Richard’s Top 3 Music Videos Of All Time

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1:28Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

1:34Richard Osman:And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello everyone. Hi Marina. Hello Richard. How are you? I'm very well. Looking forward to your views on Sydney Sweeney in this episode. We promised them. Like none. Yeah, I didn't think we would. Imagine how many views I've got. We've also got, we sometimes have big industry names answering questions for us. We've got a big industry name asking a question this time around, so we will get to that as well. Shall we dive straight in? Let's dive in. wow this is a question that genuinely of all the top threes would have been the hardest for me to answer so i'm so glad to be giving it to you richard tom says what are your top three music videos of all time it's a great route one because sometimes the route one questions are the best right i would find i love music videos so much i think i would find this so hard okay well listen you can chip in as we go along and i slightly i'm doing a top three but i'm slightly theming them so in third place I think I've got to go with one of the all-time classics there's certain videos of you know the Bohemian Rhapsody and Thriller and stuff like that that are absolute classics and I had to choose between two of them in the end one of them Sinead O 'Connor nothing compares to you just the kind of slow sort of push into the face the tear which you know is incredibly beautiful video and probably not super expensive I bet it's more expensive than you think that video a bit they'll go no it's actually 1.5 million and this is the reason but it's a really beautiful clever video that makes the song better and that's the key right it's something where whatever the song is you associate it with that video as well and it improves the song it's so courageous that she first of all that look was sort of extraordinary and shocking to have at show of ted completely um but also to effectively almost all of it be her acting directly into camera there are the bits where she's walking through the garden or wherever which is the great, the long black thing.

3:20I can't remember. Maybe that was the cost. They hardened an entire Italian hilltop. But to trust an artist to just emote like that into the camera. Yeah.

3:31Richard Osman:It's so compelling. And you're trusting the song. Yeah. Yes. Because the song is so compelling. So I went for that, either that or Take On Me by A-Ha. I knew you were going to say that. It's so good. I watched it again the other day, actually. You know, with the... Had a deadline, obviously. Yeah. with that sort of amazing animation it just didn't feel like anything you'd seen before there's an amazing rip off of it on Family Guy which is really worth checking out and that as a song both of those songs you could release either of those songs tomorrow with exactly the same production but the teen dream of it of people sort of coming out of the pages of your magazine there was something that was so perfect about the kind of artist they were trying to show you that they were yeah exactly and people do keep re-releasing Take On Me don't they as it was and blinding lights i mean all that you know there's there's there's something about that so i think i'm going to go for aha even though i think the artistry is greater in the chennaudu kind of i think there's something about the aha thing that the movement of it the originality of it i don't so i'm going to go for that although they're both brilliant uh number two uh i'm gonna i just think people who are ahead of their time in videos because what i mean is if someone gives you two million to you know shoot duran duran on a yacht in the bahamas i I mean, that's a video.

4:43Richard Osman:Look, it's technically difficult, but it's not, you know, you're not inventing the wheel. So I'm going to go with, because at the time it felt, oh my God, this is like crazy what these guys have done. And now it's all of our Instagrams is this sort of thing all the time. And that's Here We Go by OK Go. Yes. Which is when they're doing the thing on the treadmills. Yeah, yeah. And now, like, people have spent, you know. Anyone can do this now. It's so hilarious. Yeah, I know. My Instagram is all like trick shots that have taken like kind of four weeks to do or people parkour and stuff. But that was them going, OK, we've got zero money.

5:17Richard Osman:We've got a really catchy song. This is going to be really, really difficult because none of us is any sort of a gymnast. But it absolutely went crazy. It went viral. But now it's a sort of we see 20 of those a day, all day. But they were, that was, there were people who did it before it. They were the first people to really, really break that as a thing. And again, and the song is super catchy. but just the kind of foresight to do that I think was uh makes makes that um number two in my book and number one I had to go back to you have to go back to when you are I think falling in love with pop music uh and also it's almost sort of a kind of a golden age of videos when so I'm thinking kind of early 80s yeah late 70s early 80s videos hadn't been around that long it had just become a a sort of a playground for certain bands and videos from that era that one I mentioned for different reasons up the junction by squeeze you must go and look at it it's literally the five of them in a kitchen with someone making them a cup of tea you got Jules with a big cigar in his mouth Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford it looks so young it breaks your heart yeah this incredible song set in the right place and it's just a really beautiful slice of life so i love that that's not it's not my number one uh i love also for a completely different reason walk of life by dire straits oh so dire straits at that point are sort of they're cracking america or you know mtb was a huge deal for for dire straits and dire strait walk of life is the video where it's a little bit of concert footage but in between loads of sports bloopers from american sports and this again is before like many many years before your entire timeline is sports bloopers so watching that decades before this I'm like this is I cannot believe what I'm seeing here this is it's like the montage they would do at the end of the snooker every year to the Sting but for American sports so it was amazing for us because we hadn't seen these things and kind of you know American football players cartwheeling in the air and you know ridiculous mascots and stuff that felt insane but also for America it was amazing.

7:24Richard Osman:So it didn't feel like they were selling out to America but it was absolutely aimed at the American heartlands. It's a great song. So I think that again to use a video that's spending your money well. Concert footage plus they've had to buy some clips but it absolutely lands in the American heartland. So it does something for the song. It services the song. But the video I'm going to go for and they always make great videos and just I think the first time I fell in love with what a music video could be if I say saxophonist on a crane, you know it's going to be Baggy Trousers by Madness. Just Baggy Trousers itself, when you're a kid, is the most extraordinary song you've ever heard.

8:04Richard Osman:You go, I'm so sorry they're talking about this. Sorry, the teachers are in the pub. Sorry, has my entire reality just changed? What is happening here with this song that is also extraordinarily well written? and then you look at the video and they're so you're like no wonder they're called madness mum look uh you know would you have liked been in that gang i don't know i'd been too scared i wouldn't want to be hanging off a crane you got but i don't think you're supposed to play a saxophone i'm hanging off the end of a crane lee thompson i think that's actually madness and just you know what what a band they were uh what a video that was and and just like the song that that just uh you know, absolutely just exploded.

8:46Richard Osman:The video does as well. And that's what a video should do. It should show you a band. It should make the song feel bigger and better than it already is. And it should improve your experience of it. So I think that's got to be my number one video of all time. And I will pause to say that both Madness and Squeeze are still making great music. Isn't that lovely? That is lovely. Oh my God, I would have found that absolutely impossible to do. Hard, right? I still spend a huge amount of time watching music videos and going back and watching them. I found it difficult to do as well. But if anyone listening to this has a top three, send stuff in because it's one of those ones where I know this stuff that I absolutely would have forgotten.

9:20Richard Osman:And also some really obscure ones that deserve to have been much bigger. So none of the obvious ones, none of the sledgehammers and stuff like that. But videos that you think, oh, this was absolutely unfairly overlooked or a video that meant something to you at a certain time. And perhaps we'll do a listener top three at some point as well. There's a load of guys sending in the George Michael Frieden video. it's just like okay if it is a george michael freedom video just put that in the subject line because then we'll just put all them in one place actually the last christmas video is a banger oh the last christmas video is epic yeah that's a good one shall we move on the question is from camilla sucklip she says any thoughts on the recent advert sydney sweeney posted for u.s gambling company novig i'm seeing lots of backlash online for female athletes and i'm interested in your view on why sweeney chose to do it plus should we not be putting our focus on the overwhelmingly male board at Novig.

10:09Right. I'll just deal with the last bit first. I look in my view and lots of people enjoy gambling. It also wrecks lives, but I don't care about the board at the gambling company. They had like, they had 20 ,000 followers on Instagram, this company. I mean, what a booking, what a booking.

10:27Richard Osman:That's like a Nigella type booking. If you haven't seen this advert, But Sydney Sweeney is naked and she's got like two American footballs in front of her tits. Yeah, yeah, whatever. I mean, she looks great, I've got to say. And yet again, she's incurred a huge amount of backlash. I mean, this is what it's one of the things she does. She is, you know, she acts as well. But I don't I really don't care about this. I find it really extraordinary. I think it's nothing to do with female sport. I'm bemused. Look, full respect to all the female athletes for their achievements, but I don't think it's anything to do with female sports.

11:02She's just like holding a load of sports equipment from mostly male-dominated sports against her to promote a gambling website. I do not associate it with excellence in track and field. I just don't, okay? I just associate it with people thinking, wow, I'd like to have sex with her and I maybe will go on this gambling website.

11:22Richard Osman:Nudity for money is what you associate. I mean, really, the great thing about women's sport at the moment is that it's had a mega glow up. Everyone, it's so popular. It's huge. It's doing better than it's ever been doing. I wouldn't have even bothered mentioning this advert. And the idea that it matters one way or the other to women's sport if she does this, I'm sorry, I just don't buy that. And none of which is to denigrate the achievements of all these great women athletes. But it just doesn't seem to me. It just seems to me like a category mistake. It's not even, it's like comparing nothing with nothing.

11:54Richard Osman:I mean, in some ways it shows the strength of women's sport because there are enough female athletes now with a big enough constituency online that they can clap back at it and promote what it is they do. I mean, of course, if this advert was, you know, and this is what an athlete looks like in 2026. And it's not. This is just here's some guys ruining their life by gambling too much. And here's Sydney Sweeney. I mean, that's all it is. but it's you know it's it's female sports i think social media is listen it's bad for lots of things it's been good for a number of things and one of the things it's very good for is female sport because it allows a niche audience to kind of promote voices which then turn something into a non-niche audience yeah sport has been unbelievably good at that athletics has been incredibly good at it male and female athletes have built um uh you know built audiences online has brought people into that sport in a way that nothing else ever has uh and the one nice thing about seeing the backlash against Sydney Sweeney, nice thing, is you see these incredible voices and these incredible characters who you know that you can then, unlike someone just commenting on something, you can go and watch them run 100 metres in 11.2 seconds, which nobody else can do.

13:08Richard Osman:I think that's a great thing. I love that. But the sort of perma-backlash against her, I love her. I love that she's out there in the culture. There's something, she's taken so much heat. people say oh she does too many brands she does you know she should be ashamed of promoting so much it's like why should women feel shame for just like promoting brands i mean who cares the stuff where she's you know it's quite obviously semi-ironic you know the soap that was sold with traces of her bath water in it people are always wanting to tear her down and i ended up writing about this in my column uh last week and i can assure you that for her entire 20 her entire 30s, 29 now, I think she can do what she likes, her entire 30s and 40s is going to be people interviewing her, trying to get her to feel retrospective shame about stuff she's done in her 20s.

13:57And I am not here for it. It's pathetic. It's like, it's not, none of this is that bad. It really doesn't matter. She looks like she's having a good time. I absolutely respect people who can get out there and act like they don't give a toss no matter how much backlash they take. And she's taken a huge amount. And yeah, she's got paid really well for it. But there's something about her that I find quite inspiring because I have a slight inner voice that if you're taking lots of heat for this or that, you just think, you know what? Screw you. I'm going to do whatever I want all the time. And she has got a sort of energy that does whatever she wants all the time.

14:34And if you don't like it, that's great because in my view, not everyone in the culture should be the same and should be doing things that are formally approved of by all the various kind of so-called arbiters of taste or this or that i love that she's out there i can't wait to see what appalling things she does next and i've got a huge amount of time for her i would defend sydney sydney sweeney to the hilt for all this stuff not none of it is even bad but what's your actual opinion yeah sorry i'm on my fence again take a guess as to whether i have an inner voice that says

15:04Richard Osman:screw you everyone. Oh no, I can't help it. It's a reaction to control. No, it's great. That's listen, that's why I love doing a podcast with you. Listen, it's, it's, uh, I, I, I have a lot of sympathy with your view. I, I feel like it's one of those, um, debates where I sort of, I'm sort of on everyone's side. Yeah. You know, it's, it seems to be amplifying a lot of people. Uh, and it's, yeah. And if what we want in this world is for, to get to a future where gambling companies do not use any form of female sexuality in their adverts, that's going to be a long road to walk. That's like the best thing they do.

15:40I mean, literally, I mean, it's the best thing. Her tears are the best thing about gambling companies. Sorry, and maybe the best ones in Hollywood, but that's the end. Okay. If you really are very stressed about things and you need to get angry about something here, you might wish to take a look at, you know, the effects of all these things. I mean, they've only just legalized this. I think we still have to call them sport prediction markets in the states they're doing it state by state in america so but they're at you know they've got this new toy and they don't know really quite what to do with it um but yeah i think there are many many other places to direct your eye if you really need to uh they're not her yet again yeah as ray winston would say have a bang on that should we go uh for a break and don't forget

16:20Richard Osman:we have a celebrity questioner coming up very good

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17:03Richard Osman:Because a lot of the British novelists in the 80s, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, they all used to sort of go and have lunch and go and have dinner. And you could just tell, you know, they would talk about stuff and they would make each other's work much better. And that's the benefit of being in a group, being in a club. It becomes more than the sum of its parts. Clubs really do have benefits, like Club Lloyds, an elevated everyday bank account with exclusive benefits, plus a lifestyle perk like cinema tickets. And you get no fees on debit card spending and withdrawals abroad, an exclusive mortgage rate discount, interest on your balance.

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19:21Richard Osman:welcome back everybody marina jess has a question for you she is not our celebrities it might be no it might be jessica ennis hill it might be we don't know i just want to just in case how do you know it says jess it could be jessica simpson yeah jess says i'm watching the channel 4 investigation into reform and i'm absolutely fascinated by the american actor they hired to pose as the wealthy donor where would an investigative team find an actor for something like that do they go through a normal casting agency? Oh, this is really interesting. Yes. If you didn't see this investigation, by the way, watch it.

19:52It's done by Verbatim and it's sort of in association with Channel 4 News. There is a sort of young guy who is undercover and then he has a supposedly wealthy American dad who is brought into the story and they're trying to get Nigel Farage to essentially allow or give his blessing to allegedly illegal forms of donation. Anyway, you can watch it all. It's all available on Channel 4 News site. It's really difficult to do this job. First of all, obviously not any actor can do it because you have to do it. I'm just going to speak in general terms about this. You need a huge number of briefings. There are also certain things that journalists are allowed to do that ordinary actors are not that are protected in law so there are there are certain so when they're doing this

20:45Richard Osman:there's an ethics and stuff like that that they have to abide by they can't they can't just improv non-journalists can't do certain things and that can complicate editorial control evidence handling consent you know even insurance all sorts of things like that you need to avoid entrapment when you're doing an investigation like this um just to speak in the sort of basic terms you have to avoid entrapment you the actor is going to have to hit the essential lines and i think having watched it again in light of this question there are about two essential lines that that actor has to hit and they will not be able to be deviated from they will have thought work that out so the lawyers the lawyers would have because if you get one word wrong then you're essentially getting not getting the person to admit to the right and i'm not saying you know this is all alleged and the police are now investigating so we'll park that but you're talking about the line between you suggesting something yeah and the person you're talking to suggesting that thing the thing that you're suggesting that they might then agree to not necessarily farage anyone in one of these investigations you have to state you hit that line like it's the most important line in the whole show so you might have a politically or even sometimes legally trained actor do it but often they have done this before and you will find that you know you see their faces blanked out when the investigation happens.

22:06And that's because some of them have worked in other, you know, I specialize in investigations.

22:12Richard Osman:It's not like it's David Duchovny. No. Because you would recognize him. You're getting a big, yeah. Well, I think they probably have to spend the money on the donations. I'm joking. But, you know, you're getting someone who can do it because it is a super weird booking to take. Yeah. But the most important part of it. Quite an exciting booking to take. It's really exciting. But the most important part of it is, of course, ironically, the bit that you don't see, is all the stuff that went before is creating the convivial atmosphere. And they're really booked for their ability to do that. There's miles and miles on all these things of footage that you don't see because you really just want the lines that have been hit.

22:49It's like the Ali G type thing.

22:51Richard Osman:The reason that people are suckered in is because there's half an hour of stuff beforehand, which is normal. When it's not being like that, yeah. And it's the chatting that wins their heart. So all of the chatting and working, They spend a long time improvising before, thinking what's the best way to, you know, whoever you're trying to sting, what's the best way to appeal to Svengore and Ericsson or, you know, Sam Allardyce or Nigel Farage? You know, what's the best way to this man's heart? And that's the bit that is really skilled, because if you don't create that atmosphere, then you're never going to be in a position where you can hit your line.

23:27it's how you will engage in a way that is still authentic but be aware and never forget those kind of two crucial lines because if you don't get those you have nothing so it is a really weird booking and that's why some people have done several of these investigations that's so cool and it's a lot of preparation and workshopping beforehand and just hitting those two yeah yeah don't get your lines but just being the person that the person wants to open up to and that it's really quite hard

23:55Richard Osman:Yeah, I would always open with, sorry, I'm late, just been at a steam fair. That's where I'd go. Yeah, I can't see you managing to pick up work in this area. I don't think. I feel like there's something distinctive about you. Anyway, but, you know, don't rule it out. Don't rule it out. I'm available to anyone who's doing these investigations. And so to our video question from a celebrity. We're not answering a question, but asking one. And it's Richard Curtis, who's got a new audio sitcom coming. which is called Greatest Living Writer. Julia Donaldson. Yeah, Julia Donaldson. Could you please discuss Julia Donaldson's book sales?