01. Track unavailable



This poll is decided by the votes of RA staff members and current contributors.

Our favourite track from this year is deceptive in a number of ways. For starters, it's not really from this year. It first came out in 2004 on the Dublin label D1 Recordings, and remained a minor cult favourite until Dekmantel and Magnetron Music reissued it this past July. It's also not, as you may have assumed, by a woman: Fatima Yamaha is a Dutch man named Bas Bron.But more importantly, "What's A Girl To Do" is a piece of music that's more deep and affecting than it seems at first pass. Yes, it's a great final track of the night, and that faux-sax line is one of the catchiest things you'll ever hear. But there's something else that gives this track its extraordinary staying power—the quality that made it, as Angus Finlayson said , "one of dance music's most pronounced sleeper hits." Call it a sense of drama, at once utterly genuine and slightly tongue-in-cheek, something suggested by the sombre chords and weeping melody and made complete by Scarlett Johansson's cameo in the breakdown. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to be," she says. "I'm stuck. Does it get easier?"With that line from, this electro earworm became a poignant slow-burner about a highly relatable existential crisis. How serious was it? It's hard to say, but that ambiguity only added to the track's allure. Those who knew it have already been hitting repeat for 11 years. The rest of us have only just started.