VOTE!! MUSIC VIDEO AWARD 2012

2012 has been a an exciting year for music by artists, who subvert and transcend stereotypes of gender and sexuality. We’ve seen a whole slew of New York artists labeled “queer rappers” like Le1f, Mykki Blanco and Zebra Katz pop up in the mainstream media. We’ve seen the hype around SSION‘s highly stylized “Bent” video series. We’ve seen Chile get a new queer anthem with Alex Anwandter’s “Cómo puedes vivir contigo mismo?”. At the same time, the subculture is flourishing more than ever – be it Seattle’s THEESatisfaction and their beautiful “awE naturalE” debut, Toronto’s Trust, or the new wave of loosely connected music acts from Berlin like Kool Thing, o F F Love, Crime or Rodeo.

What connects these acts from around the world is their strong sense for the visual aesthetic that accompanies their music. This sentiment is especially remarkable considering the small budgets all of them possess. These are the reasons why it was especially difficult to slim down the long list of great clips we’ve posted here throughout the year to just 10. We hope that with our selection we’ve managed to reflect a big part of the spectrum of artists we’ve described above (for the big picture please check out our “Music” section). Take the next three weeks to look back on 2012 and vote for your favorite video, which we will announce at the end of the year. You will find the poll at the bottom of this post, below the nominated videos.

Alex Anwandter – Cómo puedes vivir contigo mismo?
Directed by 5AM