50. Atlas Sound

"Mona Lisa"

[4AD]

"Mona Lisa" is the tranquil center of Parallax, an album otherwise focused on expressions of profound disconnection and unrequited longing. The lyrics are as ambiguous as the smile in its namesake painting, but the music is jangling folk-rock bliss, echoing the understated harmonic complexity of early R.E.M. and the spacey strum of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord". It may be the most overtly pop song of Bradford Cox's career thus far, but he can't help but to spike its mellow vibes with foreboding. Since so many of Cox's songs deal with anxieties about vulnerability and passivity, his phrasing on the song's bridge-- "your baby's sleeping, sleeping"-- makes him sound vaguely concerned for that baby's safety. For now, though, the panic is only fleeting. --Matthew Perpetua

49. Katy B

"Broken Record"

[Columbia/Rinse]

Few artists of this or any other year have managed to marry dance music's avant-garde to pure pop propulsion the way Katy B did in 2011. Over producers Geeneus & Zinc's swift, changeable beat-- flitting confidently between the dynamism of UK funky and the clatter of drum'n'bass-- she chops through the urban jungle of "Broken Record" with a lithe confidence that makes most American popsters' recent dubstep turns seem demure. Caught between sweet dream and a beautiful nightmare, the words of a would-be paramour leave her sleepless, gloriously conflicted; Katy seems to spend "Broken Record" sorting out the contents of her own head, her stiff-lipped delivery on the verses gives way to a desperation on the bridge, turning just a touch unhinged on that circuital cry of a chorus. "You're holding every breath I take," she sings, and it's one of those lines that means nothing outside the song but absolutely everything in it. A lesser singer might get swallowed up amidst the bob and weave of "Broken Record," but here as elsewhere, she's charting a course all her own, dodging bass wobble, hurdling a swarm of snares. --Paul Thompson

48. Kreayshawn

"Gucci Gucci"

[Columbia]

It's been seven months since we first heard Kreayshawn's divisive breakout track, but YouTube commenters are still grappling over its door-kicking video. Some choice quotes from the last 10 minutes alone: "Ok i was able to watch 3:11 of a white girl rly trying to be something she isnt what do I win," and "I know this is shit, yet I'm incredibly drawn to it..." The debate rages on for good reason. Kreayshawn's grand entrance is both a face-to-palm sociological mindfuck and a hunk of youthful and infectious DIY pop-rap perfection, the pinnacle of what purists might insist on writing off as guilty pleasure. But memes matter, so whether you're scoffing or grinning, there's no denying that "Gucci Gucci" and its ensuing mayhem (27 million YouTube views, a record deal said to be worth a million dollars, unending streams of thinkpieces and GIF-based fan Tumblrs) is one of the least boring things that happened in music all year. And for that, even the most stalwart naysayers owe Kreayshawn a little love. --Carrie Battan

47. Battles [ft. Matias Aguayo]

"Ice Cream"

[Warp]

In the video for "Ice Cream", when Ian Williams first plays that carnival-ready riff on his odd-angled keyboard, there's a cocky look on his face, like he found something so great he just has to brag about it. You can't blame him. His pumping chords are definitely killer, cutting through the song's swirl of spastic drums, reflecting guitars, and echoing vocals from guest Matias Aguayo. And since the keyboard part is so sturdy, the rest of the band can basically jam around it, creating a joyous mix that sounds sharp and free in equal measure. In this band's hands, a few choppy chords can be the seeds of an ever-sprouting tune. --Marc Masters

46. Ty Segall

"Goodbye Bread"

[Drag City]

Monday is definitely the least punk rock day we've got, which explains why even Ty Segall, perhaps the reigning king of the garage, sounds subdued and defeated on this anthem for the start of the workweek. The wild animal of last year's "Girlfriend" has been tamed, forced to wash his hair and wear a suit, as the song creeps along at a plodding tempo and only allows time for one brief fuzz-pedal solo at lunch break. Peeling back the distortion is always a risky move for anyone who made his name at full throttle, but "Goodbye Bread" confirms that Segall cleans up nicely, with a surprisingly capable upper register and a melodic gift that remains intact even under the unforgiving glare of naked production. As the initial noisy blast of the San Francisco garage-psych scene starts to fade, bands will have to prove they're capable of surviving without constantly needling the red. Here, Segall shows he's comfortable even with the volume knob a few clicks to the left. --Rob Mitchum

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45. Drake

"Headlines"

[Cash Money/Young Money/Universal Motown]

Bombast hasn't always fit Drake comfortably. On "Over", the lead-up single to last year's Thank Me Later, he dropped fame-weary, grocery-bagged braggadocio over a Frankenstein fusion of orchestral bluster and slick head-knock. That was then, though. Drake's grown a bit, so on "Headlines", the attitude's more modest and subdued. Greatly utilizing his trademark sing-song vocal style, he cycles through thought after fresh thought, allowing us to eavesdrop on his unfiltered inner monologue. All sides of Toronto's boy-ish wonder are showcased here: the egotist, the regretful/regrettable lothario, the goofy punchline kid, the eager-to-impress self-doubter. It goes over Boi-1da/Noah "40" Shebib's team-up beat, a punchy build-up with tantalizingly little actual payoff, which makes sense since "Headlines" is about promising what's to come, while questioning whether all that great shit will ever really arrive. --Larry Fitzmaurice

44. Nicolas Jaar

"Space Is Only Noise If You Can See"

[Circus Company]

Nicolas Jaar may run his own label, come aggressively hyped in certain dance music circles, and enjoy a bohemian Chilean background that leaves him only one degree of separation from homegrown techno god Ricardo Villalobos, but you sure wouldn't know it from "Space Is Only Noise If You Can See". With its squelching bassline and dada stonerisms, the title track from Jaar's pleasingly confounding breakout LP sounds like the work of someone more familiar with names like Falco, Taco, and Yazoo than Hawtin, Voigt, and Mills. "Grab a calculator and fix yourself," he advises in deadpan, while unleashing a garden variety of wet reverbs and sawtooth filters on an otherwise minimal groove. For a record so lauded by serious techno nerds, Space Is Only Noise was not without its kitschy and oddball detours, and none was more memorable than this. --Mark Pytlik

43. Panda Bear

"Last Night at the Jetty"

[Paw Tracks]

I imagine "Last Night at the Jetty" is what doo-wop would sound like if sung by monks: It's got doo-wop's drifting rhythms and yearning melodies, but immediacy has been replaced by something lonely, meditative, and almost processional. Doo-wop ballads were designed for nostalgia: friends say goodnight, lovers leave, we lose something and mourn the time we had it. A lot of the music we covered this year invoked the 1950s in ways that were more deliberate-- Girls, Dirty Beaches, and Lana Del Rey, for starters. Noah Lennox is not the pompadour type. Instead of building his world out from a specific reference, he takes the reference, strips it back to its essence, and covers it with the tumbling synthesizers and limitless reverb that make his music what it is: The sound of simplicity nudged toward sacredness. --Mike Powell

Panda Bear: Last Night at the Jetty

42. Jay-Z / Kanye West

"Otis"

[Roc-a-Fella/Island Def Jam]

The moral that Kanye and Jay-Z extracted here from Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness" has little to do with the content of that classic, the singer's musical legacy, or anything else of consequence-- it basically boils down to, "Wow, I'm rich."

It's called "Otis" to make sure everyone recognizes the expensive sample, which is played for a minute at the beginning, before being sliced down to one gruff, pouncing cut, and drowned in gloss. The duo fashions a cosmopolitan Candyland, a place where it's somehow possible to ride in multiple vehicles at once and where you count your passports at the Mercer Hotel while sipping complimentary champagne. "Sophisticated ignorance" is touted as Kanye takes a moment to secure his own soul. Then, for no reason mere mortals can discern, Jay heads to Cuba to smoke a cigar with Castro. In wealth-conscious 2011, it was hard to ethically justify this Robin Leach shtick, but the irresistible panache and merry absurdity with which it came across made me feel like Ye when he found out about blood diamonds: How can something so wrong make me feel so right? --Brian Howe

41. Frank Ocean

"Novacane"

[self-released]

For a song that goes a long way in trying to establish a dispassionate distance, "Novacane" is seriously obsessed with scene-setting details. And it's not just that Frank Ocean notes the "cocaine for breakfast" (yikes) or the Coachella chick that's paying for her dentistry degree by doing porn, but that he does so with a bemused detachment that's not really all that detached. He might be fronting like the Drakes and post-808s Kanyes of the world, but there's too much self-effacement happening for Ocean not to realize the inherent humor in his own drama. If Ocean really is on that visionary Kubrick shit like he claims, then "Novacane" could very well be his Dr. Strangelove. --David Raposa