Below are some of the best 2020 DIY/indie music videos we’ve seen/heard this year. This is a first of a series that will include more selected videos – many sent into us.
Watch and listen to these selected music videos featuring a wide diversity of indie artists, bands, visuals, and songs.
Over the years, DIY and indie bands have been making better and better music videos.
Bonus: See the streaming playlist of accompanying audio-only tracks in the playlist below. Don’t miss other great music video playlists on IRC.
Indie musicians and bands featured below include:
Diamonds and Guns – Los Angeles California
Terrence and the High Flyers – Ottawa, Ontario
Alleys – Boise, Idaho
Hush!Noise – Fougères, France
Black Moon Book – Chicago, Illinois
The Honeycreepers – Niantic, Connecticut
Best 2020 Indie Music Videos
“The Lonesome Man” – Diamonds and Guns
This raging, gravely hard-hitter from Los Angeles’ Diamonds and Guns (cool name) made our night. We actually felt like we should be riding a rollercoaster, ear buds on, this song playing. Most metal/hard-rock is, frankly, no bueno. However, D&G is a rare exception. This is good rock! Not the formatted dribble that comes from radio and labels.
“This Could Be The One” – Terrence and the High Flyers
“This Could Be The One” is a fantastically upbeat and sunny song with an impossible-to-ignore hook and a lush, smooth tropical vibe. The Ottawa soft folk rock duo will attract some more followers today.
“Rivers” – Alleys
This colorful video combined with the groovy, upbeat bedroom synth-pop of Boise multi-instrumentalist Jacob Diaz, aka Alleys. “Rivers” incorporates guitar and drum loops, musical crescendos, deep groove, and emotive vocals. Alleys has opened for bands like Floating Points, Big Dipper, and Eldren while his biggest musical influences are Elliott Smith, Real Estate, and El ten Eleven.
“Journey of a Navel” – Hush!Noise
A mystical, almost haunting sound with hushed vocals and a teddy as a central character. The Fougères, France band draws from post-rock, psychedelic, noise and ambient music.
“You Are Just Not Alone” – Black Moon Book
Chicago musician Mark Lofgren, aka Black Moon Book, drew us in with the psychedelic color filters and the Mac-DeMarco-meets-Brit-pop with this bedroom pop number that he says”touches on memory, isolation and, most explicitly, the healing power of hope and love.”
“California Sun” – The Honeycreepers
Usually we wouldn’t place a Joni Mitchell-like, radio pop song (because it’s not really indie) but the video is cool, and having escaped California, it makes us long for the good ole golden sun-shiny, clear skies, normal temperatures and semi-affordable-rent years of our California past before things started to get really hairy. We wish our friends and old acquaintances – still there or not – all the best.