We know that Beyonce was pregnant while shooting the video to sexy power soul ballad 1+1, so that could go some way to explaining why she looks a bit glowy. But how on earth did they get it to look like her actual skin is moving?! Bizarrely, considering it's a Beyonce music video, it features no dancing whatsoever. And it’s still so monumentally sexy that it leaves us wondering how we’re not pregnant after watching it!

Kanye West ft Jay Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver and Nicki Minaj - Monster

 

This creepy video starts off with some dead models hanging about, then shows Kanye West making them do sexy things to each other while they’re stone cold. Beyond the necrophilia, a vampiric Nicki Minaj kidnaps herself then gives herself a lapdance. There are also some bearded werewolf models thrown in for good measure. It’s also the video debut of Kanye’s gold and diamond grill.

Christina Aguilera - Fighter

 

Christina drew a big solid line under her squeaky-clean pop star image with the video for Dirrrty. But with follow-up Fighter, she really went weird, dressing up as a gothic butterfly pincushion undergoing a radical transformation. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, the showed that Christina was going to do more with album Stripp’d than dress like a mud-wrestling stripper for attention.

Towa Tei ft Kylie Minogue - GBI: German Bold Italic

 

Seriously. This is actual Kylie. We promise! During her indie phase of the 90s, she teamed up with Japanese producer Towa Tei to do a song called GBI: German Bold Italic. Yes, that’s the name of a font. And it gets weirder. The video shows a glittery Kylie dressed up as a geisha, prancing around the streets of New York. We don’t get it, either.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

 

Lady Gaga was all smiles and pop before 2009’s Bad Romance. We’d seen bits of her eeriness creeping through, but nothing as radical as this before. In the 5-minute promo, she plays a bizarre alien life form that’s been dragged to earth with the intention of wooing, then killing an evil oligarch.

And of course, she rocked some strange outfits - a polar bear cape, medieva-stylel 12-inch Alexander McQueen shoes, razor-blade sunglasses. Most bizarrely of all, she appeared on camera with not one bit of make-up on - looking incredible of course!

(Additional shoutout to all of Gaga’s videos after Bad Romance, which have been just as bonkers as each other!)

Rihanna - S+M

 

This video is one of Rihanna’s brightest and naughtiest yet. After being taped behind a massive cellophane wrapper, she’s attacked and hounded by journalists – but no wonder, considering she later walks Perez Hilton on a leash outside a suburban house, and wears bondage gear in a cinema before taking random members of the press hostage. Then there’s the bit where she seems to really enjoy being tied up and the bit where she eats a banana, just in case we didn’t get what the song was about. Pretty weird if you ask us.

M.I.A. - Bad Girls

 

The controversial singer likes to make a statement with her songs and videos, which means they look pretty strange and surreal. In the middle of the Arabian desert, her and a bunch of weapon-loaded Arabs have dance-offs then drive cars on their sides really fast at each other. The indifferent MIA just sings and half-raps, doing the most relaxed dance moves ever. Simultaneously not giving a toss AND confronting deep issues such as women’s rights in Saudi Arabia!

Madonna - Die Another Day

 

She’s had her fair share of shocking videos, but Madonna’s weirdest video is probably in Die Another Day where she is imprisoned and put into an electric chair. Her novel way of escaping, beyond smashing a massive mirror, is to wind loads of leather around her muscle-bound arm. And there’s another storyline where evil Madonna fights good Madonna in a fencing match in a Venetian glass factory.

Referencing loads of Bond films and villains, it cost $6 million to make, making it the most expensive video since Michael and Janet Jackson’s Scream.

R Kelly - Trapped In The Closet

 

Not afraid of making something truly epic, the soul singer wrote a hip-hopera all about being Trapped In The Closet. Each of the 22 parts to the song has its own music video, all done quite sincerely. Our favourite parts are Chapter 9 onwards, where the stony-faced R Kelly sings about a midget turning up and attacking him.