From the days of Video Toaster, editors have found themselves with piles of unrelated footage and nothing to do with it. From this stems the idea of found footage compositions, something that has thrived with access to endless amounts of data.

A found footage music video follows the same principals, with the added benefit of having a track to sync it to. With the advent of easily shared online video this trend exploded and lots of amazing products came from it. I‰’ve cultivated some of the best, or at least the most interesting, from YouTube into a convenient list.

Comprised of mostly late 80s computer graphics, it‰’s no surprise that the video for a song by Macintosh Plus embodies the vaporwave aesthetic. This video is particularly masterful because it captures a certain warmth from footage decay that is mostly extinct in the era of digital video. The pacing of the clips is also perfect, as it picks up and distorts with the song. The creator‰’s lack of distracting iMovie transitions is a masterful move, leaving natural footage cuts instead.

This video for Sleep Over‰’s “Romantic Streams” uses footage from video yearbooks of the 80s and 90s. The footage itself is hypnotic without having any real substance. This draws attention to the music while keeping the viewer engaged with the video. Some clever cuts are employed, particularly when playing with the idea of time lapses. The use of speeding up and slowing down footage by small amounts keep the video in time with the music and made the cuts flow well.

The lyrics of Wavves‰’ “No Hope Kids” are embodied in this video. The footage, which apparently is from a British Rail safety video, is pure gold. The extra pacing edits made on top of it keeps the video tight and entertaining. This video is a great example of taking already awesome footage and adding the song that is its musical soul mate, as it were.

RATATAT‰’s “Drugs” uses stock footage from Getty Images in a horrifyingly unnerving way. The actors expressions are contrasted and cut until you want to squirm in your seat. This is a great set of cuts because they all linger a bit too long on footage that was made to be still images. Without the proper editing, this would be mundane, but to turn it into such an unsettling experience is a triumph of video creation.