supposed to be. She sees the cage, she walks around in it but it never restricts her movement, she rarely even touches it lest for entering and exiting the cage. Reasoning on the other hand interacts with the cage quite frequently. He climbs it, shakes it, punches it to show his interaction with it.)