Major Lazer
“Pon de Floor”
Downtown/Mad Decent

Too many times to count a supergroup is a major letdown. At worst, it’s a compromised dilution of the traits that make each artist great. Or it just can never live up to the hype in your head. So it’s with no minor relief that Diplo and Switch have delivered with “Pon De Floor,” a glitchy electro/dancehall track with Baltimore club undertones. Not so much a call to the dancefloor as it is a demand to totally lose your gotdang mind, tossing self-control to the wind. If you’re not dancing when this song comes on, you may be a zombie vampire, in which case, the good Major would like to speak to you. DSH

Shakira
“She Wolf”
Epic

Unfortunately for us, Latin-loving Anglos, Shakira has perpetually remained on the fringes of the cultural zeitgeist. Truth-telling hips or not, she’s never quite been able to crack the pop charts like her peers. “She Wolf” (a.k.a. “Loba”) thankfully does not kowtow to the radio. In fact, it’s the singer’s wildest yet, with enough distorted spizzle and eight-bit clicks to make Diplo blush. Plus, I think it’s the first song in existence to use the term “lycanthropy.” Ahhhwooooo! KJE

The Mantles
“Don’t Lie”
Mt. St. Mtn.

The Mantles’ blend of ’60s pop-jangle and woozy, Flying Nun wit made for some of the year’s best rock songs, “Don’t Lie” (a.ka. “Trust”) being the very finest of the bunch. Singer-guitarist Michael O. pulls off the romantic slacker vibe better than anyone in years, with lines like “Of all the stars above you, which one puts a heel in your eye?” Still smart enough to make any grad student swoon, the band dig into too steady a groove to be tossed in the indie-rock graveyard. DE

Joker and Ginz
“Purple City”
Kapsize

Apologies for only recognizing that Bristol was in the midst of an uprising when Burial showed up: the entire dubstep genre was already in a hangover by the time it reached these shores. Besides, as much those introspectively dark rhythms can hypnotize, they’re also a moody bitch. “Purple City,” on the other hand, has found the perfect intoxicant to add to the punch, namely fisticuffs of itchy synth melodies and big swaths of g-funk. I’m patiently waiting for Joker to become the “it” producer of the future, but as of right now, it sounds like he’s content resuscitating hip-hop sans the emcee. KJE

Real Estate
“Fake Blues”
Woodsist

Real Estate’s Atlantic surf sound has enough reverb to warrant the effect a composer credit. It was a cozy single to listen to this summer: cool and lazy, weird muffled drums, far-off guitar, wistful lyrics I couldn’t make out (they’re about the fake blues, duh), and syrupy amounts of reverb. Returning to it in the first wicked cold of winter, the reverbs lend a pining for summer, probably because I listened to it 400 times in the hot sun. It definitely kept its luster, and it will sound just as good next summer I’m sure. MPO

Washed Out
“Feel It All Around”
Pure Groove

Of all the chillwave/glo-fi progenitors, Washed Out sounded like the only one who took those prefixes to heart. Instead of piling on the master-system histrionics and kooky ’80s signifiers, “Feel It All Around” simply floats on the horizon like a slow-motion sunset. It’s the summation of that moment right before you fall asleep, when the most extreme rushes of nostalgia collide with a hyper-functioning imagination. I see dazzle ships and bean-bag chairs the size of Hondas, orange foam synthesizers and ghetto blasters made of powdered sugar. KJE

The Big Pink
“Dominos”
4AD

Given the homogeny of American radio, the hype following London-born the Big Pink hasn’t translated on this side of the pond. But listening to “Dominos,” there’s no reason to think the band couldn’t spark the nth British invasion. Marked by a certain verve, the song is saturated with cracking snares and a crescendoing chorus, just the sort of thing of which pop symphonies are made. SS

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Zero”
Interscope

Never predictable, the first single from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ third studio album finds the trio changing locales, from the garage to the dance floor. Like Blondie before them, this is dance music with a punk attitude, as the music builds into an irresistible frenzy on the urging of Karen O’s energetic Chrissie Hynde–meets–Siouxie Sioux vocals. She seduces, coos and commands listeners to “get your leather, leather, leather, on, on, on, on.” JR

The Gossip
“Heavy Cross”
Columbia

After the surprise success of “Standing In the Way of Control,” people began to look at the Gossip a little differently. In the place of bluesy punk rock were sleek dancefloor jams belted out with authority. But what would they do for a follow-up? The answer is “Heavy Cross,” a tightly wound, tense, slow-building track that explodes into a hard soul shout custom made for unapologetically strutting and singing into a hairbrush. DSH

Bat For Lashes
“Daniel”
Parlophone

Sounding like the bastard child of the Cure’s “A Forest” and Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” “Daniel” manages to evoke the best mopey ’80s modern rock without sounding like one of the many current tired new-wave revivalists. It’s the perfect song for an autumn late-night drive. This is the sort of gorgeous melancholy that bands like the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, and the Psychedelic Furs perfected, but we rarely hear anymore. TB

Dirty Projectors
“Stillness Is the Move”
Domino

Who would’ve thought that 10-octave Mariah Carey vocals, a backbeat so spare that it wouldn’t sound out of place on a Neptunes production, and a jittery off-time guitar lick played ad nauseum would combine to create one of the year’s finest achievements? Apparently the Dirty Projectors did. The song’s best moment arrives about three minutes deep, when a dramatic string melody that would sound maudlin or over-the-top in any other context cuts through the repetitive groove and adds a warm heart to the track’s too-cool-for-school minimalism. DH

Phoenix
“1901”
Loyauté

Forget the ox; 2009 was the year of Phoenix. Much like the past 12 months, “1901” is wistful, yet haunting. It casts an addictive shoulder-popping ripple amidst turbulent uncertainty. Ferociously sweet pop ditties like this fill us with enough hope to keep hoping. If only Thomas Mars could yell last call at all of the world’s bars. AK

Times New Viking
“Move to California”
Matador

As much as Times New Viking has been portrayed as lo-fi saviors, the trio is really just a bunch of youngsters raised on Ohio misfit rock, but who have a love of pop in their collective heart. Blushes of this penchant aren’t uncommon in the band’s gleeful melees, but within the two and a half minutes of “Move to California,” TNV indulges their crush like never before, perfectly melding rhetoric to a golden hook. SS