10. DJ Khaled [ft. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne]: "I'm on One"

[We the Best/Cash Money]

It was the year's most ubiquitous mixtape beat, dominating radio and bringing together three of hip-hop's biggest stars. The instrumental, with its atmospheric texture wedded to a memorable, addictive, slashing melodic loop, is a masterpiece of subtle confidence and understated strength that sustains through implied gesture rather than obvious show of skill. It frames some of the more evocative lyrics of the year, the best of which come from Rick Ross' middle verse, from the purple flowers burning his chest to his supremely over-the-top sexual conquests in London. But it's Drake's chorus that really gives the song its power and spurs its hedonistic internal logic. As the beat's melancholy drifts along, the 25-year-old rapper mixes his past, present, and future into a heady brew: "I don't really give a fuck, and my excuse is that I'm young/ And I'm only getting older, somebody should have told you...." --David Drake

Photo by Matt Barnes

09. Azealia Banks: "212" [self-released]

It's quite an achievement at this stage in the game to get noticed via dirty talk, but the first time you hear "212" that's what sticks with you. Azealia Banks' perfectly timed, sweet-voiced threat as the track drops out ("Imma ruin you, cunt") is the song's hotline to virality, its VIP pass to buzz.

So she's an internet novelty? Hardly. "212" works because its popcraft and its shock tactics are each other's Trojan horses-- concentrate on one and the other sneaks up on you. One reason "ruin you, cunt" feels like such a payoff is that Banks spends an entire verse of quick, unshowy rapping setting up its run of vowels. Banks uses the peaks, breakdowns, and drop-outs of Lazy Jay's bouncy "Float My Boat" to give her Minaj-style vocal-shifts some context: from sassy and chatty during the build ups to cartoon rage as the synths rear up around her at the song's end. If it were judged only on its visceral thrill, "212" would still be one of 2011's best, an unashamed banger in a mostly mid-tempo year. But the more you dig into the song, the more you can hear details and decisions that suggest a scary degree of pop talent. --Tom Ewing

08. Cass McCombs: "County Line" [Domino]

Cass McCombs: "County Line"

As a man who's gone on record requesting that his tombstone read "Home at Last," Cass McCombs is no stranger to travelling, and on "County Line", he sets the scene on the road straight away: "On my way to you, old county/ Hoping nothing's changed." A long drive is what comes to mind, and the slow chug of the music fits right in with a feeling of Zen-like zoning, watching headlights drift left and right around you. On any trip back to a place you once knew well, it can feel like every passing road sign rewinds another year in the spool, until everything becomes a little more familiar and intense. So too in "County Line", as McCombs' voice grows ever slightly more insistent along the way.

Where the song really burns is when McCombs slides into the lilting chorus, his voice swooning to his upper register and then back again. It's a tender hook, underpinned by the engine-like "woah, woah, woah, woah, woahs" in the background. But despite the song's gentle refrain, there's a bitter aftertaste here-- a sense that the journey, or return to wherever (or whoever) it is, is not exactly a welcome trip. There are no simple answers in McCombs' songs, and this one is no different. He once again leaves us ponderous, gently pushing forward yet always aware of what the past has done. --Hari Ashurst

07. Beyoncé: "Countdown" [Columbia]

The first Destiny's Child singles were broadsides backed up by joyful jitter-funk, kiss-offs aimed at bad boyfriends, lackluster lovers, and guys who just couldn't take a hint. Losers who creep around behind their trusting partners' backs, lames who flood inboxes with unwanted advances, frauds, and misers of all stripes. Beyoncé made telling them off, crushing their egos, and sending them home to mama sound like a total blast. As recently as "Irreplaceable", an older and wiser Ms. Knowles was finding empowerment in relationships gone wrong, sounding less aggrieved than emboldened by finally laying down the law. I mean, do I even need to bring up "Single Ladies"?

But Beyoncé's been enjoying domestic bliss for some time now, and on the evidence of "Countdown", Jay-Z has yet to get on her bad side. If anything, his devotion has ignited Queen B's most delirious hymn to being head-over-heels since "Crazy in Love". This track is a virtuoso performance from singer and producers alike, so giddy with the thrill of having someone have your back that it can't sit still. The tempo shifts are like a smitten lover trying to calm herself down only to start babbling about how awesome everything is all over again a moment later. "Countdown" can't stop spinning out new musical ideas every few seconds because maybe this zinging synth riff or this crazy orchestral percussion crescendo will help you catch the feeling, too. Beyoncé cycles breathlessly through every vocal trick at her command, from church choir ululating to fierce fast-rap, and somehow it's both overwhelming and infectious, coming off like the most emotionally affecting sound effects record ever recorded. Sure, we've all been in love. But it's doubtful we've ever sounded this damn excited about it. --Jess Harvell

06. Destroyer: "Kaputt" [Merge]

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Dan Bejar is sometimes knocked for his use of ironic humor, as though any trace of such a device instantly renders the music heartless. But while "Kaputt" may be clever in its references and lite-jazz affect, it's incredibly evocative on a gut level, with its swirl of woodwinds and synth-pop textures setting scenes as vivid in detail as old photographs and as vaguely defined but deeply felt as a dream.

At its core, "Kaputt" is a celebration of imperfect memories and the world of the past that we construct in our minds from bits of pop culture. In this case, it's a world built of stray lines from old music magazines: "Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME/ It all sounds like a dream to me." Only one of those publications still exists today; the back issues are mostly lost to time. But even if these snapshots of a particular era were meant to be disposable, their ideas linger on in the back of readers' minds as, say, biases against certain musical instruments. Like saxophones.

"Kaputt" almost entirely comprises sounds that were considered extremely uncool (if not outright taboo) by rock fans up until recently, but Bejar isn't trolling his audience. The listener's knowledge of fickle rock fashion is part of the song, and this context is essential to its poignancy: Every cultural moment eventually passes, and each will seem alternately ridiculous and romantic in hindsight. --Matthew Perpetua

05. Real Estate: "It's Real" [Domino]

Even Real Estate's most ardent supporters admitted that their 2009 self-titled album was a bit on the hazy, noncommittal side. (That was even part of the draw for a few of us.) On that record, the Ridgewood, New Jersey, natives were rocking the beach, fetching cans of Sprite and Budweiser from the cooler. Two years later, "It's Real" finds them scraping off tree bark to proclaim their love. As it turns out, clarity in both sound and emotion suits them well.

Propelled by an instantly memorable guitar lead from Matthew Mondanile that would make any Postcard Records band seethe with envy, the track has frontman Martin Courtney spouting an uncomplicated, addictive vocal melody that's plaintive without being apathetic, emotive but not cloying. The uncertainty in the first verse quickly falls away and is replaced by a confidence in his love. Before, not even a summertime poolside jaunt could quell the creeping dread of adulthood. Now, the brutal cold of a frozen-solid river evokes wistful romantic nostalgia. "It's Real" nails the feeling of when love goes from being The Great Intangible to something that settles in your bones. --Martin Douglas

04. Nicki Minaj: "Super Bass" [Cash Money]

Nicki Minaj's sea-parting verse on Kanye West's "Monster" dared you to imagine how much more twisted the game would be on her own turf. So it was a resounding bummer when her first proper album, Pink Friday, ended up so deferential to the strictures of pop radio; tepid tracks like "Your Love" and "Right Thru Me" curbed her boundless imagination in favor of easy hits.

Considering its ubiquity this year, it's easy to forget that the song that got Minaj back on track-- and what's become the most successful single by a female rapper since Missy Elliot's 2002 hit "Work It"-- wasn't even supposed to be a single. "Super Bass" was originally a Pink Friday bonus track and only later released as a single in the U.S. due to the demand of fans, including Taylor Swift. Unlike the softer cuts on Pink Friday, "Super Bass" reinvents the love song as something that's never mawkish but instead contagiously gleeful. The carbonated beat and Minaj's exuberant verses find the perfect alchemy of idiosyncrasy and pop appeal. The result is one of those impossible-not-to-love mega-hits-- even harder to find these days given the internet's tendency to help us all burrow into our respective niches-- that momentarily levels the ground between music critics and little girls in tutus: We're all just singing along. --Lindsay Zoladz

__Photo by SEVE

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03. EMA: "California" [Souterrain Transmissions]

If you crossed paths with Erika M. Anderson in 2011, chances are she made you uncomfortable. On "California", she throws out a litany of boasts disguised as confessions, seemingly attempting to agitate everyone within earshot. Unimpressed by the opening couplet, "Fuck California/ You made me boring?" Perhaps the next line, about selling her menstrual-blood-crusted red pants to a friend, will induce the desired squirming. No? How about the Bo Diddley-quoting, "I'm just 22/ I don't mind dying," sung like a psalm? Or, "I saw Joseph carrying the gun/ I saw Mary carrying the gun/ I saw grandma carrying the gun?"

Anderson speak-sings all of this in a fluid ramble that only slows to hit a melodic note every few bars, timed to one of the song's shimmering, tectonic-shift chord changes. It sounds like her thoughts are too scattered or overwhelming to adhere to the melody she's dreamt up for them, so you can listen dozens of times and still never guess the next phrase correctly. She never stops blind-siding you. The charismatic performance freeze-frames the worst, clammiest parts of brash youth-- the raw nerves masked by brittle swagger, the wadded-tissue carelessness with which you treat your body. It's a moment when you're screaming to be seen, and "California" sounds as magnetically cool as every fuck-up sounds in her own head. "I'm begging you please to look away," Anderson pleads. Not a chance. --Jayson Greene

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__Photo by D.L. Anderson

02. Bon Iver: "Holocene" [Jagjaguwar/4AD]

I had never knowingly heard a Bon Iver song until this past summer. I hadn't avoided Justin Vernon's music; I just never sought it out. I'd read about the cabin in the woods, and that was enough to suggest that it probably wasn't for me. Then, one night in July, driving around Portland, Oregon, shuttling another load of boxes between my mom's old house and her new assisted-living home, I found myself transfixed by an unfamiliar falsetto streaming from the speakers of my rental car, faltering and fumbling, a mirror of my own emotions.

"Holocene", the song that got me, has remained moving in the months since, in moods sunny and stoic as well as worn out and wrung dry. Beneath the surface beauty of the chiming guitars and close harmonies, far more ambivalent tensions are at play-- pedal steel sighing against muted vibraphones, weary handclaps, a quiet squall of clarinets. The rising and falling chord changes create a sense of motion that develops throughout the whole song, a tide-like ebb and flow that ends with an abrupt denouement, so swift it withholds almost as much pleasure as it yields.

It doesn't hurt that the lyrics are vague enough to lend themselves to open-ended interpretation. ("Hulled far from the highway aisle," I read, and feel none the wiser, even after trying out various homophones.) The way they're overdubbed, consonants garbling together at the edges of Vernon's fraught falsetto, only further smudges their intelligibility. Beyond the cryptic references presumably knowable only to Vernon and his intimates, we're left with a few boldly declarative statements: "At once I knew I was not magnificent," surely a universal feeling, at least outside the 1%; and "I could see for miles, miles, miles," a tweak on an old staple from the Who, but with the drama inverted, the horizon internalized and turned back upon itself. Anyone who's ever driven late at night towards an unknown destination will recognize this stretch of road. --Philip Sherburne

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__Photo by Anouck Bertin

01. M83: "Midnight City" [Mute]

The strange career arc of M83 has seen Anthony Gonzalez move from epic drones to futuristic bombast to romantic new wave. Though there are clear threads, it's been a process of zooming in, from expansive and open-ended drift to small, tightly-packed nuggets of pop emotion. And that long movement over the event horizon leads to "Midnight City", M83's most powerful and emotionally triumphant track.

Gonzalez has been comfortable in the realm of proper songwriting for a while, showing expertise in terms of fitting verses, choruses, and instrumental bridges into tracks you might play alone at a piano. But what's most striking about "Midnight City" at first is that a huge part of its story comes from sound alone: its four compressed minutes pack in propulsive beats, urgent layers of vocals, loads of catchy synths, an insistent rhythm loop, and a zeitgeist-y saxophone outro that lets it all unravel just when it gets to be too much.

Beyond the force of the sound, "Midnight City"'s code is tough to crack. You can listen to it a ridiculous number of times without needing to know what Gonzalez is even singing about. On one hand, it's simply an impressionistic ode to city life, but it also feels like his ultimate tribute to the music that brought him here. He's talked in interviews about the influence of the Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and from one angle "Midnight City" comes off like Gonzalez's "1979". The parallels are there, from the instantly memorable riff to the gentle sense of longing, but "Midnight City" feels like a song destined to move and change as it continues into the future. Rather than tapping into our collective memory, it's a soundtrack for building new ones. --Brandon Stosuy