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The last year has seen some musical masterpieces grace our iTunes, and for those we are thankful.
But of course what's a track without a video? Nothing, that's what, and the past 12 months has seen some spectacular videos. Some beautiful, some simply brutal - videos have become works of art, no matter how dark they become. 2012 has seens some truly great music videos, some intensely weird cinemagraphic imaginings and some that are just good fun.
Check out our selection of the best videos from the past 12 months.
Alt-J - 'Breezeblocks'
As good a tune as 'Breezeblocks' is, this video turns it into a full formed story, with twists and turns, violence and love. All told backwards. Ellis Bahl's video has you guessing at what the regressing storyline is actually about right up until the last minute, when the protagonist first walks through the door.
Danny Brown - 'Grown Up'
The idea of replacing a vocalist with a child in the video is not a new one. But the kid in this video takes on the role of Danny Brown with such conviction that he seems badder than the rapper himself, who only appears in the last 30 seconds of the video. You could watch this on repeat and still find yourself clapping like a fool at the child's spot on performance.
Sigur Ros - 'Fjogur Piano'
If you can get a big name Hollywood actor in your music video, that's pretty good news. If you can get said actor to do full frontal nudity, you're bound to create a noise. If you can get them to dress as members of the opposite sex and perform a bit of interpretive dance before taking a sensory journey in a carpark while eating a lolly, you're on pretty uncharted ground. In many ways this is a video that does far more than the accompaning music. An achingly ambiguous story unfolds between Shia la Bouef and the female actor, getting pretty wierd at times but never loosing its intensity.
Killer Mike - 'Untitled'
Having created the best rap album of the year (in this writer's opinion), the video for 'Untitled' continues in Killer Mike's stylishly intelligent fashion, with the rapper and collaborator Scar appearing in a series of setting reminiscent of the works of classical painters and scenes from history, with a diverse series of references ranging from Malcolm X to Diego Velaquez' painting The Toilet of Venus.
Grimes - 'Oblivion'
We probably all need to take a deep breath and calm down a bit when it comes to Grimes as 2012 has seen the music press positively swoon over the Canadian artist. But it wasn't without good reason, and this video for Oblivion is yet another. Visiting dirt bike races, American football games, house parties and locker rooms with her trust boombox in hand, this video captures a starkly original glimpse of Americana that seems to fit ideally with her music.
The Shoes - 'Time To Dance'
You might thnk the video for 'Time To Dance' would feature lots of people having a good time and, well, dancing. And it does, apart from the bits with Jake Gyllenhaal's slashing people up with a rapier or bashing their heads in with a hammer next to a peaceful lake. An intense visual narrative that's as compelling as it is shocking. One YouTube commenter advices viewers to think of it as 'the epilogue to Donnie Darko'.
Justice - 'New Lands'
Set during a sporting event in the intensely sinister future, the best thing about this video is trying to work out the rules of the sport being played. It appears to be an amalgamation of American football, baseball and lacrosse, ending up being somewhere between quiditch without the brooms and Rollerball with more pain. There's also guys on motorbikes and an evil cyborg. Needless to say, whether you can follow the sport or not, it's all tremendously exciting.
Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing
Florence Welch takes the stage in a strip club looking a little like Annie Lennox to perform Sweet Nothing while a troubled looking man waits for his chips. Florence burst free from the shackles of shirt and tie, while the man is beaten up by a railway arch. Florence writhes on stage while the man suffers under his assailants' boots to tell one of the most haunting, if slightly confusing, stories of any music video this year, and one that's probably all too familiar to too many people.
Lana Del Rey - 'National Anthem'
Lana takes on the role of jackie O with A$AP Rocky as her JFK in this video, as the two enjoy an idyllic family life as America's spotlight couple. Ultimately both video and song take a poke at preconcieved American values and their validity, but they do so in Del Rey's typically sultry fashion. At times it might seem slightly bizarre, but more than that it seems a poignant commentary on the American Dream.
David Lynch - 'Crazy Clown Time'
If you have a fear of crazy clowns, don't worry, there's none here. But this video is terrifyingly surreal though. An aggressively rocking punk, an unstoppable American footballer and a seriously intense chap in a red shirt populate a bombsite of a back garden. A couple of topless woman make an appearance, but in the scariest way possible, as everyone involved seems to slip irresistibly into insanity. When Lynch wrote the song, he might have thought 'well, you can't get much crazier than that'. But you can. By the time the punk sets his mohawk on fire, you're only halfway through and already worried about what sort of night's sleep you're going to get tonight. Perhaps never before have a video and track been so perfectly matched.
Frank Ocean 'Pyramids'
Frank Ocean is fast becoming a man who can do nothing wrong, and the video for 'Pyramids' is just another reason to shovel more praise on the R&B singer. Essentially a love story about a stripper, the video ecapsulate the forlorn yet slightly psychedelic atmosphere that has come to define Ocean.. Ocean looks predictable cool throughout - blasting spirit bottles away with a had gun at the start of the video before taking off on his motorbike across the desert. The sleaze of the neon-lit strip club is counterbalanced by the beautiful sunset background to Ocean's bike ride, emphasizing the contrast in the singer's music between the delicacy of his voice and the harsh honesty of his content.
