Not too long ago there was an article about the state of music videos in some relevant culture magazine. The alt suits were basically saying at print time (last year) that it was the best time to make music videos because of no budgets. That was the dumbest shit I have ever heard. If you have never even had money the decline doesn’t affect you. On a REAL level of video making, you are concerned with spending less of your own money and not going to jail. Aside from these videos, this year sucked for videos. Rap videos this year were shit. Rappers are amazing. They go to jail, kill each other, and generally do ridiculous entertaining things. Yet most videos of good songs are the same car/girl/money video. Rage, Gill Green and Hype all need to be in time out. What Needs To Die: VHS videos or VHS video effects/artifacts are the visual equivalents to Auto-Tune. Doing a shitty low budget video that looks VHS is one thing, but actually paying money to make your images look crappy is mind-boggling. Here are some of the year’s best videos that sucked less, in order from when I saw them.
—Paul Rodriguez

Depeche Mode ‘Wrong’ (Patrick Daughters)
This is the best thing Patrick Daughters has written since he made Karen O and everyone else cry when he did ‘Maps.’ The cinematographer Shawn Kim photographs downtown L.A. in a realistic beautiful way. Throw in a Liar as your main character and have Spike Jonze being hit by a car for a nice touch.

Animal Collective ‘My Girls’ (Knowmore Productions)
When I first saw this I hated it. Then I realized it was okay. Then compared to everything else this year it got better. AC’s visual presentation is crazed and they are on their own shit. The best AC video is “Water Curses.”

Kanye West ‘Welcome to Heartbreak’ (NABIL)
Kanye’s sweater is dope in this video. I don’t care you hate him. He did “Jesus Walks” with Chris Milk and he has Michel Gondry doing his alternate videos that barely get seen. This video’s visual device is called data moshing. When Kanye found out about Ray Tintori’s clip for Chairlift with data moshing they pushed up ‘Welcome To Heartbreak.’ Artist Takeshi Murata is known for data moshing so when two video clips came out by the same production company some NY art people were crying.

Bat For Lashes ‘Pearl’s Dream’ (Nima Nourizadeh)
In this mystic drop Natasha is styled in a look directly pulled from the Margiela Spring ’09 show. Nima went so smart with the art direction and cinematography. Wolves need to be in more videos.

The Horrors ‘Sea Within A Sea’ (Douglas Hart)
I guess this would be the their musical redemption. The visual setup is simple and colorful yet perfectly fitting. Everything gets prime around 4:27.

MSTRKRFT ‘Heartbreaker’ (Vincent Haycock)
The idea of MSTRKRFT and John Legend in one song might sound horrendous if you are not a fan of either. The story is boy likes girl, but can’t have girl. You really see and feel a narrative here, which is rare for a three-minute music video spot. The casting is good (I would recast the girl, though) and has it boy model A.J. English in it. The best part of the video is when A.J. takes his sunglasses off at :40.

Wavves ‘No Hope Kids’ (Pete Ohs)
This is pretty standard guy-on-tour video except everyone hates/loves Wavves. The edit could be way better. I am for drug use in videos. Weed is a good start.

White Lies ‘Death’ (Crystal Castles Remix) (Tim Walker)
White Lies: nobody cares about them in our country so they paid Crystal Castles to do a remix. Still no one cares. Technically this video is a re-edit from the original. The video is on the mundane UK suburb/Bat For Lashes ‘What’s A Girl To Do’/Donnie Darko vibe. The best shot is at 3:25. I could do without the shitty Photoshop glowing effect.

Micachu & The Shapes ‘Turn Me Well’ (Cannot find director—sorry!)
This just feels right.

Girls ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ (Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell)
Girls and this video are for the people. The visual device is slow motion/overcranked throughout the whole video. There have been a bunch of these over the years. Off the top of my head: the Cat Power and the Cass McCombs one. ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ has some arc to it even if it’s simple. Who doesn’t want to have fun with your friends in your city? No matter how fucked up you get, I think you will always remember the sunrise.

Yeasayer ‘Ambling Alp’ (Radical Friend)
This is the best video after Patrick Daughter’s ‘Wrong’ for ‘09. The Yeasayer visual presentation is murder and I would not expect anything less. This is the best art direction and best use of effects I have seen in a while in a video. It’s hard to make something without people acknowledging an existing visual reference. So here it goes: the running falling naked people is on Sigur Ros ‘Gobbledigook’/Ryan McGinley. ‘Gobbledigook’ shot by Christopher Doyle is easily one the best-shot videos of all time. The intro graphic shot, the mirror face guy on horse drumming, the boxers and the liquid face drips are my favorite parts. Radical Friend gets respect.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Not next level enough/progressive, but I still like, or I just like but I don’t back it that hard.

Fuck Buttons ‘Surf Solar’ (Andrew Hung)
Once I drank all their liquor in a hotel room. One of their PR people called me drunk at 4 AM to tell me check this video again.

Coconut Records ‘Any Fun’ (William Strobeck and Mark Gonzales)
8mm and pro skaters.

Young Dro ‘I Don’t Know Y’All’ (Gabriel Hart)
When I get drunk, I talk about who I don’t fuck with. This video is pretty fucking ridiculous.

BEST NON-MUSIC VIDEOS (OR THESE PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO)

K-CoreaINC.K (section a) (Ryan Trecartin)
This is one of his two videos released in ‘09. Yes/No. This is fucked.

Hood By Air SS10 (Reid Van Renesse)
Shot in Terence Koh’s A.S.S. gallery. ZOMBY.

Gems for Arielle de Pinto (Margaret Haines)
Margaret asked me to help her work on a film, but I ended up playing a football player who wanted to fuck a slut. Her film also has progressive children, which is in right now. This clip is captured perfectly.

Binare (Marie Hanhnhon)
Pretty strong work by the youth. Zak, the dancer, plays a slave boy in my new music video for Former Ghosts.