The 2012 pop video awards

Peter Robinson hands out the gongs for the year's finest achievements in the world of moving pictures set to music for promotional purposes

Most Lana Del Rey-esque Lana Del Rey video

Lana Del Rey - Ride


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This ten-minute short film dwells on classic Lanaisms like gloomy Americana, deserts, bikers, shattered dreams and street corners. Beautiful in its way, it's also dead-eyed, bleak, and depressing. Or, as semiotics expert Fearne Cotton noted when deconstructing the video on her Radio 1 show: "Kissing loads of men and going round on a motorbike. Brilliant!".

Most effective plug for a greatest hits album

McFly - Love Is Easy


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It's half a decade since McFly have done anything interesting outside light entertainment phone-vote shows but this video - in which the band recreate key events and record sleeves from the band's career in an OK Go fashion - was a clever reminder of their former selves.

Best K-pop video to feature an owl

BigBang - Fantastic Baby


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In 2012 boyband videos reached their nadir with One Direction sitting in a studio singing an Ed Sheeran song at each other IN BLACK AND WHITE, but the supremely demented Fantastic Baby video establishes global equilibrium.

Best sideways-car-lols

MIA - Bad Girls


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Also the best video to feature the phrase "hands up" accompanied by an arms-aloft dance move, a man doing a wheelie on a horse, things on fire, and hats.

Best shower scene

Marina & The Diamonds - How To Be A Heartbreaker


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This was delayed, according to a tweet from Marina, "because I look ugly in it apparently and we need more $ / time to paint out ugly parts". Her point about pop's obsession with body image was undermined slightly when the video appeared and featured Marina frolicking in a shower with six Calvin Klein models.

Worst video by a major label artist

Pink - Blow Me (One Last Kiss)


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Blow Me (One Last Kiss) was a fizzy Pink banger but its laughable video - possibly inspired by a completely different song - boasted opening titles in French and an old-time style film grain effect both, presumably, applied using some sort of iPhone app.

Special award for best video in art gallery since Will Young's leave right now

AlunaGeorge - Your Drums, Your Love


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Aluna and George and all their Facebook friends are in a big white room. Aluna and George don't dance. Their friends do. A massive bear oversees the entire thing. Also features a parrot.

Best use of a stately home

Paloma Faith - Picking Up The Pieces


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A brooding period piece in which Paloma and a generic male model hate each other. Includes an extraordinary moment when the song drops out completely and a waitress carries two plates across a room.

Least subtle positioning of former X Factor contestant as credible artiste

Aiden Grimshaw - Is This Love


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Strop-faced 2010 X Factor finalist Aiden Grimshaw was reborn when RCA launched him as an intense troubadour. The hilariously obtuse Is This Love video featured Grimshaw for just 1.5 seconds. It somehow scored over 1m YouTube views, sending the single to the dizzy heights of the Top 35.

Peter Robinson

The GuardianTramp

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