Revisiting 2011: The Best Music Videos

Greetings reader. My blurbs were written weeks ago for OneThirtyBPM's year-end lists, and I shall delay no further in posting my own personal best of the year. We'll begin with the best (and worst) music videos of the year.

Late to the Party Entry: Gellers - "Guatemala"

Shugo Tokumaru has long been my favorite Japanese musician (sorry Joe Hisaishi and Boredoms!); in fact, 2004's Night Piece landed at #20 on my top 100 albums of the past decade list. Gellers, a band comprised of Tokumaru and his childhood friends, have received very little recognition in the States. After their uneven self-titled debut in 2007, the band went on hiatus while Tokumaru further pursued his solo career (via The Japan Times). The title track from their 2011 EP is their strongest effort yet, heavily informed by 2010's Port Entropy. Its accompanying video, complete with a papier-mâché creeper, is one of the year's most intriguing. Check it out, because if you're reading this from anywhere but Japan, I can almost guarantee none of your friends have seen it.

The Best Music Videos of 2011:

1. Destroyer - “Kaputt”
2. Chad VanGaalen - “Peace on the Rise”
3. Bill Callahan - “America!”
4. Wye Oak - “Fish”
   Not even the best song on Baltimore duo Wye Oak’s excellent Civilian, “Fish” is given one of the year’s finest video treatments. Recruiting fellow hometown artists Michael O'Leary, whose photograph makes a splash on Civilian’s cover, and Katherine Fahey, who painted the album art for their 2008 debut, the aftermath is a gorgeous bout of shadow puppetry, which takes a bizarre turn into Moby Dick meets Darwin territory. And if Wye Oak keep evolving at this rate, who knows what they will be capable of next time.
5. The Mountain Goats - “Estate Sale Sign”
6. Real Estate - “It’s Real”
7. Tune-Yards - “Bizness”
8. Tom Waits - “Satisfied”
9. St. Vincent - “Cruel”
10. The Clientele - “Come and Play Jingle” (Yo Gabba Gabba!)
11. The New Pornographers – “Moves”
12. Third Class - "12 and 9" 

 The Cleveland Music Video That Managed to Be Comically Worse Than Rebecca Black:

Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Destined to dethrone "Free Bird" as the go-to song request at concerts, "The King That Never Was" is given the music video that should never have been, according to some people. But those of us that have seen it are glad it exists. This is what I call rock & roll, dude. None of that glammed-up, funkified shiz. Real chords, devil horns; a kingdom of metal, and mighty swords.