Asklemmy

Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson! My favorite by far!

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel is iconic, the claymation and dedication is insane for a music video from that time period

It's okay to envy by Takayan is impressive for how it plays with the subtitling, trust me turn on Closed Captions for this and enjoy

Loretta by Ginger Root for how perfectly it captures an atmosphere and aesthetics of those late 80s/early 90s East/South East Asian music videos, it's a vibe - plus him playing all members of the band/accompanying orchestra is also impressive in its own right

just a few off the top of me head

The original Genesis Land of Confusion was very ambitious puppetry and had a great evergreen message.

The Knife - Pass This On (unsure if it's the absolute best but I do like it.)

Kina Granis - In Your Arms

It's all stop motion with jelly beans.

Here is the making of it.

This one's got me right now. Not crazy editing or anything, it just REALLY drives the point home for the song. Probably mostly because it's a nostalgia bomb for me.:

https://youtu.be/fSKQRDq3RkM?si=fbjm4qAa-WYp3d6a

That one that was recorded in reverse - the full thing.

Weezer - Pork and Beans. As someone who wasn't even alive during the era of YouTube when it came out, it is really mesmerizing seeing that day's stars all in one place. Not to mention the actual video is super funny and well done. The ending scene is so cathartic. Plus the song itself is cathcy and has a nice message.

A$AP Rocky - A$AP Forever. It blew my mind the first time I saw it.

I know it’s old, and maybe others have mentioned it already, but Michael Jackson - Thriller was a revolution when it came out.

A$AP Rocky's Testing era had some great ones with very impressive editing

Kids Turned Out Fine

A$AP Forever

Sundress

These are some of my favorite animated music videos:

Stuck in the Sound - Let's Go

Dan Deacon "When I Was Done Dying"

And finally, the mixtape visualizer from Hi This is Flume is really damn cool.

I have a playlist with some more.

Potential seizure warning for some or all of the posted links.

In it’s time? Early days of music videos: Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel 2000s: The Hunter, Bjork Recently: The love in my heart, Jacob Collier

Easy mode: OK GO’s entire catalog of music videos.

My Chemical Romance - The Ghost of You. They remade Saving Private Ryan's beach scene for a music video. Still blows me away.

Chris Hadfield - Space Oddity

This isn't my actual answer, but I tried doing that treadmill dance and immediately busted my ass

Gorillaz - Stylo is pretty awesome. One of my favorite music videos ever.

Caravan Palace - Lone Digger is really awesome as well. Great song and well animated.

So I love music videos as well as making my own, so I have a lot of favourites, but in particular half·alive's music videos are amazingly done. The lead singer Josh Taylor is an incredible producer for his music videos as well as the band being amazing dancers. All of the videos off of their new album are amazing, but two that I will highlight are:

Summerland

Amazing storytelling. This really comes full circle.

TIME 2

Incredible creative direction. Following the plot of the song while making it visually attractive as this is, is so impressive.

I have more (ask me), but these are definitely on top. Did I Make You Up? and Move Me are also really good.

The Hardest Button to Button: https://youtu.be/K4dx42YzQCE?feature=shared

I think the MTV era from the 80s to early 90s had the most creative videos. Likely because there was a bit more of a demand for music videos back then. You really had to stand out when your only platform at the time was MTV. As far as favorite music videos, I've always been a fan of Tool's weird-ness.

I love all Tool videos. They are all impressive.

Rise Against - Help Is On The Way

Being from Louisiana this has always been such a chilling song.

Chris Stapleton - Fire Away

This one may not be too popular but having been in a similar situation, this hit home hard.

Not sure about most impressive but impressive, Travis Scott - Sicko Mode ft. Drake https://youtu.be/6ONRf7h3Mdk

Bjork - All is Full of Love was bloody awesome!

Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" is practically a short-film, much as the title is practically a novella.

Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution

Pink Floyd - The Wall

That damned apple ad music video with the dancer and the stretchy room.

In college Xzibit's What U See is What U Get blew my mind due to its faked one shot style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gddQhQnwZIY.

I don't really watch a lot of music videos, so I'm just gonna list a few of my favorites

Bad Motherfucker by Biting Elbow by far and away

Still Feel by Half Alive is mesmerizing. I'm a straight guy but the lead singer is still my type

Starlight Brigade by TWRP rekindled my interest in Spelljammer, and also I think the animation is so pretty

Magnum Bullets by TWRP is also very nice to look at

Battleborn's intro cinematic might not technically be a music video, but it's my favorite video game cinematic of all time

Anna Sun -by Walk the moon

Klangkarussell - All Eyes On You - this is probably my favourite music video ever. I'm a sucker for one-takes, and the fact that this one is nine minutes long makes it so impressive on a technical level. But also, the video really feels like an experience. I feel like there are a lot of different ways the characters and situation, and what they represent, can be interpreted; it feels like everyone reads into the video in their own way (and I'm totally down to discuss anyone else's interpretations once they've watched it). Plus the atmosphere of the video really enhances that of the song - I like the song well enough, but combined with the video I find it so hypnotizing and engrossing. (Plus, it doesn't feel cheap by any means but you can see it was made on a shoestring budget, so it gets extra points for that as far as I'm concerned.)

All India Radio - Rippled - long-exposure light stop-motion is so damn cool. It's such a pretty video, and I love how authentic it feels - it obviously took a lot of time, energy and talent to make (over 6 months according to the description) but it has so much personality to it, and you can obviously see the people in the background moving the lights around which makes it feel far less "clinical".

Delta Heavy - Get By - musically, it's a slightly above-average 2012 dubstep track, but the video is so fun (and terrifying, I suppose...). Again, I love the stop motion, but it's also just really fun on a conceptual level.

Anyway, all of these are a decade old, so I guess maybe you're right about modern music videos. I can't say I watch many music videos, though, so there are probably some good ones I miss!

Big Data and Joywave - Dangerous (it's pretty NSFW btw.).

I still remember how i heard that tune for the first time and how surprised i was in which direction the music video went.

All the Battles videos are really creative. "My Machines" with Gary Neumann might be my favorite and the entirety of the video happens on an escalator

Baraka or Koyaanisqatsi

It's not the biggest or best, but I've always found the effect on "Always" by blink-182 to be pretty effective

Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd