This week at Opinz we’re taking a look back at the best and worst of 2008. We’re kicking things off with a look at the top ten music videos released in the past year. Presented here are the strangest, funniest, cleverest, and most disturbing videos of 2008. Enjoy.

10. M83 – “Kim & Jessie”

Kim and Jessie “share a secret world”, a world of rollerblading and matching pink outfits. These two tenacious girls are able to persevere even when that world is invaded by an army of yellow-clad, parasol-toting skate bitches, through their enduring spirit and…crotch watching? Anyways, their crotch watching is rewarded with a pair of vato sk8rr boyzz and everything is right in M83′s world of teen romance.

M83′s songs sound like the musical adaptation of a John Hughes movie, so their videos are just about what you’d expect. “Graveyard Girl” from the same album is also an entertaining one, featuring more young love, dog ghosts, and an Ally-Sheedy-in-The-Breakfast-Club-style makeover.

9. Weezer – “Pork and Beans”

For better or worse, (probably worse) this decade will be remembered for introducing the viral video and the overnight YouTube star. Weezer pays tributes to these oversung heroes in their video for “Pork and Beans”. The video stars Chocolate Rain guy and “leave Britney alone!” guy and that afro ninja guy and lots of other people who are already fading into obscurity as we speak.

Oh well, the video at least works for the moment. It may not be as timeless as the video for “Buddy Holly”, but it’s far from boring. Weezer has become less and less relevant over the years but they still sometimes prove that even they can knock a video out of the park.

8. Flying Lotus – “Parisian Goldfish” (NSFW)

2008 was an excellent year for naked people in music. They were on of Montreal’s new album, they were on Sigur Ros’s new album, and they were running all over in the video for Sigur Ros’s “Gobbledigook”. But for every nubile young nature spirit frolicking and flopping majestically through the forest, there is an ugly middle-aged couple ready to get it on all over your computer screen and disturb the bejesus out of you.

The video for Flying Lotus’s “Parisian Goldfish” was directed by Eric Wareheim of “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” One can only assume that this is the kind of thing that even Adult Swim will not air. You may try to wash their jiggling, thrusting bodies or the look on that guy’s face from your mind, but I doubt you will succeed. You’ve seen this now, and you’re going to have to live with it. You’re welcome.

7. Fleet Foxes – “White Winter Hymnal”

When it comes to videos for indie bands, animation is something of a easy ploy to have to avoid spending too much. Just get someone to slap something together in Flash and put it out there. The video for “White Winter Hymnal” doesn’t look expensive at all, but it’s damned impressive.

A group of tired old fogies literally turn back the wheel of time and return to their youth, but alas, it is only for a moment, and then in an instant it’s gone. For a claymation video, it’s surprisingly deep and that last shot is strangely very powerful.

6. Vampire Weekend – “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”

The second 80′s throwback on the list, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” sees a coiffured Ezra Koenig meeting a “graveyard girl” of his own and trying in vain to win her love through the power of keytars. By video’s end, Koenig has been An American Werewolf in London-ed into…Robert Smith. I would’ve rather become a werewolf, personally.

“Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and the video for the band’s other single “Oxford Comma” pretty perfectly represent the dilemma posed by Vampire Weekend and their music. They’re so self-consciously hip and ridiculous, but their charm and fun kind of wins you over in the end.

5. Radiohead – “House of Cards”

Radiohead’s video for “House of Cards” got a lot of attention when it was first released. According to the “making of” video I watched, it was created with all kinds of awesome lasers and stuff. The video is proudly labeled as the first music video ever recorded without cameras.

Radiohead have always been innovators, so it’s not surprising that they’ve claimed that distinction. I’m not sure if this is expected to be the new way that everything should be filmed from now on, but it’s pretty captivating and that’s really what music videos are about.

4. Gnarls Barkley – “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul”

“Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” is a strange one. I didn’t like it much the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me. In the video, that guy from The Lonely Island gets dumped and proceeds to cut his heart out of his chest and give it to his now ex-girlfriend. But the heart has plans of it’s own, and a song to sing.

The video has been nominated for a lot of awards, and for good reason. It’s well-filmed and the effects are very impressive. The ending is pitch perfect and is exactly the way all of these kinds of dream sequences should end.

3. Hot Chip – “One Pure Thought”

The setting for “One Pure Thought”‘s video is described as “the kind of place Roy Lichtenstein might have liked to hang out in” and that’s about spot-on. A wonderfully animated homage to pointillist pop art, the video features line drawing interpretations of Hot Chip dancing their silly white asses off and banging on all kinds of colorful shapes.

The animation is startlingly original and mesmerizing, and the pop art look is probably the best visual interpretation yet of Hot Chip’s particular brand of colorful, tongue-in-cheek electro-pop.

2. MGMT – “Time to Pretend”

As mentioned above, indie bands often don’t have the budgets to produce truly impressive music videos. It’s one of the most unfortunate side-effects of the way the music industry has shifted this decade, that it’s harder and harder for great bands to produce the kind of wild videos that they deserve. (Animal Collective and their disappointing videos come to mind.)

What’s great about “Time to Pretend” is that you can tell that it cost fuck all to make. Just some green screens, some bad CG, and wacky outfits. But they did an incredible job with what they had and used the cheapness of it all to their advantage. The video is like The Lord of the Flies if they’d found mushrooms growing on that island, a pasted together mess of cheesy psychedelic silliness. It’s an absolutely perfect representation of the song itself, to the point that it actually improves upon the song just by being paired with it, like the two were incomplete without each other. For that reason, this is my favorite music video of the year…

1. Björk – Wanderlust

HD Quicktime Version in 2D and 3D

…but it is not the best. That distinction goes to the video for Björk’s “Wanderlust”. Before you hit “play” on that YouTube embed, forget about it and watch the Quicktime version. It’s worth it. It is indeed available in both 2D and 3D, so let’s hope you have some 3D glasses lying around somewhere. (I know I do.)

The video was directed by Encyclopedia Pictura, who also directed the video for Grizzly Bear’s “Knife”, one of the most WTF videos of all time. “Wanderlust” supposedly took a year and an army of artist to make. It mixes CG animation, live action, large scale puppeteering, make-up effects and lord knows what else so seamlessly that you can rarely tell what’s what. To put it lightly, it’s beautiful.

The 90′s were perhaps the best decade for music videos, a time when inspired artists hooked up with inspired directors to make expensive, expansive video clips that felt like brilliant short films. Those days may soon be over for good, but it’s nice to see someone who experienced them firsthand to throw out a video so mindblowingly impressive. Good job, Björk.

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

June 3, 2008
Bella Union/Sub Pop
Rating: 3 / 5

The Music Rag One Sentence Review: In their debut album, Fleet Foxes succeed at building a rustic aesthetic that evokes cattle drives and rural life and provides some warm and entertaining moments, but is often boring.

Best moments: The album’s second track, “White Winter Hymnal” is probably it’s high point. It starts with an undeniably catchy melody sung like an old familiar folk song by a lone voice, before emerging into an expansively beautiful and wordless chorus.