We’re getting down to the final stretch, folks. Numbers 3 and 4 on our countdown are surprisingly similar. Both bands play indie rock with a retro sound, featuring similar looking smoking hot brunettes on vocals. Both songs are about being madly in love with someone. Both bands put out a ton of great singles this year, and almost all of those singles had fantastic videos to go along with them. And both bands garnered a lot of love and attention from me this year (for instance, I discovered halfway into my fourth post on Best Coast that I had begun 3 of the last 4 posts with “I love Best Coast”). They’re so similar that if you had asked me what my favorite band of 2011 was in the first half of the year I would have said Best Coast, but in the second half that had changed to Summer Camp.

4. Best Coast – Our Deal

It was really hard for me to decide between this video and the one for “Crazy For You” because I really like them both. I went back and forth on this question for a while. Honestly I like “Crazy For You” more as a song and the video–featuring cats directing the band’s purrformance on a local TV show–is simply delightful, but you just can’t ignore how magnificent Drew Barrymore’s video for “Our Deal” is. It perfectly captures the lyrics’ deep feelings of confusion and longing that are equally matched by the visuals of a Romeo & Juliet/West Side Story-esque love story between two members of rival gangs. Add to that the tongue-in-cheek in-joke of the casting that I mentioned in my original post and it all makes for a great little mini movie.

3. Summer Camp – I Want You

Starting with this, my top three videos of 2011 also feature my top three favorite songs of the year. I’m not really sure of the exact numbers, but Summer Camp was very probably my most blogged about band this year with an amazing 6 posts. I just can’t get enough of this band. I think I became really sold on them with this song, which in four and a half minutes builds and builds and builds and builds into this amazing fever pitch of lust and dancefloor ecstasy. The tempo slowly creeps up on you while the drums get heavier and heavier, the synths build layers on top of layers and Elizabeth Sankey starts moaning “I Want You” with ever increasing lust and intensity…yeah, the whole thing gets really damn sexy.

This fan video featuring footage from the film “Bubble Boy” seems almost tailor-made for this song. The editing of the video with the washed out, grainy, wavy VHS quality to it matches the distortion and fuzz in the song and the subject matter of two people in love separated by a plastic sheet is the prefect fit for a song about wanting to be with someone with every fiber of your being.