This year, the music video continued its return to prominence.

While 2012 featured plenty of forays into non-traditional visual companions, 2013 found tried-and-true music videos ascendent, thanks to several high profile clips designed for commentary by the masses.

Still, beyond the twerk teams and trapper keeper tributes were plenty of experimental efforts, including longform animation, interactive adventures, ever-evolving Instagram collages, and efforts by respected directors like David Lynch and Gaspar Noe. Here are the year’s 20 finest.

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20. NGUZUNGUZU
‘MECHA’
Directed by: Jude MC

Nguzunguzu’s tracks are often martial and metallic, none more so than Skycell cut ‘Mecha’. Director Jude MC builds on the song’s siren shrieks, samurai slices, and warsong club beat in his “oversampled” video, borrowing footage from sci-fi blockbusters (the Matrix trilogy, Pacific Rim, and video games like Metal Gear Rising, among them) to peak into the mechanized future prophesized by the entertainment industry. Will humans eventually turn to skyscraper-sized robots to resolve conflicts? Only time will tell; until then, enjoy the widescreen demolition.

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18. TYLER THE CREATOR
‘IFHY’
Directed by: Wolf Haley

Along with producing and rapping, the 22-year-old Tyler, the Creator has been directing Odd Future’s videos under his Wolf Haley alias since 2010. ‘IFHY’ is by far his most ambitious work yet. Inspired by Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller’s adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (!), a wax-faced Tyler action figure breaks up with Barbie in a dollhouse of emotion (that is, before he melts his pint-sized avatar and gets rowdy with Hodgy Beats). It ain’t Loiter Squad, that’s for sure.

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17. PHYSICAL THERAPY
‘DO IT ALONE’
Directed by: Jude MC

In his second appearance in this list, director Jude MC crafts an animated sci-fi-tinged Western for Physical Therapy’s rave-throwback ‘Do It Alone’. A collaboration with the producer, stylist Halley Wollens and animator Obinna O, a cowboy (with a striking resemblance to Physical Therapy’s Safety Net persona) races a locomotive into space to save a damsel-in-distress/femme fatale from a blood-draining, mustache-twirling villain. In a multimedia twist, the cell-shaded characters were created from scratch and were styled with designer fashion, from Alexander McQueen to Versace.

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16. ROME FORTUNE
‘SAFETY’
Directed by: Goodwin

Easily one of the most inventive rap videos of the year, the Goodwin-directed ‘Safety’ promo isn’t just notable for the fact that there’s a proper narrative. It looks the part too, shot in doomy monochrome to accent Rome’s transition from slighted bystander to revenge killer. ‘Safety’ is a two-and-a-half minute slice of classic pulp fiction, and plays out like all good silent films should – with strong visual cues and stark images that stick in your head long after the titles roll.

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15. SIGUR ROS
‘STORMUR’

An ever-evolving video consisting of fan-shot Instagram videos, ‘Stormur’ stokes the flames of nostalgia as good as anything since Arcade Fire’s you-can-never-go-home-again The Wilderness Downtown experiment. The filtered videos, displayed two at a time, offer random juxtapositions and a different experience with each viewing. Who wouldn’t want Sigur Ros to soundtrack their home movies?

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14. DANNY BROWN
‘DIP’
Directed by: Rollo Jackson

Whilst the expected “artist walking around backstage” footage is about as interesting as watching four minutes of a dripping faucet, director Rollo Jackson smartly spices up ‘Dip’ with a tasteful selection of vivid visual effects and animation. It transforms what could have been totally pedestrian into a promo with a similar druggy charm to Danny Brown’s Adderall-fuelled raps themselves, and it couldn’t be more fitting. Recreating the drug experience on camera has been notoriously difficult for filmmakers over the years, and it’s hard to believe that Jackson’s success comes in his restraint. If the entire video was flashing lights and bouncing eyeballs, it would have simply been a 1AM Adult Swim session.

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13. FKA TWIGS
‘WATER ME’
Directed by: Jesse Kanda

As striking as the cover to her EP2, the video for ‘Water Me’ does a lot with a little. A full-frame shot of the singer — all gold piercings, red lips, and baby hair — is processed so that her (artificially) anime-sized eyes shed a CGI tear. Basically, ‘Nothing Compares To You’ for Young Turks / UNO NYC fans.

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12. FUTURE
‘HONEST’
Directed by: Colin Tilley

Shot through a haze of bright sunlight, ‘Honest’ might be Future’s most opulent video yet. It’s far from usual bling ‘n babes we’re used to seeing from the pop conveyor belt and instead finds Future setting himself up as a James Bond character, with all the swagger and charm that might entail. A sparkling white grand piano, vintage cars, and a stunning mansion set the scene, and with rap video veteran Colin Tilley at the helm it certainly looks the part. It’s Nayvadius’ effortless cool that holds it all together – who else can get away with wearing three watches and a cape without looking like a total moron?

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11. CIARA FT. NICKI MINAJ
‘I’M OUT
Directed by: Hannah Lux Davis

It’s tough to top ‘Ride’, but Ciara nearly pulls it off with the video for her Single Ladies anthem ‘I’m Out’. Among the various set and costume changes, Ciara and a made-down Nicki Minaj don skin-tight white outfits in a tribute to Michael and Janet’s ‘Scream’. Later, she literally looks like a million bucks in her all-over dollar outfit. Of course, there’s the requisite slow motion, writing-in-water scene — this one is Ciara’s true body party.

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10. NINE INCH NAILS
‘CAME BACK HAUNTED’
Directed by: David Lynch

Before producing the soundtrack for David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Trent Reznor had tried in vain to get Lynch to direct a video for Nine Inch Nails. More than a decade since their last collaboration, Lynch finally acquiesced. The surrealist legend was in fine form in his seizure-inducing clip for ‘Came Back Haunted’: distorted, shaky-cam imagery is difficult to identify (is that a ballerina? a shark?), imbuing the video with the oblique horrors of Eraserhead and Lost Highway. This pairing of pop culture’s most macabre auteurs was well worth the wait.

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9. LANA DEL REY
TROPICO
Directed by: Anthony Mandler

With the half-hour-long Tropico, Lana Del Rey re-teamed with director Anthony Mandler (‘National Anthem’, ‘Ride’) in an attempt to “visually close out” the Born to Die chapter, and while it’s far from subtle (as usual), it succeeds. Del Rey and the visually-striking albino model Shaun Ross land somewhere between Adam & Eve and Bonnie & Clyde with Americana icons John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and Jesus looming large. Cholos and strippers live and die in LA while ‘Howl’ and ‘America, Why I Love Her’ are intoned from above. For an artist whose aesthetic is such a part of her mystique, Tropico is the kitchen sink.

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8. VINYL WILLIAMS
‘STELLARSCOPE’
Directed by: Lionel Williams & Nikita Arefkia

Psychedelic painter-musician Vinyl Williams entered the interactive / video game fray with ‘Stellarscope’. An explorable environment (think Myst on acid), ‘Stellarscope’ featured objects that produced specific sounds (rainforest sounds in the jungle, etc.), allowing participants to “jam” with the song. “It’s really about exploring, and ultimately a test of digital dexterity,” he wrote at the time, adding that, “it appears to be a little difficult to navigate through a space jungle kingdom built on seamless stream-of-consciousness.” Difficult but well-worth the effort.

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7. BOB DYLAN
‘LIKE A ROLLING STONE’
Directed by: Vania Heymann

Nearly 50 years after becoming a folk rock classic, Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ received a very-contemporary video treatment. Viewers hold a digital remote to a fantastic TV set where no matter what is playing — Sportscenter, The History Network, The Price Is Right, or even Danny Brown — everyone is lip-syncing the seminal tune. A forehead-smacking idea that we’re surprised no one had tried before.

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6. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
‘…LIKE CLOCKWORK’
Directed by: Boneface & Liam Brazier

While Queens of the Stone Age’s roll-out of …Like Clockwork was dangerously close to the type of drip-feed press campaigns that really bugged us this year, the album more than justified the gimmick. This 15-minute video finds Boneface’s ghastly, blood-and-guts illustrations brought to life (and death) by animator Liam Brazier for a post-apocalyptic grindhouse befitting Josh Homme and company’s 70s-styled, mortality-obsessed rock epic.

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5. DRAKE FT. MAJID JORDAN
‘HOLD ON, WE’RE GOING HOME’
Directed by: Bill Pope

In Drake’s best Nothing Was The Same videos, he imagined himself as a Memphis-raised roughneck and a Miami Vice-styled gangster; the latter provided more bang for your buck. A 7-minute, gloriously over-the-top tribute to 80s action movies, its existence is too funny to take seriously (like Drake). The only thug to walk into his armory wearing Toms, Drake assembles his crew, executes the traitor (spoiler: the suspicious white boy with the pierced ear), and saves his lingerie-clad paramour after a bullet-riddled firefight. Nothing was the same, indeed.

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4. ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER
‘STILL LIFE’
Directed by: Jon Rafman & Oneohtrix Point Never

Like the music itself, Daniel Lopatin’s garish patchwork of images, animation and film footage is a celebration of the gaudy, dark side of technology. From forgotten anime and videogame footage to fetish porn and snapshots of abandoned gaming dens, the video’s celebration of anti aesthetic imagery is surprisingly successful. When the majority of music promos that slip through the zeroes and ones each day are bizarre, sparkly greetings cards draped in hollow sentiments, seeing a pair of stained 8-bit panties pulled aside to reveal outer space is kind of refreshing.

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3. KANYE WEST
‘BOUND 2’
Directed by: Nick Knight

“Uh-huh, honey.” Parody it all you want, but Kanye West knows exactly what’s he doing. Only Yeezus would turn the most light-hearted song off such an unrelenting album into a re-appropriation of White American icons: the Manifest Destiny-begging expanses of the West, wild stallions, Easy Rider trips, topless buxom babes, tie-dye and flannel shirts — they’re all his now. Or maybe it’s just a karaoke love letter to his fiancée. After the year he’s had, does it even matter?

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2. LAPALUX FT. KERRY LEATHAM
‘WITHOUT YOU’
Directed by: Nick Ray Rutter with Lapalux

Lapalux’s forlorn ‘Without You’ soundtracks the most unlikely love story of the year. A darkly funny yet surprisingly heartbreaking tale of forbidden romance between a leatherbound gimp and Molotov Jukebox’s Natalia Tena, the gorgeously shot video charts the relationship, documenting shower insertions, parental meetings, awkward outings, the inevitable breakup, a back-alley assault, and eventually the main character’s escape into the void (the gimp was too beautiful for this world, clearly). Delightfully weird and definitely haunting.

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1. MILEY CYRUS
‘WE CAN’T STOP’
Directed by: Diane Martel

The video that launched a thousand think pieces: ‘We Can’t Stop’ was the first salvo in a year that saw the former Disney starlet transform into a Terry Richardson pin-up. While most of the pearl-clutching coverage of the video focused on Miley’s ostentatious display of her sexuality (the horror!) and the appropriation of black hip-hop tropes by a white woman (surely not the first time?), the bizarre imagery of Diane Martel’s subversive video didn’t get its due. Strange food play (money sandwiches, french fry skulls, hot dog piñatas), body horror (sliced fingers, chewed tongues), and Lynchian flourishes (a creepy karaoke spectre, plenty of taxidermy) make this the most captivating video of the year.

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