2. Spike Jonze
• He is well known also for his music video
collaborations with Weezer, Beastie Boys, and
Björk. He was also a co-creator and executive
producer of MTV's Jackass.
• He is currently the creative director of VBS.tv.
He is also part owner of skateboard company
Girl Skateboards with riders Rick Howard and
Mike Carroll.
3. Spike continued
• Beastie Boys’ “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t
Win” was a sandbox revelation that was way better
than the actual feature film based on GI Joe, while
Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Otis” turned that pair’s
obsession with commercialism into a bombastic
brand of Americana.
• Pour one out for the fallen Maybach, and raise your
glass to Jonze, who proved that no amount of
directing polarizing adaptations of beloved books for
children can take away his four-minute spark.
4. Marc Klasfield
• Klasfeld’s big headline-grabbing contribution to music
videos this year was Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night
(T.G.I.F.),” which somehow seamlessly combined ’80s
neon, Rebecca Black, and that one really gross scene of
Perry vomiting into a roller skate.
• While “Last Friday Night” is super fun (and buoyed by
Perry’s natural charisma), Klasfeld’s 2011 resumé also
included Rise Against’s “Make It Stop (September’s
Children)” (a “message” video that managed to not be
too heavy-handed), and Red Hot Chili Peppers’
surprisingly spry “The Adventures of Rain Dance
Maggie.”
• It’s an old concept (band plays outside, real people show
up to see them), but Klasfeld managed to keep it fresh
and helped the Chili Peppers look vital nearly 30 years
after their formation
5. Jake Nava
• Did anybody have a more bipolar year than Jake
Nava? He directed two clips, and they stood
poles apart from one another as far as content
was concerned, though both are excellent.
• Kanye West’s long-delayed “Monster” was all the
terrible things people said about it, but it was
also bracing, surprising, and bold.
• And Nava scored again with Adele’s “Someone
Like You,” a phenomenally satisfying tearjerkev
