Welcome to Pitchfork's best of 2007. Today we present our 100 favorite songs of 2007; the top albums come at you tomorrow. As we did in 2006, we've extended the candidate pool beyond the confines of singledom-- basically any song released or covered in 2007, whether a single or not, was eligible for this list. As a bonus, you can check out nearly every song on our Spotify playlist. Enjoy!
100: Ost & Kjex
"Milano Mugolian (A Thrilling Mungophony in Two Parts)"
[Dialect]
Ost & Kjex is a leftfield minimal house duo from Norway. Mungolian Jet Set are also Norwegian, but a totally non-minimal, Baeleric-kitchen sink collective. Mungolian specialize in remixes that remove most traces of the original song in favor of extended excursions into disco-fied neo-exotica, often using live instrumentation and newly recorded vocals. In this case, MJS turn a good house track (originally O&K's "Milano Model") into a multi-movement suite of polka, throat singing, and an update of "Thriller". The last three or four minutes contain enough "bow-bow" bass, huge drums, funky guitar scratch, and vocals to make Sparks jealous-- and to convince listeners that MJS are among the most original and accomplished dance outfits around. Plus, they're funny. --Dominique Leone
99: Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew
"Backed Out on the…"
[Arts & Crafts]
Though anyone can buy his signature Fender guitar and Nike sneakers, there's no substitute for the real J Mascis. Broken Social Scene have their fair share of Mascis-like guitar exercises, but none of them match the blazing squall performed by the man himself on BSS frontman Kevin Drew's "Backed Out on the...." A chugging mid-tempo rocker well within the Broken Social tradition, the signature slow-burn of "Backed Out" is masterfully stoked by Mascis' unerringly energetic playing. Drew's admiration for Mascis is well documented, but "Backed Out" is more lively jam session than reverent homage, and the song is that much better for it. --Matt LeMay
98: Old Time Relijun
"Indestructible Life!"
[K]
"Indestructible Life!" is 210 glorious seconds of unhinged, maniacal squawking: Vocalist/guitarist Arrington de Dionyso wails, his voice desperate and deranged, while his bandmates pound out spastic noise-rock, highlighted by Ben Hartman's inscrutable sax blows and upright-bassist Aaron Hartman's deep, dutiful plucks. Somehow, "Indestructible Life!" manages to be liberating and terrifying all at once: Imagine cruising downhill on a Huffy (top speed, streamers waving, basket full) and realizing that the brakes are dead. Stop thinking about dodging cars and dogs, quit squeezing the hand levers, and give into the futility and adrenaline-- it might be scary, but it's also a shitload of fun. --Amanda Petrusich
97: Sir Richard Bishop
"Ecstasies in the Open Air"
[Drag City]
Sir Richard Bishop's status as one of the acoustic guitar's most intriguing voices hinges on three principles: 1) His eclecticism and enthusiasm for a range of sounds, 2) A technical dexterity that allows him to explore those styles freely, and 3) An indefatigable interplay between curiosity and technicality. The epilogue to Polytheistic Fragments, which casually crosses from modal drone to Chet Atkins country, "Ecstasies in the Open Air" allows familiar elements to sublimate into a peaceful breeze. Notice the smooth Hawaiian steel guitar and glimpses of "Strawberry Fields Forever" that pump from a little organ and twinkle from an electric lead. --Grayson Currin
96: Times New Viking
"Teenage Lust!"
[SiltBreeze]
MP3: Times New Viking: "Teenage Lust!"
Rather than using lo-fi recording techniques to superficially enhance or obscure their sound, Columbus-based Times New Viking captalize on the urgency and slapdash charm of the medium. "Teenage Lust!" sounds like it was recorded straight to a cassette recorder in a dirty basement, heightening its impetuous cries of "I don't want to die in the city alone." The song's sometimes-overlapping boy/girl vocals create the impression of a band falling all over themselves to get through a take, getting lost in their own energy without stopping to fine-tune or set up more than one microphone. --Matt LeMay
__95: Groove Armada [ft. Mutya Buena]
__ __"__Song 4 Mutya (Out of Control)"
[Columbia]
The girl who put the "grr" in Sugababe went solo with a snoozy album of measured soul-pop maturity. But this collaboration finds Mutya Buena playing with her grumpy fire, teetering toward an ex-created freak-out. Her counter-vocal plays nervous conscience-- "Don't panic panic Mutya!"-- but the wrath is building. Luckily for her, and for us, she gets even, not mad, swapping tense electropop for a skylarking synth climax and freewheeling New Order bass. And bonus! We discover that Mutya is one of the most scansion-friendly names in pop. --Tom Ewing
94: MGMT
"Time to Pretend"
[Columbia]
As a rock band, you're allowed one big, dumb anthem. So, in the tradition of "Cut Your Hair" and "Cannonball", MGMT shamelessly indulge in one simplistic, escapist hook for four guilt-free minutes. Drug binges, transplanting to Paris, supermodels: Other self-aware bands have romanticized delusions of grandeur before, almost always with a monstrous grain of salt marring their dream. But "Time to Pretend" puts a Matrix -like spin on it-- if the rock star lifestyle doesn't even exist, why not lose yourself in the fantasy? --Adam Moerder
93: Antibalas
"Beaten Metal"
[Anti-]
It's surprising that the lead instrumental from a political album (Security) by a political band (Antibalas) manages to make a plea for revolution. Composed by tenor saxophonist Stuart Bogie, "Beaten Metal" is marked by conflict, as when opposing horn sections sound off in stereo or when each new lead instrument (guitar, clavinet, organ, beaten-metal percussion) elbows the other out of the mix. With quick splashes of colorful sound and some slowly building drama, "Beaten Metal" sounds brazen, rhythmic, and powerful-- like Edgard Varese coming of age after hip-hop. --Grayson Currin
92: Air
"Mer du Japon (Kris Menace Remix)"
[Virgin]
Kris Menace (aka French house producer/DJ Christophe Hoeffel) worked some serious magic on remixes this year for Róisín Murphy and LCD Soundsystem-- and last year's mix of Stars on 33's "I Feel Music In Your Heart" with frequent partner Lifelike may be the single greatest "filter disco" track outside of their own "Discopolis" from 2005. KM's take on Air's "Mer du Japon" is a compact, almost perfectly orchestrated treatise on the climax: Beginning with the crash of waves on a beach, mystical piano chords, and the barest appearace of the original verse vocal, little time is wasted diving into a hard disco pound and the gushing release of hi-hat and synth chords-- which is actually an effect of compressing the track so much that every ounce of sound ends up oversaturated yet still gorgeous. --Dominique Leone
91: Menomena
"The Pelican"
[Barsuk]
"The Pelican" works like a fireworks show, a series of explosions building to an overloaded finale. The piano and drums lurch forward to do battle with the ragged, stretched guitar while the whole band gives an all-out vocal performance full of harmonies and shouting. Forget walls of sound-- the song is a dump truck of sound driving through your living room. Here, Menomena move beyond their textural and atmospheric approach to recording and create a song with a vicious bite. --Joe Tangari
90: Miranda Lambert
"Gunpowder & Lead"
[Columbia]
The wronged-woman trope is one of country music's oldest, but that doesn't lessen the impact of hearing Miranda Lambert singing about standing in the door with a loaded shotgun in hand, waiting for her abusive man to come home: "His fist is big but my gun's bigger/ He'll find out when I pull the trigger." There's no grim determination in Lambert's voice; instead, she sounds positively amped, like she's hopping around in anticipation, absolutely delighted at the prospect of putting a bullet in this jerk. Her band's charged-up Southern rock mirrors that exhilaration, building from a slow simmer to a raging climax, complete with layers of screaming guitar-twang and gospel-choir hosannas. This isn't a murder-ballad warble; it's a call-to-arms, and anyone still unconvinced about the Nashville assembly line's ability to marry movingly specific storylines with infectious jams needs to hear it. --Tom Breihan
89: Air France
"Beach Party"
[Sincerely Yours]
MP3: Air France: "Beach Party"
It was a Balearic year, from Studio's dubby grooves to A Mountain of One's pastoral come-downs. More than a few artists took the ambient, Ibiza-born genre's island origins literally, with song titles like Studio's "Life's a Beach!", Boat Club's "Warmer Climes", and, yes, "Beach Party". Here, bass, summery acoustic guitars, and shaker-stirred percussion waft over warm Caribbean waters, but as with Sincerely Yours label chiefs the Tough Alliance, Air France are also up to some mischief: Those vocals, floating just out of reach, quote Lisa Stanfield's global 1989 hit "All Around the World". Ready for repeat trips, "Beach Party" is a true desert-island record. --Marc Hogan
88: The New Pornographers
"Myriad Harbour"
[Matador]
MP3: The New Pornographers: "Myriad Harbour"
New Pornographers fans seem to fall into two categories: Those who think on-and-off touring member Dan "Destroyer" Bejar's songs are the highlights of the group's albums, and those who program around them. "Myriad Harbour", Bejar's dry-witted travelogue of a band trip to New York, converted at least some of the unconvinced. His singing is so mannered that when he claims "the boys with their homemade microphones/ Have very interesting sounds," it's impossible to tell if he's being scaldingly sarcastic or dead serious. But the song's constantly shifting arrangement makes its images of the city flash by like snapshots in a slideshow. --Douglas Wolk
87: Sophie Ellis-Bextor
"Me and My Imagination"
[Polydor]
Some things Sophie Ellis-Baxter can't do without: the three-minute song, disco strings, pop glitter, and men that play hard-to-get. This standout track from her third solo album is more of the same from a UK pop factory that produces pop hooks most Americans adore only when in the mouths of teenage babes or Gwen Stefani. Radio programmers, please note: Pure sugar like this will go a long way toward making the usual Top 40 placebos easier to swallow. --David Raposa
__86: Rekid
"Next Stop Chicago"
[REKIDS]
____MP3:__Rekid: "Next Stop Chicago"
Rekid (aka Matt Edwards, better known as Radio Slave) offers an unusual tribute to Chicago house, pairing a skipping rhythm with gloopy acoustic guitar samples and the eerie flutes of English folk music. Its emphasis on tension, though, is pure Radio Slave. Focusing on hissing hi-hats and ragged guitars, Edwards effects a moon-stomping glide that's rare for house music; even his vocal samples-- soulful and tortured refrains which begin "I feel like" and quickly spin into a guttural blur-- seem to point away from the body and toward a realm untethered by gravity. --Philip Sherburne
85: BARR
"The Song Is the Single"
[5RC]
Not to backhand singer/performance artist Brendan Fowler, but this track's not merely "the single," it's a justification for BARR's catalog of occasionally irritating, always puzzling music. Making Eddie Argos sound like Paul McCartney, Fowler's spoken-word has little regard for conventional verse/chorus structures, but "The Song"'s all the better for it. I thought Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" was confusing, but Fowler's instructional description of single-making begs for Cliff's Notes. Fortunately, you're rewarded with each listen, deciphering additional lines until you finally understand the lyrics-- or at least the words themselves. --Adam Moerder
84: 50 Cent
"I Get Money"
[Shady / Aftermath]
When you're a world-conquering chart-rap dictator, your biggest challenge is keeping your audience rooting for you. On 16 of the 17 tracks on Curtis, 50 Cent failed miserably, ineptly swinging between risible gloats and club-rap panders. But "I Get Money", a dizzy explosion of swaggering fuckface bravado, went a long way toward redeeming its maker. Audio Two's 1988 minimal-rap classic "Top Billin'" gets transformed into a couple of impeccably timed snare-hits and a stuttering, addictive refrain: "I get money, money I got," repeated ad infinitum while a truckasaurus-roar of a bassline smashes its tiny pieces into even tinier pieces. Over a monster track like this, 50 returns to the charming supervillain we first fell in love with: playground-taunting his baby's mother, threatening to make your whole clique breakdance via automatic weaponry, and swiping Naughty by Nature's deathless hey-hos. Just nasty. --Tom Breihan
83: Sonic Youth
"I'm Not There"
[Sony BMG]
At first glance, Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes gem "I'm Not There" seems an odd match for Sonic Youth, or for most anybody else-- the original is too inscrutable, too private to reward cover versions. Yet there's something about the song's otherworldly, trance-like cadence that fits surprisingly well into SY's wheelhouse, and Thurston Moore seizes the occasion to deliver a remarkably understated and affecting vocal performance. Displaying uncommon restraint, Sonic Youth use their submerged electricity not so much to flesh out the song as to simply illuminate its winding, dusky corridors, adding their own signature while keeping the original's abiding senses of loss and mystery intact. --Matthew Murphy
82: Tinariwen
"Matadjem Yinmixan"
[Independiente]
The title of Tinawiren's "Matadjem Yimmixan" translates roughly to "Why can't we all get along?" Indeed, the song plays out like a chant of affirmation, a call-and-response from these Tuareg desert tribesmen looking to one another for support in a world pushing them and their ancient traditions to the margins. That they do it with the hypnotic backing of sinewy electric guitars, however, demonstrates that coexistence between old and new isn't as hard as it seems. In fact, coming from these Mali music masters, the union can be downright celebratory. --Joshua Klein
81: Modest Mouse
"Dashboard"
[Epic]
There's an awful lot going on in Modest Mouse's "Dashboard"-- swooning strings, horns, chicken-scratch guitar strums, propulsive drums, even Isaac Brock's affected yelp. It's easy to get lost in all that, until you step back and realize that "Dashboard" is just about perfectly arranged to maximize these myriad elements into a cohesive whole, which hinges on one central lyrical motif: "The dashboard melted, but we still have the radio." It's a silver lining take on the get-the-hell-out-of-town themes that have driven many great car songs, including this one. --Joshua Klein
80: Grizzly Bear
"Little Brother (Electric)"
[Warp]
MP3: Grizzly Bear: "Little Brother (Electric)"
Where so much contemporary pop music hinges either on pithy chord changes or studio precision, Grizzly Bear prove that their songs are more malleable-- and more durable-- than most. Last year's "Little Brother" was a swirl of acoustic finger-picking, wheezy keyboards and sighing vocal harmonies; this version foregrounds clipped, ever-so-slightly distorted electric guitars swimming in reverb and darkened by rushing snare rolls. Contradictions abound: The lead vocals sound more grounded, and the harmonies more unearthly, than before; this version is five seconds longer than last year's, yet seems to slip past in half the time. If anything, plugging in has given the band a broader dynamic range, as it ushers the song from its meticulous intro to a blustery climax without ever seeming to break a sweat. --Philip Sherburne
79: Magik Markers
"Taste"
[Ecstatic Peace!]
The idea of noise-makers Magik Markers showing up on any kind of top-tracks list would have seemed beyond absurd only a year ago. But BOSS defied a lot of expectations regarding this versatile duo, starting with the presence of an actual single : the swaying, hypnotic "Taste". Elisa Ambrogio's poetic wordplay and seductive cadences evoke Patti Smith, but her guitar fuzz and Pete Nolan's country-rock stomp make "Taste" like an outtake from Neil Young's underrated Greendale. "I cannot take your want/ And make it a need" croons Ambrogio, nailing the attraction of this powerfully simple tune. --Marc Masters
78: Amy Winehouse
"Tears Dry on Their Own"
[Island]
Her husband's in jail, she's started hanging out with Pete Doherty, and she can't seem to make it through a live performance without wiping her nose-- but, as Back to Black's centerpiece ballad attests, it's Amy Winehouse's trainwreck and she'll cry if she wants to. The understated melancholy of "Tears Dry on Their Own" contrasts sharply with the image of brazen barfly we see plastered in the tabloids: A post-break-up, I-will-survive affirmation, but one punctuated with a reluctant shrug of the shoulders rather than a proud fist-pump to the chest. And if the song's writing predates her marital strife, surely this is the tune Winehouse hums to herself when the guards at Pentonville Prison inform her that visiting hours are over. --Stuart Berman
77: The National
"Mistaken for Strangers"
[Beggars Banquet]
Welcome to the working week. For Matt Berninger, being in a band was an escape from the 9-to-5 grind. Even though he's gone from full-time to contract-based graphic design work, Berninger still mines those days for the antsy anthems on the National's third album, Boxer, plumbing fears of white-collar assimilation. On the jostling "Mistaken for Strangers", he sings the chorus-- "You're mistaken for strangers by your own friends"-- not as a putdown, but as an embodiment of corporate existential crisis. Powered by Bryan Devendorf's tension-ratcheting drums and Padma Newsome's mournful horn arrangements, the song portrays a go-getter "showered and blue-blazered" and lit dramatically by the "silvery silvery Citibank light." The Dessner twins' guitars lend his paranoia a kind of dignity, even as he's worried that work will make him a void. Berninger's pessimism, however, is more mundane than that, and therefore more ominous: This is just "another uninnocent, elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults." --Stephen M. Deusner
76: Klaxons
"Golden Skans"
[Polydor]
Now that they've gently cotton-swabbed the last remnants of those siren attacks out of their long-suffering eardrums, it seems like the right time to ask: Did new rave really do Klaxons any favors? Sure, it bestowed them the quasi-honor of heading up a temporary movement-- a rite of passage for any aspirational British band-- but it also meant that a lot of listeners already engaged in a more meaningful intermingling of indie and electronic musics kept a precautionary, hype-safe distance. It's too bad, because tenuous dance links aside, Klaxons are actually a great band, and "Golden Skans", with its drippy harmonies and serpentine chorus, was among the best rock singles released all year. --Mark Pytlik
75: Escort
"All Through the Night"
[Escort]
"Giveittomesayittomeworkitwithmeifyou'rereadyI'mabouttoPOP": It takes approximately two seconds-- maybe two-and-a-half-- for Zena Kitt and Toy to belt out that sexual call-to-arms, and that efficient, libido-driven liveliness carries over to "All Through the Night"-- one of the best New York disco tracks since West End Records' early 1980s heyday. On first impressions, the song sounds like disco-funk revivalism as fantasy-band speculation-- what if the Revolution and Chic joined forces?-- but further listens reveal the way every instrument and vocal hook seems to be a snappy, rhythm-locked retort to something else happening in the track, giving it a hyperactive precision. Even the song's climax (in both senses of the word) sounds meticulous. --Nate Patrin
74: Black Lips
"Katrina"
[Vice]
"Katrina" posits the Black Lips as either the most politically engaged garage-rock band in the U.S., or the most wantonly oblivious one. It's a two-chord rhumba that seems to directly reference the most catastrophic natural disaster in recent American history. But then, given the song's faithful adherence to Nuggets' snot-punk tradition (right down to the staccato guitar breaks swiped from Them's "Gloria"), it could just as easily be about some crazy chick who's done singer Jared Swilley wrong. Doesn't really matter: Even if the song isn't about a hurricane, it rocks you like one. --Stuart Berman
73: The Twilight Sad
"Cold Days From the Birdhouse"
[FatCat]
A romantic but realistic examination of growing pains and teenage indiscretions, "Cold Days From the Birdhouse" is also an exercise in restraint. Its tension is teased from a bed of slide guitar, gauzy feedback, and a repetitive piano note that replaces the rhythm section. Yearning and imploring, frontman James Graham mourns phone calls, hotel rooms, romantic gestures, and ruined plans. His band responds: The drums and bass explode, battering an accordion's drone and a guitar's din. Graham-- conjuring all of the salt of his Scottish sneer-- responds with an interrogation: "So where are your manners?" --Grayson Currin
72: Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
"La Costa Brava"
[Touch & Go]
On paper, the lyrics read like yacht rock, giving Ted Leo a chance to show off his Spanish pronunciation while giving directions to a Mediterranean hideaway. But in the midst of chewing over politics on every song off his latest album, Leo saved his sweetest melody for a six-minute oasis. "Everyone needs a Sunday some days," he says, and its fantasy becomes all the more bittersweet and poignant because, even in this song, he still reveals how desperate things have become. With a tune like this, we'd have granted him a little respite from the firebrand-ism, but as usual, he had to go and be clever and thoughtful about it. --Jason Crock
71: The Shins
"Turn on Me"
[Sub Pop]
Around 1990, indie pop listeners dreamt about their sound taking over the world, and the Shins' commercial triumph feels a bit like aesthetic vindication. The highlight of Sub Pop's first #2 album isn't fundamentally different from what, say, Pam Berry's old band Black Tambourine were up to: A killer kiss-off from the perspective of the kiss-ee, with a guitar hook descended from "Then He Kissed Me" by way of the Magnetic Fields. Anita Robinson from Viva Voce chimes in on the cute-as-Chickfactor "fond of Y-O-U" bit, and the guitar break could have shown up on a DIY 7". --Douglas Wolk
70: Cassie
"Is It You?"
[NextSelection Lifestyle Group]
Caught in the tug of war between production, performance, and persona, what happens to the humbly great r&b song? At first glance, "Is It You" is ignorable, devoid of any distinctive qualities: Cassie's singing is sweet and understated, the emotive guitar-dominated arrangement is pleasant more than startling, and the song's tangle of hope and uncertainty is instantly familiar. But it's precisely this which makes "Is It You" such a tantalizing proposition: With every possible obstruction to pop transcendence gently moulded away, we're left only a gleaming paean to the first flush of romance and it's all the more affecting for its modest universality. --Tim Finney
69: Roísín Murphy
"Overpowered"
[EMI]
Surprisingly picked up by EMI after her beautifully kooky Herbert collaboration Ruby Blue tanked, ex-Moloko maverick Roísín Murphy returned in 2007 with renewed pop ambition and a single-minded dedication to the dancefloors of the early 1980s. Lead single "Overpowered" pitches her somewhere between the sci-fi Italo of La Bionda's "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and the premier disco of Evelyn King, while Murphy headily ponders the metaphysics of romance in a chemically determined world. Arty and smartly seductive, "Overpowered" is a sublime reminder of the glory days of New Pop. --Stephen Troussé
68: Black Kids
"I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You"
[self-released]
There's something weirdly out of time about this song. It was on a self-released EP this year, but I could swear I heard it playing over the credits of some 1980s John Hughes film. But then when I picture the scene where the song's story takes place, I'm seeing a high school gym with streamers out of a sock-hop. The phrase "he's got two left feet…" is pure Arthur Murray, but "…and he bites my moves" suggests the kids in question grew up in the post-hip-hop era. The references, like the kinda sloppy playing (hey, it's a demo), are all over the place. But there's a thread throughout, and it's an eternal pop aspiration: to transform insecurity into a joyous, world-conquering sing-along. --Mark Richardson
67: Devin the Dude [ft. Andre 3000 and Snoop Dogg]
"What a Job"
[Rap-A-Lot]
There's a pre-dawn haziness as Snoop, Devin, and Andre 3000 paint a weary, blurry portrait of the rap life. This is, after all, a song about job dedication from two of hip-hop's biggest stoners and an MC who's repeatedly expressed an ambivalence about the genre. Devin compares the game to a "pigeon coop," while Snoop is more upbeat as he promises to "keep spittin' the truth on these fools like a reverend." But really, this is Andre's song, and he's funny, poignant, and sweet as he takes aim at downloaders, threatening to "come to your job, take your corn on the cob," and recalls meeting a couple who grew up on his music. --Sam Chennault
66: King Khan & the Shrines
"Welfare Bread"
[Hazelwood]
MP3:King Khan & the Shrines: "Welfare Bread"
Some in the throwback set mine garage rock's steady stomp, while others run their ideas through dusty speakers to seek authenticity. From their proto-psych forebears, King Khan & the Shrines lift everything but the squeal; that, Khan's got on his own. The results are assuredly righteous, and "Welfare Bread", from What Is!?, is their best meetup of sound and song. The one about love on the skids is familiar to anyone who's heard "Livin' on a Prayer" (so, anyone), but Khan's growl and choice "ooh-la-las" push it into the red. --Paul Thompson
65: DJ Khaled [ft. T.I., Akon, Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman & Lil Wayne]
"We Takin' Over"
[Koch]
Though hip-hop uniter DJ Khaled probably fielded hundreds of calls, texts, and emails in order to make this song possible, he's not its star. Neither is Akon, who gives "We Takin' Over" its Nature's Vocoder luster. It's not Rick Ross, Fat Joe, or Birdman-- though all three inconsistent MCs graciously turn on the after-burners here. Anchorman Lil Wayne slays with his best guest spot of the year... but even he takes a backseat to Timbaland protege Danjahandz's mars-attacks instrumental. While it's tempting to dub the beat "hip-hop's future," it's doubtful anyone will be able to replicate such sci-fi giddiness anytime soon. --Ryan Dombal
64: No Age
"Neck Escaper"
[FatCat]
No Age's brilliant Weirdo Rippers hits lots of different targets, but most of them are pretty hectic. The wistful "Neck Escaper" is an exception: Calm and subdued, it's like an oasis inside a hailstorm. Randy Randall's sprinkling guitar and Dean Spunt's primitive drumming drift through the first half of the song dreamily. When Spunt's dejected vocals slide in-- "All the shit piled up/ Smells like someone died"-- Randall's guitar raves up into a chorus, shocking the track to life. Then suddenly, this brief gem is over, and begging to be replayed. --Marc Masters
63: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
"I'm Not Gonna Cry"
[Daptone]
Georgia-born soul singer Sharon Jones has the kind of voice that's so boundless, so easy and ecstatic, it makes singing sound like the most fun thing anyone could ever think of doing. Curiously omitted from 2007's 100 Days, 100 Nights and released instead as a 7" single, "I'm Not Gonna Cry" features the expert skronk of Daptone Records' beloved house band, the Dap-Kings (who plenty will recognize from Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, where they provided similar support), but it's Jones' vocals that shine brightest. When she declares that she's done-- "Ooh, I'm not gonna cry/ Tears not gonna fall from my eyes," she bays, unflinching and proud-- there's no uncertainty in her tone, making "I'm Not Gonna Cry" the year's most graceful exit. --Amanda Petrusich
62: Cool Kids
"I Rock"
[Chocolate Industries]
Less bragging than putting the stats on the back of the baseball card, Cool Kids' "I Rock" said in shorthand what their group name said outright. Cool Kid Mikey Rocks rocks, likes bikes, good grammar, Vans, and minimal beats that knock. Chicago's humble brethren to their scene's first couple, Kid Sister and A-Trak, played retro in photo shoots but disowned the gimmick: "Sayonara to afros and old flows." Of course, the only thing more tongue-in-cheek than that line was the next: "The concept of rocking shows is so old." Didn't stop 'em though, did it? --Zach Baron
61: !!!
"Heart of Hearts"
[Warp]
Compared to the more academic investigations of leftfield disco, krautrock, and trance that color their back catalog, "Heart of Hearts" finds !!! getting literally and figuratively out of their minds. This communally spirited dancefloor heater maps the excellent sound design of their more cerebral experiments onto a visceral steamroller of centrist disco-funk. Skittering slivers of guitar, strutting bass, and sparking livewire synths tap out a Morse code exhortation to shake something, while Nic Offer's scat-like vocal and the splashy percussion lock together like herringbone. The closest "Heart of Hearts" gets to a momentum-derailing tangent is the false ending, which only accentuates the song's propulsion. --Brian Howe
60: The White Stripes
"Rag and Bone"
[XL]
The White Stripes' first foray into sustained, mid-song sketch comedy ("Meg, look at this place! It's like a mansion! Look at all this stuff!"), "Rag & Bone" is a goofy homage to talking-blues, featuring faux-casual lyrics about pawing through other people's things. The White Stripes can occasionally seem distressingly self-serious, and "Rag & Bone" is a delightfully inane antidote, four minutes of quasi-threatening bandit talk and head-banging electric guitar. If you've ever coveted your neighbor's entertainment center, or considered crawling through someone's window to snatch their shit, "Rag & Bone" should make for a perfect post-heist anthem. --Amanda Petrusich
59: Lil Wayne
"Upgrade U"
[Young Money Entertainment]
Weezy F. Baby exhibits a gleeful intensity as he absolutely murders Beyonce's 2006 hit, "Upgrade U." His flow lunges, pivots, and leaps off the beat as he pays tribute to Apollo Creed, smokes "weed by tha acre," and spits "like a retard." "I'm so motherfuckin' high I could eat a star," he concludes at the end of the first verse, and his performance here is a sugar rush. Sure, the NOLA stunna is basically emptying his rhyme cache here, but damn if this isn't both funny and amazing. --Sam Chennault
58: Shellac
"The End of Radio"
[Touch & Go]
Their 15-year career has given Shellac time to hone rage into a fine instrument, and "The End of Radio" hits a nerve somewhere between desperation and disdain. It continues in Shellac's tradition of stunning, challenging album openers that offer more questions than answers: How did this narrator become the last DJ standing? Why does he go on for eight minutes? Why are the vocals so low in the mix? As usual, when the guitars kick in with teeth-rattling chords that slither up the fretboard, you know the time for pondering those thoughts is over. --Jason Crock
57: Electrelane
"To the East"
[Too Pure]
MP3:"To the East"
This changeling, now-on-hiatus quartet appeared in early 2007 with No Shouts, No Calls, a breathtaking raincloud of rock. Like much of the album, "To the East"-- its most timid, yet adventurous track-- contains a blood-pumping bassline and glittering guitar, but from that fairly ordinary start, the song charges up and out of the room, brought to a boil by a persistent kickdrum and a masterful vocal duet. The accent-less, consonant-less cords of Verity Sussman are in complete opposition to the percussive qualities of the instruments, which makes for one gorgeous and memorable duel of instrument versus voice. --Liz Colville
56: Aesop Rock
"None Shall Pass"
[Definitive Jux]
MP3: Aesop Rock: "None Shall Pass"
Cate Blanchett's Jude Quin may have been 2007's most effective channeling of 1965/66 Bob Dylan, but Aesop Rock's "None Shall Pass"-- the most appealing single yet from the verbose Def Juxer-- hits the same judgmental notes as "Positively 4th Street" and "Like a Rolling Stone". Attempts to decipher or decode Aesop's lyrics are often futile, but here, Biblical retribution is called for as he aims his vengeance at those who preach one thing and practice another. This includes those who "flash that buttery gold" as well as "comply and conform, miles outside of the eye of the storm." It's nothing Aesop hasn't tried dozens of times before, but "None Shall Pass" is a step above: He lithely and calmly navigates Blockhead's beat-the-clock track, the virtuosity of his delivery making the song undeniable. –Eric Harvey
55: Studio
"No Comply"
[Information]
If Jens Lekman, Air France, and the Tough Alliance were concocting anthems for sunshine-soaked shorelines this year, then fellow Swedes Studio were cooking up a little something for the beach at night. Imagine it: a row of lanterns strung up on a line between Tiki huts and moving in time with "No Comply"'s elastic beat, clouds parting to let moonlight glisten upon crests of waves just as those cascading synth sparkles set in, and these guys inviting us "to fall in love" and providing an ideal aural setting for amorous overtures. –Matthew Solarski
54: Joanna Newsom
"Colleen"
[Drag City]
The sole new song on the Joanna Newsom & the Ys Street Band EP, "Colleen" is, on the surface, one of the iconoclastic singer's more straightforward yarns, owing a larger-than-usual debt to traditional British folk structures. With a brilliant unspooling melody-- its chorus punctuated by a classic high-pitched Newsom yelp-- and a typically extravagant word count, "Colleen" sets a tale of a young woman who has seemingly forgotten that she was once a whale. Though this intricate fish-out-of-water narrative remains open to interpretation, at heart it addresses the need to remain true to one's own nature-- something that has thankfully never been a issue for Newsom as musician or composer. --Matthew Murphy
53: Bat for Lashes
"What's a Girl to Do?"
[Parlophone]
Falling out of love has rarely sounded this frightening. "What's a Girl to Do" perverts the "Be My Baby" drum beat into a fluid but dreary stomp by juxtaposing it with a bone-chilling, gothic keyboard. Singer Natasha Khan switches between coolly detached melodicism and Black Box Recorder-like spoken passages where she dryly discusses her lover's shattered promises. Throw in a kick-ass video featuring Khan riding a bike at night with a synchronized entourage of guys in freaky animal masks, and you've got some seriously spooked-out pining going on. --Joe Tangari
52: The Clientele
"Bookshop Casanova"
[Merge]
MP3: The Clientele: "Bookshop Casanova"
The Clientele emerge from the haze of suburban light into the fluorescent glare of retail lighting, dressing up a dance groove in a cardigan and thick black frames. Turns out the band's reverb-heavy production and breathy vocals sound pretty damn great next to a choppy guitar part and a speedy tempo. Alasdair MacLean sets up an odd tension with the lines, "I come undone/ Let's be lovers," suggesting a battle between inner jitters and outward confidence. The fuzz guitar solo and elegant string arrangement display no such uncertainty, racing into your ears with energetic grace. –Joe Tangari
51: Kanye West [ft. T-Pain] "Good Life"
[Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam]
Because a grouchy neighbor was forced to knock on my door after I let this song repeat seven too many times the morning it leaked. Because when Kanye performed it while gliding through a swanky hotel suite on the VMAs, I felt a pang of stupidly irrational "wish I was there" regret. Because it features two of my favorite goofball/genius pop personalities living up to their hitmaker status. Because the most rap-along-able line happens to promote a healthy diet. And because of the complex irony that goes along with Kanye's rejiggered "In Da Club" swipe: "Fifty told me, 'Go 'head, switch your style up, and if they hate let 'em hate and watch the money pile up.'" He's good, you're good, we're good. --Ryan Dombal
50: Dude 'N Nem
"Watch My Feet"
[TVT]
The most unashamedly functional subgenre of rap's recent mutations, Chicago's "juke house" bypasses the brain to appeal directly to the body-- the trick is in how the slow grind of the verses gives way to manic, house-like choruses of bouncing 4x4 beats and chanted invocations. If you don't get it, Dude 'N Nem are here to help: "Don't watch me…watch my feet!" they command over and over again on this song's mindlessly brilliant hyperspeed chorus, knowing that this music is less about lyrical insight and more about supportive in-soles. If you can't watch theirs, play "Watch My Feet" and watch your own. --Tim Finney
49: Yeasayer
"2080"
[We Are Free]
MP3: Yeasayer: "2080"
"2080", the indie hit from Yesayer's debut, All Hour Cymbals, closes with a choir of children joyfully singing. That the sound of these tots doesn't come across as exploitive, manipulative, or creepy is a testament to the song's alchemy of styles. As the band reclaim the past through Afropop polyrhythms, post-punk soundscapes, classic-rock chords, and indie-rock songwriting, Chris Keating, singing in a staccato learned from David Byrne but without the Head's detachment, fears the future but realizes it's only what we make it. The band blasts through two sung choruses before shouting about their progeny repopulating the earth, then hands the mics over to the younger generation. Reconciling pessimism with optimism is as impressive as juggling so many trendy styles without sounding merely like the Brooklyn band of the week. --Stephen M. Deusner
48: Liars
"Plaster Casts of Everything"
[Mute]
In retrospect, it's a no-brainer that the expectation-thwarting Liars would follow their esoteric run of recent years-- the muddy drones of They Were Wrong, So We Drowned and the cellophane planes of Drum's Not Dead -- with the only surprising move still available to them: A reconciliation of their primordial force with traditional songcraft. "Plaster Casts of Everything" reeks of black leather-- guitar thunderbolts and an emphatic rock percussion support Angus Andrew's careening falsetto. This is the sound of a visionary band's earthshaking landfall after a long voyage through thinner atmospheres. --Brian Howe
47: T2
"Heartbroken"
[All Around the World]
Bassline house can be seen as the latest flex in the "hardcore continuum," that coil of British street music winding back to rave. Or, with "Heartbroken" a fixture on the UK charts, you can see it as potential salvation for moribund British pop. Or you can take "Heartbroken" as a blissful one-off, with Jodie Aysha's raw, nervy vocals the ideal foil for T2's fudgy snakes of bass. How about all three: "Heartbroken" is the instant-appeal outrider for a strain of garage-derived dance music that might just bring underground and mainstream back into glorious alignment after a lost half-decade. 2008 should be massive. --Tom Ewing
46: Deerhunter
"Wash Off"
[Kranky]
Deerhunter entered 2007 as relatively untested art-punk provocateurs with a MySpace full of anti-testimonials by squares and Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans. After dozens upon dozens of gigs, including their first European headlining tour, the Atlanta noise-rockers end the year a polished, pummeling live band-- with a Technorati listing full of still more ridiculous anti-testimonials by hipsters and bloggers. So not everybody has the stomach for lanky dudes in dresses, ambien(t) drones, or impulsive stage antics, but the Fluorescent Grey EP's "Wash Off" is exactly what those deterred by Deerhunter's larger-than-life image are missing out on: Expert New Zealand-informed indie rock with the year's best monotone bassline and a cascade of echoey, head-banging speed-psych climaxes. How totally perverse. --Marc Hogan
45: The Honeydrips
"Fall From a Height"
[Sincerely Yours]
MP3: The Honeydrips: "Fall From a Height"
Life would be so much easier if we could put our personal miseries in perspective to the eventual collapse of the universe. Unfortunately, Mikael Carlsson, like all of us, can't rationalize his pathos so cleanly, though "Fall From a Height" serves as a beautiful homage to existentialism-- Scandinavia's version of baseball and apple pie. Carlsson doesn't even pretend his sad-sack bit's novel (hence the Annie Hall and Rebel Without a Cause soundbites), but the song's chilly melody ranks among the year's catchiest, made even more memorable by the Field's tender remix. --Adam Moerder
44: Pantha du Prince
"Saturn Strobe"
[Dial]
Hamburg's Dial label has its formula down pat: unfussy house beats + atmospheric bluster + bell tones galore = a goth-tinged approach to dance music that values cool detachment as much as hot sweat. Pantha du Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) assumed the mantle of Dark Lord of Dial with his moody, opalescent album This Bliss, and "Saturn Strobe" is the record's most serious moment, thanks largely to a melody borrowed from Howard Skempton's 1990 composition Lento, an Arvo Pärt-like meditation for strings. Weber injects the passage with muscular drums, walking sub-bass, and bells that bristle with uncontrollable overtones, turning lento to allegro without sacrificing a lick of gravitas. --Philip Sherburne
43: Deerhoof
"The Perfect Me"
[Kill Rock Stars]
At some point in the past five years, Deerhoof perfected their hold on a sound that at times seems almost too good to be true. "The Perfect Me" is music for both video games and crushes. Power chords that don't ever play typical power chord progressions, Greg Saunier going apeshit on cowbell, pristine and soaring melodies sung over cathedral organ-- this is superhero music, but instead of lame tights and boots, the heros wear paper masks that jut out around the ears so they can hide miniature daggers. "Dude, that sounds like progressive rock." And in under three minutes, no less! --Dominique Leone
42: Spoon
"Black Like Me"
[Merge]
The piano keeps stumbling, Britt Daniel's vocals tail into shivers or shrugs, and when the song reaches its pleading, open-armed peak it suddenly just... stops. It's a study in incompleteness, driven by faith in the possibility of connection. Emotionally, "Black Like Me" is heartland indie rock territory, and Spoon know the tiny details that make songs bleed you a little. So there should be a micro-second pause between Daniel's "Tell me what you know you want" and the final backing "Oh Yeah." But there's not. The weird kids rush heartbreakingly in, too early, too eager, too lonely to wait. --Tom Ewing
41: Los Campesinos!
"You! Me! Dancing!"
[Arts & Crafts / Wichita]
Nobody expects a septet of Pavement-obsessed collegians in Cardiff, Wales, to strip 21st century indie pop down to its most exhilarating fundamentals. Even as a MySpace-only demo, "You! Me! Dancing!" did just that-- and not only in its exclamatory title. Spruced up by Broken Social Scene producer Dave Newfeld for the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP, the song's entire six-plus minutes now shine even more brightly with youthful enthusiasm-- from its gold-sounding slowpoke intro to its scuzzy riffs, infectious boy/girl shouts, violin- and glockenspiel-splashed choruses, and whimsically narrated coda. Art Brut's little brother just discovered K Records. --Marc Hogan
40: Beirut
"Elephant Gun"
[Ba Da Bing!]
Cynical types read some of Gulag Orkestar's bleary Balkanisms as yet another impetuous youngster reaching back a bit beyond his years, a position aided by lyrics that occasionally (even by songwriter Zach Condon's admission) read as postscripts. The same can't be said for "Elephant Gun", Beirut's big show-and-prove moment from the Lon Gisland EP. It's among Condon's best-realized tunes to date, from the delicately strummed intro to the lilting horn line at its core to its moonstruck accordion fadeout. And his words-- unadorned as always-- are especially striking, touching on stagnation, senescence, and, yes, the seasons, again and again. Not bad for a kid. --Paul Thompson
39: Sally Shapiro
"He Keeps Me Alive"
[Paper Bag]
MP3: Sally Shapiro: "He Keeps Me Alive"
Did anyone sound as tenderhearted this year as Sally Shapiro, the Swede with the sad voice, pseudonymous standoffishness, and durable debut album? Shapiro made her shyness seem like a virtue, but "He Keeps Me Alive" gave us the illusion that we knew her. Written by producer Johan Agebjörn, the song describes another devastating romantic dilemma: Shapiro loves a man who keeps her at a friendly distance. "And I try and I try and I try to be satisfied/ Cause after all he keeps me alive." Granted, he's leading her on, holding her hand even as he tells her it goes no further. As she tries to keep her head up, Agebjörn mirrors her optimism in the rubbery beats and glassy synths of his Italo-disco accompaniment, making her heartache all the more acute by rendering it danceable. --Stephen M. Deusner
38: Matthew Dear
"Deserter"
[Ghostly International]
After the crescendoing adulthood ennui of LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", this is the come-down sequel. "My friends have come and gone," sings Matthew Dear, shapeshifting into a sad-eyed robot. Like his brother in ambiguous-yet-affecting letdown, this electro-pop star looks back at his roaring twenties with a tough single tear: "Everything that you've done, nothing seems to be what it's worth." But "Deserter" isn't a barren wasteland of unfulfilled hopes; it's a motivational screed beamed straight into the mirror: "Just keep on searchin'/ Don't be uncertain/ Your life will only be just what you want it for." --Ryan Dombal
37: Blonde Redhead
"23"
[4AD]
With 23, Blonde Redhead made an album that strove for a huge sound instead of repeating the insularity of Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons or the creaky antiquity of Misery Is a Butterfly. The title track establishes a new sonic standard for the trio, who worked with producer Alan Moulder to achieve a sense of dream-pop sophistication through dense, polished atmospherics. Reflecting Moulder's previous work with Curve, Ride, and the Jesus and Mary Chain, "23" is a sleek bullet train hurtling toward an unknown destination, but carrying plenty of emotional baggage along for the trip. Kazu Mikino's pained, glassy delivery expresses a feeling of grief, and her words only offer a slight glimpse toward her true sentiment: "He was a friend of mine/ He was a son of God/ He was a son of a gun." --Eric Harvey
36: Okkervil River
"Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe"
[Jagjaguwar]
MP3: Okkervil River: Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe"
The lyrics are a bummer, all about how the real world can never live up to the drama of the silver screen. ("It's just a life story, so there's no climax.") But the music! It's a wild, barreling celebration of the pleasures of rocking the fuck out, shouting in the wind, and breaking down into random noise just for the hell of it. Will Sheff strongarms these two opposing forces into working together for the greater good of laughing in the face of disappointment. Because he knows that even if life can't deliver the satisfaction of the cinema, sometimes a song can. --Amy Phillips
35: Dirty Projectors
"Rise Above"
[Dead Oceans]
Brooklyn's Dirty Projectors (vision of Brooklynite David Longstreth) cemented beautifully this year with the help of Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman's honeysuckle backup vocals. "Rise Above", the joyful closing title track from an album of (extremely) loose interpretations of Black Flag's Damaged LP, finds the two commanding bass and guitar, exchanging ornate, chatty dialogue with their bandleader. But what their distinctive sound obscures is the striking universality of Greg Ginn's underdog lyrics: "Society's arms think they're smart/ I find satisfaction in what they're lacking 'cause/ We are born with a chance/ And I'm gonna have my chance," aches Longstreth, who could be addressing the U.S. government, authority figures interfering with early hardcore shows, or detractors who "just can't get past that voice." --Liz Colville
34: The Tough Alliance
"Silly Crimes"
[Sincerely Yours / Summer Lovers Unlimited]
MP3:The Tough Alliance "Silly Crimes"
"Thankfully they stayed as naïve as they were cynical about it all," read the liner notes to the Embassy's Futile Crimes, the first album ever released on Swedish label Service. "Or maybe it's the other stupid way around." These words apply just as well to the Tough Alliance, whose "Silly Crimes" came soon after ditching Service for their own Sincerely Yours imprint. Their syncopated beats face those of the Kitsuné or Ed Banger labels, but pigeon noises, self-reflective verses, and an innocent, synth-gleaming chorus point toward a pop ideal that transcends what TTA would call "the spectacle." Cynical? Naïve? Hey, it's the sound of two people doing whatever the fuck they want-- as silly and delinquent as pop itself, but hardly futile. --Marc Hogan
33: Dinosaur Jr.
"Almost Ready"
[Fat Possum]
Dinosaur Jr. made coming back after years away look almost too easy. J Mascis' creak sounded like a millon-year-old man from the beginning anyway, and he'd always insisted the songs were just country music turned up to 11. His lyrics almost baited the cynical: "I've been wondering if the message sent, wondering if I made a dent..." Even the most fervent believers had to ask if it was more than nostalgia, but contrary to the often fickle expectations of indie rock audiences, some formulas cannot be broken or grow tired. "Almost Ready" is loud and buoyant enough to fit on any of the band's records, and would be a standout track besides. --Jason Crock
32: R. Kelly [ft. T.I. and T-Pain] "I'm a Flirt (remix)"
[Jive]
R. Kelly's more-jokes-than-hooks strategy on his Double Up LP was great for water-cooler laffs, but something like "Sex Planet" is about as empty-calorie obvious as an "SNL" "Trapped in the Closet" parody. The problem might have something to do with "I'm a Flirt", an unfairly stacked auto-smash that packs in more ear-biting bits than a Girl Talk mix. "Now I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth/ When it comes to those I be pimpin' like I supposed to," Kels proclaims, at once flipping-off the U.S. Department of Justice and chalking-up his immaculate flirtatiousness to a simple matter of divine right. --Ryan Dombal
31: Cortney Tidwell
"Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan's Objects in Space Remix)"
[Ever]
The Ewan in question is British (though currently based in Berlin) producer/DJ Ewan Pearson, whose work for Goldfrapp, the Rapture, and Franz Ferdinand (among many others) have made him one of the most in-demand remixers going. And for good reason: As "Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up" demonstrates, Pearson has a gift for extracting the most important elements in his source tracks, and orchestrating dense rivers of lush disco-house around them. Nashville indie-folk singer Tidwell's modest, pretty vocal is kept intact, but instead of her original plaintive guitar accompaniment, we get a crisp house kick and layers of fuzzy, mildly spaced-out Debussy chords with electro-glitter for flavor. In the hands of a lesser producer, this could have turned into formless mush. On the contrary, this is beautiful. --Dominique Leone
30: Dan Deacon
"Wham City"
[Carpark]
Dan Deacon listened to the happy hardcore of the 1990s and the cartoon jingles of his childhood, looked around at his racks of bastard electronics, and then set about concocting the most fanciful art-damage to come out of Baltimore since Animal Collective. "Wham City", a manifesto of sorts for Deacon's populist crew, is emblematic of his blending of infectious circuit-bent melodies and haywire musical architecture. His breathless lyrical cadence flits through a teetering tower of fragment-loop synth trills and sound effects, and with each subsequent listen, it becomes more amazing that Deacon's Tinkertoy funhouse doesn't collapse under its own weight. --Brian Howe
29: Arcade Fire
"Keep the Car Running"
[Merge]
On hand to capture Win Butler and Régine Chassagne's October duet with Bruce Springsteen were videographers Robert Brockie and Ryan Carey. Their widely circulated tape relayed the concert consensus at the surprise opening chords of the Arcade Fire's "Keep the Car Running": oh my god…What the fuck! Yeaaaahhh! That it was carpetbagging Canadians who ultimately lived America's #1 rock'n'roll fantasy camp was a tribute to their song, a jittery getaway soundtrack that imagined the Boss' good ol' boys gone post-millennial and paranoid. --Zach Baron
28: Dizzee Rascal
"Pussy'ole (Old Skool)"
[XL]
Appropriating a heavy-hitting sample usually looks better on paper than it winds up sounding (see: Wu-Tang vs. the Beatles). But just as Kanye West did to Curtis Mayfield's "Move on Up" a few years back, "Pussy'ole" finds Dizzee Rascal taking an iconic track (Rob Base and DJ EZ-Rock's "It Takes Two") and sharpening it, leaning not just on the euphoria and familiarity of the original but ratcheting up its pop pleasure with a galloping, insistent production and forceful rhymes. Sadly, not many people heard it-- or much from Rascal's Maths + English LP, which wasn't even released in U.S. shops. Were Rascal to have issued his three records to date in reverse order, he would likely be an indie superstar now-- moving from amped-up populism to the avant-garde. As it stands, an artist that a lot of our readers likely feel is overrated is now on a path to becoming underappreciated. --Scott Plagenhoef
27: Lil Mama
"Lip Gloss"
[Jive]
We're living in a golden age of schoolyard rap right now. Every week, it seems, a new, sublimely simple catchphrase/ringtone/dance rises up from the playground to conquer the Hot 100. But due to, um, scheduling conflicts, Soulja Boy, MIMS, Shop Boyz, Hurricane Chris, and their friends couldn't join us on Pitchfork's Top Tracks list today. (Hey, Dude 'N Nem made it! Hey guys!) Lil Mama deserved to claw her way near the top, though, with her rapid-fire bragging about a certain liquid cosmetic (and other things, if you're a Freudian) over the year's most astonishingly minimal beat. Time will tell if 17-year-old Niatia Kirkland is the next Lil Wayne or the next Skee-Lo, but for now, she's poppin', and that's all we need to know. --Amy Phillips
26: Jay-Z
"Roc Boys (And the Winner Is...)"
[Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam]
As vérité cinema, American Gangster was a wash-- inspired by The Godfather, Goodfellas et al., panning over the life of a hustler who was nominally Jay-Z when he wasn't Frank Lucas or Nicky Barnes, Erik Estrada or Robert DeNiro. Amidst the mash-up of a dozen life stories, "Roc Boys" struck the autobiographical note: "And the winner is Hov!" This "black superhero music" was the success the jaded and over-satiated Kingdom Come wasn't: Happy to be there, grateful to those who'd helped, and chiseled, down to the entendres-- "Thanks to all the hustlers and most importantly, You: the customer." --Zach Baron
25: Kanye West
"Can't Tell Me Nothing"
[Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam]
At first, it sounded like a weird capitulation, Kanye West giving up his ecstatic soul-samples for DJ Toomp's dark, heaving Southern synths and trying on Young Jeezy's sneering slow-flow. (None of which did much to redeem that one god-awful lyric about the devil wearing Prada and Adam and Eve wearing nada). But then the strut of that chorus sunk in, and the self-aware defiance and bitter regret of Kanye's self-reliance anthem took hold: "I feel depression, under more scrutiny/ And what I do? Act more stupidly." Jeezy's sampled ad-libs float through the track like a ghost, and the low, sampled moans slowly eased their way past Toomp's foghorn keyboards. Kanye's fully-on-display egotism doesn't make his confusion any less poignant; throughout, he seems to be struggling to say something that never quite comes to him. And that Prada/nada line? Funny thing about Kanye's lyrical clunkers is that they eventually become endearing. --Tom Breihan
24: Gui Boratto
"Beautiful Life"
[Kompakt]
This nine-minute workout by Brazil's Gui Boratto might read cloyingly with a refrain that goes "What a beautiful life, what a beautiful world," but its churning chord progression squeezes out an essence more bittersweet than saccharine. The song's surface-- woven from pock-marked synths, radiant ride cymbals, and bright snares-- feels crusted in rough-cut diamonds. That there are only three chords in the whole thing somehow makes its sense of yearning that much more urgent. Masterfully repetitive, it's the little details-- close harmony vocals, high-necked New Order basslines-- that keep your heart breaking long after you'd thought it'd been sufficiently shattered. --Philip Sherburne
23: Simian Mobile Disco
"I Believe"
[Wichita]
In a year when acts like Justice and Klaxons raced to the first nosebleed, rockers-turned-DJs James Ford and James Anthony Shaw kept a relatively sober disposition. "I Believe" was the eye of 2007's electronic hurricane, its heartbeat rhythm untainted by stimulants, its earnest dancefloor romance all-natural. I can't even believe SMD have ever touched a guitar; usually stray riffs or fuzz effects haunt a rock-electro crossover, or at least tongue-in-cheek winks to mollify dance-phobic listeners. But here, the punk residue's wiped totally clean, and "I Believe" ends 2007 as a stunning highlight from the year's most successful post-op dance act. --Adam Moerder
22: Animal Collective
"Peacebone"
[Domino]
Animal Collective's music often skirts silliness, but "Peacebone" is almost pure goof. Opening with the cartoonish non-sequitir "Boneface!," the cut briefly sounds noisy and abstract. But once Geologist's electronic squiggles coalesce into melody, Avey Tare weaves a surreal nursery rhyme, his monster tale sounding like an alternate-universe theme to "Pee-Wee's Playhouse". The huge hook of the chorus and the weird ya-ya yelps of the bridge only add to the helium-injected giddiness. By the end the band hits a delirious peak, a final dollop of whipped cream on this irresistible, tooth-decaying sundae. --Marc Masters
21: M.I.A.
"Boyz"
[XL / Interscope]
An anti-patriarchy song that doubles as a flirt; a political song that doubles as a dancing-and-drinking song; yet another song where M.I.A. tries to mash up the entire Third World at once-- soca synths, Indian drumming, dancehall patois-- and pretty much succeeds. (There's a cheering crowd deep in the mix to vouch for her.) "Boyz" is stuffed with clever gestures, starting with the chorus' scuffed-CD skip, but the cleverest is hidden in the middle chant: It sounds like "how many how many boys are crazy?" Listen closer for the qualification: the war-starters are "no money boys." --Douglas Wolk
20: Radiohead
"All I Need"
[self-released]
It's not difficult to imagine "All I Need" as a snapshot of the same poor soul Radiohead sang about 14 years ago in "Creep": The kid who once felt it necessary to brashly proclaim his weirdness and inadequacies over bursts of feedback has internalized and sublimated all that awkwardness. Now, he proclaims his love through metaphors that are at best mildly pathetic, and does so in front of a musical backdrop that undercuts the song's melody with bursts of warm dissonance. The result is a haunting song that's more about the void one feels without love than the sensations of finding it. --David Raposa
19: The Field
"A Paw in My Face"
[Kompakt]
In April 2007, indie kids and crate-diggers collectively fainted during the final few seconds of "A Paw in My Face", when the elastic guitar sample they'd been geeking out on revealed itself to be Lionel Richie's "Hello". More than a pop-cultural jibe, the sample provides a distant heat source to Axel Willner's arctic trance, already warmed by a cardiac thump and hi-hats, as he sweeps polished-granite synth bricks across the ice like a curler. --Brian Howe
18: Chromatics
"In the City"
[Italians Do It Better]
"In the City" is one of a handful of recent Chromatics songs to evoke the feeling of gliding at 25 mph through an hours-past-midnight downtown club district as everyone quietly fades off the streets. The song's minimalist Italo-disco drone pulses through a fading-buzz haze, with synth arpeggios and a fidgety guitar riff pacing back and forth across a beat that seems slower than it really is. Ruth Radelet sings like she's murmuring in her sleep, gasping fragments of narrative-- "shining pistol," "shimmer diamonds," "concrete river"-- to make wistfully dreamlike noir-pop. --Nate Patrin
17: Burial
"Archangel"
[Hyperdub]
On "Archangel", the enigmatic London dubstep artist Burial works in his typical fashion to disguise the origins of his source material. Manipulated vocals are allowed to rise up through the gaslit scenery, their pitch-shifted voices removed of all history or identity. This effect-- when combined with Burial's eerie canned strings and flickering beats-- results in some of the most lonesome and deeply evocative music around. "Tell me I belong," an androgynous voice cries, and it's left to the listener to decide if this is the sound of one calling out to the angels for deliverance, or the displaced voice of the archangel itself, answering back through the shadows. --Matthew Murphy
16: Feist
"1 2 3 4"
[Cherrytree / Interscope]
If this song only brings to mind an unending onslaught of fine consumer products, then please step away from the television and give it a second chance. At the very least, try to appreciate the peculiar timbre of Leslie Feist's voice-- airy but substantial, expressive without resorting to over-emotive shows of force. Maybe take a moment to bask in the song's charmingly coy regret, and try to enjoy the moment when the band's restraint gives way to a euphoric torrent of strings and horns. Sure, it's a bit overplayed, but every so often a song's beaten into the ground because it totally deserves the exposure. --David Raposa
15: Jens Lekman
"A Postcard to Nina"
[Service / Secretly Canadian]
"A Postcard to Nina" belongs to that rarified pantheon of humorous pop songs that remain funny long after the sixth, seventh, eighth listen-- there's a seemingly endless supply of sweet, tender LOLs to be unraveled from this swooning little ditty. Its plotline (Jens must pose as lesbian Nina's boyfriend to please/deceive her father) is pure Woody Allen, its attention to detail that of a finely wrought literary short story. And by the lite-funk coda, we're swept away on a tide of horns and wood block towards a land of universal tolerance and acceptance. --Amy Phillips
14: Caribou
"Melody Day"
[Merge]
Dan Snaith's Manitoba/Caribou discography has thus far presented a linear journey through the past, starting with pre-millennial folktronica (2000's Stop Breaking My Heart) back through early 90s shoegazer (2003's Up in Flames), mid-70s krautrock (2005's The Milk of Human Kindness), and, with this year's Andorra, to 1966, when pop exploded from black-and-white into Technicolor. "Melody Day" places Snaith's androgynous vocal amid a snow-globe flurry of 60s signifiers-- glockenspiel cues, sleigh-bell shuffles, flute flourishes, songs named after girls who have the kind of names that only exist in songs-- before that glass-shattering chorus triggers one of Snaith's signature blitzkrieg drum breaks and transports us right back to the here and now. --Stuart Berman
13: Of Montreal
"The Past Is a Grotesque Animal"
[Polyvinyl]
MP3: Of Montreal: "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal"
A 12-minute meditation on regret with a disco beat? From these guys? Good thing Kevin Barnes and co. know what separates an idle jam from a damn great song, and they pepper Hissing Fauna's epic centerpiece with enough machinated guitar squalls, namechecks, and detours into the absurd to keep our eyebrows arched throughout. Best of all, this thing builds, and by the time Barnes incites us to "tear the fucking house apart!" we're right there with him, inches from flinging the headphones through the computer screen or careening the car into oncoming traffic. --Matthew Solarski
12: Spoon
"You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb"
[Merge]
Soul music has specialized in rendering unreconciled inner torture as celebratory, and "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" proves that Spoon can seamlessly combine that tradition with indie rock's tendency toward coy romanticism. On its surface, "Cherry Bomb" is a throbbing romp with Smokey Robinson tendencies toward lyrical wordplay. Digging a little deeper, we see Britt Daniel's own deeply conflicted heart on full display: Few contemporary singers could break up with a girl by saying "life could be so fair," and have those words not come across as empty. Spoon's sense of hollowness, as always, resides at a sonic level, allowing plenty of empty space for emotions to reverberate. Most impressively, during a year when '60s-influenced soul music forced its way back into the popular consciousness from all angles, Spoon may have just created the most appealing and enduring Motown cop of all. --Eric Harvey
11: Grinderman
"No Pussy Blues"
[Anti-]
MP3:Grinderman: "No Pussy Blues"
Ninety-nine percent of blues songs are about not getting pussy, but leave it to Nick Cave and a couple of his baddest Seeds to make blueballs sound like the second coming of the Black Plague. For all its sub-atomic Stooges squall-- first-time guitarist Cave doesn't so much play his instrument as get electrocuted by it-- "No Pussy Blues" is really a requiem for the lost art of romance: An admission that flowers, poetry, and serenades just don't cut it in a post-Paris world where the most coveted fashion accessory is "a revolting little Chihuahua." --Stuart Berman
10: Jay-Z [ft. Beanie Sigel]
"Ignorant Shit"
[Roc-A-Fella / Def Jam]
Some rappers turn outtakes into mixtape fodder; Hova turned one into an album highlight. "Ignorant Shit" showed up in its earliest form as a widely bootlegged circa-2003 Black Album castoff, and even then it was sick: Just Blaze's vintage electro-gloss made for a pristine banger and Jay is funny without being jokey, wrapping narrative around an unforcibly catchy cadence ("'That's him!' I'm usually what they whisper 'bout/ Either what chick he with, or his chip amount/ Cause I been doin' this since 'CHiPs' was out/ Watchin' Erik Estrada, baggin' up at the Ramada"). And the new Imus-baiting verse rocks well next to the sarcastic profanity of the radio-unfriendly hood-Carlin hook. --Nate Patrin
9: Animal Collective
"Fireworks"
[Domino]
It's a song about self-doubt, distance, and the desire to reclaim that sublime but fleeting moment when everything made sense. "That sacred night where we watched the fireworks" is the place to return to here, and the song paints a vivid picture: The scratchy rhythm pulse and ringing guitars bring to mind open sky; Avey Tare sings loud and clear, like he wants to make sure he's heard above the din; and then the melody, which sticks in my head like nothing the band has written, tumbles down like a still-glowing ember. Animal Collective made their name by bending familiar music-- rustic folk, Beach Boys harmony, swirly psych-rock-- into unfamiliar new shapes; with "Fireworks", they sound weary of abstraction. The goal here is simply to connect, and they succeed mightily. --Mark Richardson
8: Justice
"D.A.N.C.E."
[Ed Banger / Downtown / Vice]
Those who grabbed onto "D.A.N.C.E." in the early stages of its steady, interminable ascent from cutesy scenester anthem to ubiquitous Kanye-beloved pop jam are now likely to hear those children of the chorus as children of the corn-- it has stubbornly remained on dance music's radar for the bulk of the calendar year. Part of that is due to its almost comically long string of remixes; between Jackson, Jacques Lu Cont, Alan Braxe, Tittsworth, MSTRKRFT, and Justice themselves, everyone and their artfully mustachioed hangers-on had a go at improving on "D.A.N.C.E."'s many charms. Pretty much all of them failed, and no wonder: How do you improve on something that manages to sound about 18 months ahead while at the same time evoking the joy of vintage Jackson 5? --Mark Pytlik
7: LCD Soundsystem
"Someone Great"
[DFA / EMI]
Faced with the mortality of a relationship, James Murphy's artistic burden changed: After the fateful morning of "Someone Great", it no longer seemed enough to coolly dissect how sensations form scenes; it became time to consider the fragile emotions of the people within them. His voice, faced with a set of circumstances he avoided in the past, sheds its cool façade and betrays a boyish frailty in the face of sheer confusion. The glockenspiel chimes that accompany each word Murphy sings help pierce the bleary warble that hounds him, and suspends him within that frozen moment. As he re-situates himself using the only constants that remain-- coffee, the weather-- he triggers a fresh sense of self-awareness, resigning to the everyday responsibilities of adulthood, which seem liberating in this context. It's cold comfort, though; in Sound of Silver's next song, we learn that growing up, too, is a form of anxiety that keeps coming till the day it stops. --Eric Harvey
6: UGK [ft. Outkast]
"Int'l Players Anthem (I Choose You)"
[Jive]
On December 4, Pimp C, one half of UGK, was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room. With Pimp gone, we'll never get another song like this one, a summit meeting of three of Southern rap's greatest duos. Three 6 Mafia's deliriously gorgeous Willie Hutch loop swoops and dives, while Outkast and UGK trace a relationship from beginning to end. On his starry-eyed, arrhythmic verse, Andre 3000 sounds like a lovestruck kid, his loopy grin clearly audible. Andre's verse lends a humane warmth to the greasy pimp-talk that follows, but the song really achieves liftoff the instant he trails off, as both Paul and Juicy's atomic bass-rumble and Pimp C's derisive sneer hit the track. Things get more complicated when Bun B and Big Boi enter, one enthusing about prostitution prospects while the other dizzily recounting a rough divorce. But both rappers attack the track with such glee-- Bun's commanding baritone effortlessly playing off Big Boi's playful hiccup-- that the joy of the delivery overwhelms the squalor of the words. And that's "Int'l Players Anthem": a life-affirming blast of a song that's somehow become a dirge. --Tom Breihan
5: Rihanna [ft. Jay-Z]
"Umbrella"
[Def Jam]
Having been touted by Def Jam as reggae-pop princess, electro vamp, and apprentice Beyonce, who would have guessed that Rihanna would find her calling as the voice of defiant fidelity in a faithless world? The-Dream's early demo of "Umbrella” was supposedly passed on by both Mary J. Blige and Britney Spears, but it's hard to imagine how either could have improved on this world-conquering rendition. As a girl in Barbados, Rihanna's idols were Whitney and Celine, but even on a turbo-ballad like this, she'll never have those kind of diva chops. Instead, it's precisely her vocal modesty-- the apparently artless, trailing "ey, ey" in the chorus, where a stronger singer might have succumbed to melisma-- that made the song all the more irresistable. --Stephen Troussé
4: M.I.A. [ft. Bun B and Rich Boy]
"Paper Planes (Remix)"
[XL / Interscope]
From 2004 onward, M.I.A.'s global agitprop, Third World solidarity, and guerilla-pop war zone trappings saw her transcending electroclash by sounding like, well, electro's Clash-- and that was before she sampled "Straight to Hell". The spine of "Paper Planes" is brilliant: Cranking up the bass on the most mournful track in the Strummer/Jones catalog, tying in an interpolation of the "Rump Shaker" hook with gunshots and cash registers, and dropping it on top of a supple boom-click beat that ringtone rappers would piss themselves for is stunt production at its finest, and instead of describing a no-man's land with no asylum, Maya's making paper by scoring immigrants some visas. The hustler-as-freedom-fighter tone is especially effective in the remix, where Rich Boy's casually triumphant drawl turns boilerplate gun-as-girl talk into defiant cop-heckling and Bun B extends his head-before-hands hustle technique "from the Third World countries to the second and the first." --Nate Patrin
3: Panda Bear
"Bros"
[Paw Tracks]
Freed from the strategic abrasions of Animal Collective, the solo Panda Bear quickly succumbs to pure loveliness. The epic "Bros" drifts through several movements, all vying to outdo the last with voluptuous prettiness. From sighing multi-tracked vocals to jewel-box loops to caramelized guitar riffs, each layer adds hypnotic depth to a song whose gorgeousness seems dangerously excessive from the start, a sugar-rush that might end in psychosis. Doubled-over with luscious detail, the swelling arrangement shimmers like the air above the pavement on a hot day, its hazy swirl achieving a completeness not likely to be recaptured by next year's inevitable throngs of imitators. --Tim Finney
2: Battles
"Atlas"
[Warp]
MP3: Battles: "Atlas"
Schäffel stole a beat from Gary Glitter, and Battles stole it back. It's a beat with substance and force: immense and all-encompassing, like the song's title; martial, like the band's name. The guy pounding it out is John Stanier, formerly of Helmet, whose name inspires hushed, reverent tones from anyone who's ever sat on a drum stool. Like the rest of the band, he's a virtuoso, but here he applies his skills in a new way. People talk about the collective chops of Battles, but "Atlas" boils down to more than technical prowess; it gathers and focuses all the bound-up energy that comes from years of study and points it like a weapon in one direction: forward. --Mark Richardson
1: LCD Soundsystem
"All My Friends"
[DFA / EMI]
Fidgety piano chords played with clunky imprecision, a ticking rhythm section, and an opening line worthy of a great novel-- so begins our favorite song of 2007. Like most of LCD Soundsystem's future Best of candidates, "All My Friends" starts out handling like a rickety shopping cart and ends up blazing like a house on fire. What's special about this one is the story that plays out in between; where James Murphy used to take perverse pleasure in making up his lyrics on the spot, this is proof that he's too sharp a writer to leave his words to chance. "All My Friends" is about a lot of things-- guilt, drugs, the weight of expectation-- but mostly, it's about aging, about how the template for growing older is melting away, and about what decisions we make for ourselves in light of such lowered expectations. This is a song about building a compass, and for Murphy, that journey not only starts with his friends: it ends there, too. --Mark Pytlik
