2009's best videos

After much deliberation – and too many hours spent watching Rage – here are my personal picks for 2009’s best videos. These ten videos run the gamut of the best visual imaginativeness – krazy costumes, horses, skeletons, horrible dancing, lyrical interpretation and public nudity abound! So here they are, in fairly random order… enjoy!

10. Sarah Blasko – All I Want
To be honest, not much happens in this video; simply, the combination of the gorgeous scenery, the ever-intoxicating Ms Blasko, and a trusty horse sidekick make for a mesmerising video.


9. The Drums – Let’s Go Surfing
If you’re a new band looking to grab some passer-by attention in your first video, it sure doesn’t hurt to just slap the word SURFING all over it in big letters. Of course, The Drums don’t much look like surfers, what with the jeans and ill-fitting jumpers. That, and running around in pitch darkness doesn’t really bring to mind the lyrical imagery of the summery-est, sunshiney-est song in years. But hey, that hardly matters when you’re this painfully cool, right? Right? SURFING!!

8. Darren Hanlon – Electric Skeleton
Darren Hanlon is as cute as a sack full of kittens at the best of times, so when his bespectacled self builds a skeleton friend from household junk, dances, and then cries when it all goes horribly wrong, well, it’s almost more adorable than I can bear. Resistance is futile.


7. Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck – Heaven Can Wait
What a last-minute surprise this was! A non-stop parade of suburban slices-of-life, full of the surreal (the SpongeBob Squarepants costume, the boxing at the carousel) and implied violence (the guy fleeing a flying axe); kinda like something Beck would’ve made in the mid-90s. Any video can just throw a bunch of krazy krap at a viewer, though. What makes this one work is that none of it is played for laughs; the clear, bright colours and slow, lingering shots, coupled with the sincerity of all involved (check out the couple proudly displaying their fruit sculpture) and the total indifference of Charlotte and Beck make the whole thing feel like a quiet celebration of modern Americana.


6. Philadelphia Grand Jury – The Good News
This one’s great because it really shows (like a lot of Australian stuff) what you can do with pretty much no budget. It would be cool enough if it just involved the Philly Jays playing in a bunch of places (standing in water up to their chests is my favourite), but then they go and incorporate a whole Where’s Wally?-style game into it? Genius. Love it. I still haven’t found everything.


5. Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
Firstly, in my defence, I still don’t think her songs are particularly interesting or good. Lady Gaga’s videos, though, are something else. Paparazzi is an absolute feast for the eyes. A really bonkers feast, that is: The crutches! The spotty horse! The gold-puking dead maids! The costumes! The boyfriend-murdering! What does it all mean? Partly, that Lady Gaga is willing to take pretty big risks for her art, but mostly, just that she’s kinda mental.


4. Vampire Weekend – Cousins
Every Vampire Weekend video so far has been awesome, so why shouldn’t this be awesome too? Cousins is also their most bonkers song yet, so why shouldn’t it have their most bonkers video yet? This video delivers, because bonkers it is; plenty of confetti, lyrical interpretation, lightning-sharp editing, and that crazy head-turning-mask effect. It’s a total riot in an alleyway. On a trolley.


3. Sia – Soon We’ll Be Found
Some great videos simply choose a visual motif and explore its visual possibilities as far as three or four minutes will allow. Here, that motif is just a pair of paint-covered hands; from Sia signing the lyrics along with her singing, to an explosion of imagination, with dozens of disembodied hands making staircases, trees, birds and more. The result looks fantastic and is surprisingly moving.

Sia Soon We'll Be Found from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

2. Matt & Kim – Lessons Learned
Obviously, a video in which two people get naked in Times Square was never going to miss this list. That said, this eponymous, spousal band don’t exactly look like your average exhibitionists, and it helps tremendously that they both look so nervous, so elated and terrified at what they’re doing. Then, when they’re totally butt naked, they just look around at the buildings, taking in the sights like a couple of tourists – apparently oblivious to the crowd that’s amassed to, erm, look at their bits. Totally delightful. Oh yeah, then there’s that ending. That ending.


1. Metronomy – A Thing For Me
Yeah, it came out in late 2008, but who cares? I sure don’t. So, you know those bouncing balls that help you keep time with lyrics at karaoke? Well, what if, for starters, those balls started attacking people through mildly violent and highly comically head-smacking? And while that’s going on, what if the lyrics on the screen weren’t the real lyrics at all, but all the misheard ones that people sing instead? And then, what if a band put all that into an absolutely spectacularly funny video? You’d have this, of course.