1. Kendrick Lamar: "Alright"

Director: Colin Tilley

"Alright" is a song about the promise of salvation, so it's only appropriate that Kendrick Lamar assumes the role of Christ up on that lamppost high above Los Angeles, where he ultimately dies for our sins, just another victim in a war "based on apartheid and discrimination." It’s a heavy and necessary message, especially now, and it’s delivered with gravitas by Colin Tilley's black-and-white video. But there's no shortage of humor, either.

The trickiest punchline of them all comes early: Kendrick and friends driving in a sedan, windows down, brown-bagging a 40. As they bounce back and forth, the camera pans out to reveal four white cops carrying the car on their shoulders. It's unclear who the butt of the joke is supposed to be—the cops, for bearing the load, or the young black men for unwittingly being carried off by The Man? But their bittersweet levitating act is redeemed by Lamar's own flight above the streets of L.A., his inner-city Icarus providing one of the most arresting—and liberating—images of the year. —Philip Sherburne