the ninth video is the bright ambassadors of morning by pure reason revolution, a band which is prone to change their style every album. i encountered them while playing before blackfield. the lyrics can be found here.

this track qualifies as progressive rock. and you can listen to it.

edit: another non-embeddable one. here‘s the youtube link. and here’s a live version:

i like it because… it makes me dream. of a fantasy world, birds twittering, with me floating through a colorful forest. think of a colorful, cheerish equivalent to the dark world depicted in moonspell’s luna video.
pure reason revolution are one of the bands which i fell in love with when i saw them. unfortunately, i couldn’t buy an album when i first saw them, all the other proggers at the concert already bought up all other copies they brought with them on that tour. i haven’t seen anything like that before.

the eighth video is harvest by opeth. the lyrics can be found here.

this is accoustic. you can listen to it.

edit: another video which cannot be embedded. here‘s the video on youtube. since i didn’t found any other version which can be included here, you have to go there…

i like it because… it’s just beautiful. a wounderful accoustic piece, with an opethesque, dark story. the video, showing studio footage from recording blackwater park, in sepia tones, fall-like.

the seventh video is infra galaxia by the swiss experimental metal band samael, from one of their best albums, the experimental eternal. the lyrics can be found here.

this is very soft experimental/industrial black metal. you can give it a try, in particular when you liked radiant star.

i like it because… the first samael track i ever listened to was also contained on the dark winter nights sampler. it was a song which didn’t really fit on that sampler, but was somewhat interesting. so i seeked for more, and eventually found some other songs. some of them i didn’t like at all, and others i found pretty interesting. then, for a long time, i ignored samael, until a couple of years ago, when someone showed me their newest album at that time, solar soul. eventually i bought some other records, including eternal, which contains this song as well as radiant star. these two songs are very strange. samael combine their very dark, black metal roots with electronic music, creating a very experimental mix. where i just like the music of radiant star, i especially like the combination of the video and the music in this one. this strange object, floating in space, dissolving into a cloud of particles. reminding me of a demo. it almost feels as if the music was written for this animation. or was it the other way around? i can’t tell.

the sixth video is why so lonely by the 3rd and the mortal, from the very beautiful album tears laid in earth. it’s their only full album featuring kari rueslåtten as a singer. unfortunately, this is not a video, just a song. but a very nice one! the lyrics can be found here.

this is very slow gothic rock (metal?). i think you can listen to it.

i like it because… of kari’s great singing. well, i could have taken almost any other song from that album as well, it’s just such a great album. i listened to it in zürich’s knochenhaus, which unfortunately ceased to exist (the only good record store i know for metal and similar music – and the only store i found so far which had all albums of kari rueslåtten, which, except of tears laid in earth and a controversial storm release, have absolutely nothing to do with metal) and immediately decided to buy it, even after just hearing the first track (which is just sung, without any instruments) – i don’t know if i continued farther than the second track (why so lonely) or if i just decided to buy it and continue listening at home :)

the fifth video is creep by radiohead. i first heard this song in form of a cover by sentenced. the lyrics can be found here.

this is alternative rock. you can listen to it :) [well, the sentenced version is heavier and darker. use the youtube link if you prefer the original.]

edit: another one which cannot be embedded. if you want to see the video, click here. it looks they disabled all versions of the song for embedding. that’s why i decided to put in the video of the cover version by sentenced:

i like it because… of the sad story. (i can understand the storyteller very well…) and i also like the melody. there’s not much more to say.

the fourth video is other people’s stories by kari rueslåtten. kari began in one of my favorite bands, the 3rd and the mortal, where she took part in the masterpiece tears laid in earth. after that album, she left the band, and eventually started to make her own albums. this is from her newest album (2005). the lyrics can be found here.

i guess this goes under pop. you can definitely listen to it.

i like it because… i just like it. a beautiful song, sang with a beautiful voice. as with most videos, i saw the video a long time after first listening to the song. and it’s one of the videos i like; it’s hard to say why though…
another of kari’s songs, which i would have put up in this place if it had a good video, would be trollferd. sung in norwegian (i think), the main part being the voice, instruments in the background growing stronger over the time, with a simple tune. just beautiful. this is one of the songs which made me decide that i should really get her solo albums.

i just stumbled over a very funny music video on youtube. someone took a black metal video by immortal (no need to watch this, it is crap, believe me…), recut it, and exchanged the music (the new one has nothing to do with black metal). the result is incredibly ridiculous:

the third video is luna by moonspell, a portugese gothic metal band. the song is rather different than all others on the memorial album, but nonetheless i like it very much. a beautifully animated video. it’s a rather depressing and suicidal video though, so be warned. the lyrics can be found here.

this is very dark (slow) gothic metal. you can give it a try if you want.

i like it because… the first time i saw this song was when i watched the video on moonspell‘s homepage. it’s one of the cases where i really like a music video and the song independently. a beautiful gray world, almost no color, except red. beautifully drawn, moving, growing scenes. and a slow, heavy song. full of melancholy.
(and a note… it’s hard to find metal music videos which i actually like, when it’s not about just showing the band playing the song. and some have very strange content which simply makes no sense, like this one. but luna is a big exception.)

the second video is bitter sweet symphony by the verve. the lyrics can be found here.

this is britpop. you can definitely listen to it :)

edit: apparently it’s impossible to embed the official video. so i just link to it. here’s an embedable version, without video though:

i like it because… of the strings melody at the beginning. if you would take the frist minute of the song and turn it into a ten minute song, i would still listen to it. this is one of the songs where i mostly ignore the vocals, and just enjoy the melody, the harmonics. (and yes, there are some edited versions on youtube without vocals; one of the better ones is this one.)
i also like the video, with the guy walking straight forward, ignoring the world around him as far as possible. i sometimes would like to do that as well…

the first video is of the song leaves by the dutch band the gathering. it’s the first song i ever heard from them, and the song which made me get more. the lyrics can be found here.

this is (slow) gothic metal with clean vocals. you can try it :)

i like it because… it’s so powerful and yet so beautiful. i found this track on a sampler i bought on ebay called “dark winter nights” (in fact, it was the first thing i ever bought on ebay – the second thing was mandylion, the the gathering album on which leaves first appeared); i stumbled about it since i saw it contained a track by sentenced. essentially, some sentenced songs, a stratovarius live album and this cd got me more interested in metal. this song quickly became my favorite song on that sampler, and eventually made me search for more the gathering stuff.
i also like the tree parts of the video a lot, especially the night parts, as at the beginning :-) but then, i first saw this video maybe ten years after i first heard the track?