Top 30 Videos of 2009

1. 
   

   

   How good of a year was it for Lady Gaga? So good that she was able to get the guy who directed “Ray Of Light” to lens a seven-minute epic in which she drugs her boyfriend, dresses like a robot and somehow manages to take the hottest mug shot ever. Not too shabby.
2. 
   

   

   We’re not sure what it was about chicks and violence this year, but in this clip Dead Weather frontwoman Alison Mosshart brought the pain on her bandmate Jack White, while ruining a perfectly good leather jacket in the process. In her defense, he was shooting a machine gun at her.
3. 
   

   

   If there was any denying that director Patrick Daughters has become the Hype Williams of ’00s indie rock, then this smart and surreal clip sealed the deal. In a word? Illuminating.
4. 
   

   

   By the time that Kid Cudi dropped the video for "Day 'N' Nite" last winter, it was hard not to be burnt out on the song. (Hell, they even played it on Entourage months before this thing turned up). Thankfully, the accompanying video was far more visionary and forward thinking than anyone could have expected.
5. 
   

   

   Clearly, this is the way that you follow up a video about a bunch of freaks dry-humping each other: You bring in four bikini-clad girls on motorcycles and follow them to the hottest tailgate party in the world.
6. 
   

   

   "We're Not Gonna Take It." "Fight For Your Right (To Party)." Hell, just about any clip by Blink-182. When it comes to classic music videos it always helps to rebel against authority. In 2009, Asher Roth understood this point and he used it to pull off one of the year's most memorable clips. Now, who's up for another game of beer pong?
7. 
   

   

   People only watch videos on the Internet now? Yeah, that may be true. But no one told Green Day that as they made this cinematic clip about how love in the 21st Century can often feel like making out in a room surrounded by gunfire. The fact that it kind of reminded of us an old Korn video was clearly forgivable.
8. 
   

   

   That Depeche Mode knows how to make strangely compelling videos should be no surprise to anyone who was old enough to turn on a television in the early ’90s. But what is somewhat shocking is how this bizarre clip, which came twelve records into their career, was able to captivate just about anyone who saw it.
9. 
   

   

   The biggest challenge facing the “Empire State Of Mind” video? Making a clip as inspiring as the song's Alicia Keys-sung chorus. But as Jay takes us from the projects to the penthouse, he proves that New York really is the one place in the world where any dream can materialize. Even one as outlandish as a former hood kid becoming text message buddies with the President.
10. 
    

    

    The week that Matt And Kim finished the video for “Lessons Learned,” someone from their camp stopped by our offices to play it. They didn't send a link or messenger over a DVD. They showed up with a laptop and sat there as we watched every frame. This may not seem that significant, but in a time when it's becoming harder to discern the actual currency of a music video, it said a lot.
    
    
    Once they finished the "Lessons Learned" video, everyone surrounding this inhumanly energetic indie rock duo knew that what they had on their hands was more than just a music video. It was a game-changer. And so, in the weeks after it was released, Matt and Kim said goodbye to the house parties that they had become synonymous with and hello to televised awards shows, strange mainstream news coverage and, well, quite a few year-end lists like this.
    
    
    That probably didn't seem like a possibility to frontman Matt Johnson when he thought up the clip's simple idea—a non-staged, slow-motion strip-down in Times Square—earlier this year. But as "Lessons Learned" spread across the Internet, it felt the way that music videos used to: It not only captured a moment in time, but also catapulted a couple of nobodies into whatever passes for "fame" these days.
    
    
    Yet even now, as the year comes to a close, it seems like "Lessons Learned" may be able to do even more than that. In fact, as Johnson acknowledged when we told him that it was topping our list, the success of “Lessons Learned” may finally convince Kim to forgive him for making her take her top off in front of a bunch of strangers. And really, after the year they’ve had, doesn’t the guy deserve that much? 

     

     

    1. 
       

       

       This year, when listening to his emotionally vulnerable third album, it was easy to imagine Cage as sensitive artist wandering around New York with a dark cloud over his head. Turns out, he kind of was.
    2. 
       

       

       After having a surprise hit with Fantasies, this video served as the inevitable response to new fans wondering if there was anyone in Metric other than Emily Haines. Not that she didn’t make for a great bass player or anything.
    3. 
       

       

       The second best video of the year to prominently feature red Solo cups was a breakthrough moment for an artist whose breakthrough moment was long overdue. We couldn’t have been prouder.
    4. 
       

       

       This is what the most hyped band of 2007 looked like in 2009: Four guys, in an alley, working overtime to keep your attention. Which is precisely why we never looked away.
    5. 
       

       

       The conversation had to have gone like this: "Guys, for our next video we should act out scenes from that movie about arm wrestling. What's it called? Over The Top? Yes, Over The Top! I mean, our singer already looks like a trucker." And then this happened.
    6. 
       

       

       We're happy for you and we're gonna let you finish… but "Paranoid" was the fifteenth greatest video of 2009! It was Vertigo meets "Disturbia," which even Kanye's critics had to admit was a pretty classy move.
    7. 
       

       

       When the late Heath Ledger began turning up at Modest Mouse shows in 2007, longtime fans seemed puzzled. How could a Hollywood A-Lister love their beloved underground vets? Then this bizarre-yet-beautiful clip turned up and it all made sense: He was one of them.
    8. 
       

       

       Okay, we know this is going to sound crazy, but what if they did this... on a treadmill!?
    9. 
       

       

       With their second video off of Appeal To Reason, these brainy punks tried to point out that our last president might not have done the best job. Then came this third video and Rise Against managed to make that point in a way that could cause even the most stubborn warmonger to break down and cry.
    10. 
        

        

        When Dinosaur Jr. got back together, you scoffed to your friends. "Lou, J and Murph are all having a mid-life crisis," you said. Well, guess what? You were right. 

        1. 
           

           

           Hi, we're Lonely Island and that's our friend T-Pain. This year we wasted a lot of your employer's money by creating videos like this. Thanks for watching. See you next year.
        2. 
           

           

           This was not a great year to star opposite Vivica A. Fox. If you were Larry David, her auntie called you an a-hole. And if you were 50 Cent... she blew you up in a concrete warehouse.
        3. 
           

           

           There's that moment, usually after you have finished college and moved into your first dump of an apartment, when you realize that life if lonely, confusing and inspiring all at the same time. That moment is what this heartbreaking video is about.
        4. 
           

           

           I gotta feeling... that we're all going to have to hear this song for another six months.
        5. 
           

           

           T.I. was ready to buy his boys bottle service at every club in Atlanta. But then the feds came calling and he humbly served his time. The point that he was trying to make in this video, however, remains: On either side of the bars, life is what you make of it.
        6. 
           

           

           He was a rapper who woke up next to Miss June. They were a bunch of pop-punk goofballs who liked to make fun of their fans, their guitar tech and themselves. And, in 2009, they both made the exact same video.
        7. 
           

           

           If there were gold statues given away for classic Internet clips, then "Pro Nails" would have easily received a handful of them. So, for this anticipated follow-up, Kid Sis did what any artist in her position would have: She painted the town with her own image.
        8. 
           

           

           After you write a trippy prog-metal masterpiece about a paraplegic who is trapped in Rasputin's body, what do you do for a music video? Mastodon's answer: Duh, you get in a space shuttle and dress up like an astronaut.
        9. 
           

           

           Everyone says that it was the "So What" video that convinced BMX stud Corey Hart to patch up his relationship with P!nk. But our money is on the scene in this clip when she whacks some dude in the face with a golf club. Hey, the lady made her point.
        10. 
            

            

            A paddy wagon, some riot cops and a whole lot of fist-fighting. If MCR's new album can sound even remotely like the way this video feels, then we'll buy a hundred copies of it.