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| The Best Music Videos of the Year! | |
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| Well, here we are. The best videos of the year. Some people will say that, to pull this kind of thing off, you need vision. You need a merciless, discriminating eye. You need clearly defined criteria, a refined sense of aesthetics, cultural developments and arcs. You need to have a lot of time on your hands. Thankfully, we have all and none of these things (we'll let you figure out which on your own). Because of how wide and uneven the playing field is, we've broken the videos down into separate categories again this year. We'd also like to say that, unevenness aside, the directors who stood out most this year were Jaron Albertin and Patrick Daughters. The usual suspects - Gondry, Diamond Dogs, the Partizan stable (Nima Nourizadeh, Saam Farahmand, Kinga Burza) - all kept up appearances, but Daughters and Albertin were consistently at the top of the heap this year, as you'll note from the selections below. The important thing to remember is, every single one of these videos was designed to be enjoyed by everybody, so that means you. Also, if one (or two or three or 10) of these looks unfamiliar, just click on one of the stills to watch it! Merry Chrismannukwanzaanukkah to you and yours. You keep watching 'em, and we'll keep posting 'em. |
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The Artsy-Fartsy Chin Scratcher Winners |
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| The Visual Knock-outs As much as certain visual styles tend to dominate from year to year in music videos (see stop-motion, arts n crafts), these entries either took those looks to a new level, or existed on islands all their own. They run the gamut in terms of budget and technique, but they're all superb vehicles for the songs they're selling.        l-r: Fujiya and Miyagi - "Ankle Injury" (directed by Wade Shotter) Liars - "Plaster Casts of Everything" (directed by Patrick Daughters) Sonny J - "Can't Stop Moving" (directed by Goodtimes) Emily Haines - "Our Hell" (directed by Jaron Albertin) Shinichi Osawa - "Last Days" (directed by Team Lab.net) Justice - "D.A.N.C.E." (directed by So-Me) Holy Fuck - "Milkshake" (directed by Chad Van Gaalen) |
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| The Strangely Moving Directors tend to work with what they have. Shooting a promo for some song about some dude who wants some girl? A rote subject gets a rote video. But the four songs below each have an unmistakable emotional spark that the directors felt, and the results reflect it.     l-r: Shocking Pinks - "End of the World" (directed by Richard Bell) Junior Boys - "In the Morning" (directed by Jaron Albertin) LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends" (directed by Tom Kuntz) LCD Soundsystem - "Someone Great" (directed by Doug Aitken) |
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| The Terribly, Terribly Silly Not that all sparks have to be melancholy, mind you. The videos featured below have that extra bit of humor that makes us all wish we could be a video director. Because really: who wouldn't want to make an actor try to pull off Michael Jackson's dance moves, or stage guerrilla cult performances in an outdoor mall in Sydney?      l-r: Kid Sister featuring Kanye West - "Pro Nails" (directed by Reuben Fleischer) Bluejuice - "Vitriol" (dir Wankersmurf) Snoop Dogg - "Sensual Seduction" (directed by Fatima) The Mitchell Brothers - "Michael Jackson" (directed by Kim Gehrig) Dragonette - "Take It Like a Man" (directed by Ben Taylor) |
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| The Cute-as-Fuck Thank God the generation that grew up watching MTV finally got their art degrees. Those childhood memories and associations pretty much guarantee that, from here on out, any song can lead to the creation of a mutant species of ragdoll pygmies, or a grin-inducing battle royale between pre-teens and a band.     l-r: Architecture in Helsinki - "Heart It Races" (directed by Kris Moyes) Hoosiers - "Worried About Ray" (directed by Diamond Dogs) New Young Pony Club - "Get Lucky" (directed by Paf! Le Chien) Kate Nash - "Foundations" (directed by Kinga Burza) |
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| The Mysteriously Awesome They're all awesome, certainly, but what's so mysterious about these videos? Well, try explaining the appeal of one of these to a friend sometime. "Okay, so 'Homecoming' has this amazing video with like, these girls who have this pillowfight, and like it should be dirty but it really kind of alludes to being dirty instead of actually being dirty? Uh, and 'What's a Girl to Do' has the singer riding her bike in the dark and these guys in animal masks are doing stunts on bikes behind her in time to the music..and, um, 'The Salmon Dance' has talking fish in it...No, I'm not going to tell you about 'Black Block.' You're not even listening to me!"     l-r: The Teenagers - "Homecoming" (directed by Kinga Burza) Bat For Lashes - "What's a Girl to Do" (directed by Dougal Wilson) The Chemical Brothers featuring Fatlip - "The Salmon Dance" (directed by Dom & Nic) Modeselektor - "Black Block" (directed by Christian Feldhusen) |
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| The Big PerformanceNumbers Okay. So for the most part, we hate musicals, and their every echo in pop culture, but something in each of these videos - whether it was the unabashed romanticism of Alma Har'el's "Elephant Gun" or the big fun Broadway feel of Patrick Daughters's two pieces - managed to make us temporarily set aside our differences .      l-r: Feist - "My Moon, My Man" (directed by Patrick Daughters) Beirut - "Elephant Gun" (directed by Alma Har'el) M.I.A. - "Jimmy" (directed by Nezar Khamal) Feist - "1, 2, 3, 4" (directed by Patrick Daughters) Plastic Little - "Dopeness" (directed by Ted Passon |
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