THOUGH most of this year was magnificently shitty, it was a great one for music videos. Not to mention visual albums—2016 brought us Beyoncé's unparalleled Lemonade, as well as Frank Ocean's Endless. Here are my top six favorite stand-alone music videos of the year:
6. Princess Nokia, "Kitana"
Princess Nokia (AKA Destiny Frasqueri) has released a bunch of great music videos this year, but my favorite is for the track "Kitana" from her recent 1992 mixtape. The Bronx-based musician boxes on a basketball court with friends, rapping "I step in this bitch and I do what I want, I don't give a damn and I don't give a fuck" with blood dripping down her chin.
5. Aminé, "Caroline"
Portland's own Aminé burst into the mainstream over the summer with his breakthrough single "Caroline" and its accompanying music video, which currently has almost 60 million YouTube views. That's nuts for any artist coming out of this city, but it's not hard to see why it's so popular—the video alternates between scenes of the enigmatic young rapper and his friends outside the Oregon City Mike's Drive-In, bouncing around the backseat of a car, and eating some bananas (it ends with a shoutout to Dole).
4. Angel Olsen, "Shut Up Kiss Me"
Angel Olsen's new record My Woman is impeccable from start to finish, but "Shut Up Kiss Me" is for sure the album's standout. Olsen directed the track's music video, which is equally fantastic—in it she twirls around an old roller skating rink in a silver tinsel wig, singing lines like "Stop pretending I'm not there/When it's clear I'm not going anywhere" directly at the camera, commanding its gaze and demanding viewers' attention.
3. Golden Hour, "Goth Easter"
Golden Hour's video for "Goth Easter" (from their 2015 album Don't Be Cute) is without a doubt the best Portland music video of 2016. In it, the self-described "devotional punk" trio hosts a goth easter party where attendees dress in black, search for eggs, toss around Rainiers, and dance around in a dry ice-filled room. My favorite shot is of a nun wearing sunglasses and lighting up a joint.
2. Mitski, "Happy" (CW: gore)
Director Maegan Houang's video for Mitski's "Happy" (from her new album Puberty 2) is truly a work of art. Inspired by the work of Wong Kar Wai and Douglas Sirk, Houang's story unfolds gracefully and in perfect sync with the slow-building intensity of the song. It's set in the 1950s, and focuses on a housewife and her husband, a war veteran who's not-so-subtly engaging in some extra-marital affairs. "Happy" is made great by its ending—but fair warning, it's gory.
1. Japanese Breakfast, "Everybody Wants to Love You"
This year Michelle Zauner released Psychopomp, her full-length debut as Japanese Breakfast. Its nine vibrant and shimmering pop tracks center on the death of her mother, but also the flickers of hope and joy that stir in the depths of grief. Lead single "Everybody Wants to Love You" is one of the record's brightest moments—it reflects the kind of celebration of life that comes from savoring memories and carrying them forward into the future with strength and resilience. The song's video perfectly captures this sentiment; Zauner wears her mother's wedding dress (a traditional Korean hanbok) as she spends an evening playing pool, indulging in libations (sometimes out of paper bags), crowdsurfing, and smoking on the back of a motorcycle. The image of her sitting on the hood of a semi truck and busting out that incredible guitar riff is probably one of my favorite things I've seen in 2016.
