Electrik Red "Drink In My Cup"

Here's one which narrowly missed the deadline for the best videos of 2009, and would have fit in nicely if only for a mid-video dance sequence on top of purposely filthy-looking toilets...

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #1 Pill "Trap Goin' Ham"

If MTV still existed (in its classic form), it's possible "Trap Goin' Ham" could do what "Nuthin' But A G Thing" did for west coast gangsta rap in 1993. This is true grit, with so many brilliantly rugged and real images. It's the genuine dirty south in its purest form. Apparently, this video was SO real, that at least one gentleman threatened the camera crew with a swinging florescent lightbulb. Craziest video shoot ever?

Pill - "Trap Goin Ham" from The Educated Villains on Vimeo.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #2 Rammstein "Pussy"

It's been brought to my attention that full or partial frontal nudity has become a recent trend in pop videos, perhaps as a result of music videos no longer requiring permission from MTV programmers before becoming popular. I haven't actually seen the videos, but I've been told t.A.T.u., Girls, and The Flaming Lips have all been "letting it all hang out" so to speak.. So it shouldn't have been a complete surprise that Rammstein decided to throw their inhibitions out the window entirely and go down (huh-huh-huh go down) as possibly the first well known rock band to have all six band members (huh-huh-huh member) whipping off the towel once and for all. Something tells me Marilyn Manson is super-pissed he didn't think of this first. And much like Manson (and Tool for that matter), Rammstein seems to be repeatedly misunderstood as a band who takes themselves way too seriously, when in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

P.S. My favorite shot is around 2:58... Standing in front of the flag.. the big important speech to the adoring country of followers...

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #3 MGMT "Kids"

Okay, torturing this poor little kid is kinda uncool. I'm sure most of us have a similar reaction while watching this video.. But here's the thing. I feel for this kid, because my parents used to pull the same bullshit with me because they thought it was funny. They think I forgot that stuff 25 years later, but I haven't. I thought the TV Guide cover with Nell CArter looked really scary, and so instead of hiding the picture, they use it to play games with me and challenge my fear threshold, just for their own amusement. Or after I saw the "Thriller" video for the first time.. I literally ran out of the room screaming. I may as well have pissed myself in fear. This was at my grandparents house, where they had cable. But back home, I was protected by the safety of no cable TV connections. However, that didn't stop my dad from trying to impersonate Michael Jackson's cat eyes by lifting his eyebrows and looking down, so that only the whites were visible, not unlike the eyes from Evil Dead 2. This normally would get me screaming and running away as fast as I could. And it affected my dreams, as I recall waking up around age 4 from a dream when my mom was possessed with only whites in her eyes and a big scary smile on her face. It was horrifying. This shit fucks kids up. I'm living proof, goddamnit.

But in the case of "Kids," it was for the sake of art, so yeah.. Good video. He'll get over it.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #4 Lady GaGa "Paparazzi"

In addition to directing arguably his most shocking video to date with Rammstein's "Pussy," Jonas Åkerlund also spent part of 2009 directing "Paparazzi," arguably his most iconic video since Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up," making Jonas a ripe candidate for 2009's "pop video director of the year." "Iconic" is really a perfect word to describe this video not only for Jonas, but more obviously for Lady GaGa. If "Poker Face" didn't make it obvious that she means business, "Paparazzi" went and smacked a bitch up like a champagne bottle across the face. Also, let's not forget dancing wheelchair/crutches and the "fuck you" mugshots at the end. This is some brilliant shit right here.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #5 The Dead Weather "Treat Me Like Your Mother"

Gather around friends.. Come see Jack White and that chick from The Kills engaging in the most disturbingly realistic gun shootout since the final 2 minutes of Bonnie & Clyde.. only this time they don't die, and at the end you can see the sunlight shining through their bullet holes, which is actually far more disturbing than if they had just shot themselves to death.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #6 Plies "Becky"

Like the antithesis of Pill's "Trap Goin' Ham," this is a whole different story about street life in the Dirty South. I'd explain further, but I may just end up spoiling the fun.. LMAO X 111111110000000000000000000

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #7 Dinosaur Jr. "Over It"

"Over It" would have fit in perfectly in a 1995 episode of 120 Minutes right alongside Wax's "California" and the Seaweed video where the kid gets his bike stolen. Simplistic and low-key are 2 elements which are hopefully returning to rock videos, which were far more present in the 90's. This makes it all the more perplexing that Pitchfork chose to place "Over It" at #22 in their shitty list of the top 50 videos of the decade.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #8 P.O.S. "Drumroll (We're All Thirsty)"

Time for some suburban warzones, explosions, blood, running, driving, more explosions, and more running.. In the end, it all looks suspiciously similar to the rap video version of Children Of Men. But it fits the song well enough to place it among the year's best.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #9 Fever Ray "If I Had A Heart"

Dead bodies everywhere, with the Grim Reaper's wife on lead vocals.. Or actually, I'm pretty sure it's just that chick from The Knife with face paint.. creepy stuff.

Best Music Videos Of 2009: #10 MGMT "The Youth"

Eric Wareheim from Tim & Eric continues using his bizarre editing and directing methods just as he had done in the past for videos from The Bird And The Bee and more recently for Major Lazer. The bizarre qualities are still intact for Eric's treatment of MGMT, but the melancholy atmosphere of "The Youth" gives the images a level of slight poignancy unseen in his previous videos. ("Slight" meaning 10% poignant & 90% lulz..)

Best Music Videos Of 2009: Honorable mention

Honorable mention goes to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)" which certainly will go down in history as the most ubiquitous and inescapable pop video of 2009, and became iconic enough that Beyoncé's next three videos were pretty much exactly the same concept. Congratulations to Miss Knowles for continuing to remain relevant in the ever increasingly fickle world of pop culture and by doing so with such a simple video.