The idea of wringing sentimental deep house out of soppy disco strings is neither new nor particularly exceptional; Pepe Bradock pretty much mastered the form in 1999 with " Deep Burnt " (availing himself of the buoyant intro to Freddie Hubbard's 1979 cut " Little Sunflower "), and the trope has remained a staple throughout the genre's sustained revival of recent years. But if anyone has not just the credentials but also the intuitive finesse to make the trick sound vital again, it's Detroit's Andrés—a.k.a. Dez Andres, a member of Theo Parrish's Rotating Assembly, a longtime associate of Moodymann's Mahogani Music label, former tour DJ for Slum Village, and the kind of all-around digger and DJ capable of putting a fresh spin on the hoariest of Michael Jackson chestnuts . Sampling Dexter Wansel's 1978 Philadelphia International tune " Time Is the Teacher " Andrés paired wafting strings with rickety drum breaks and deceptively simple bass-and-Rhodes changes to extraordinary effect on “New for U”. It is, in short, an anthem that refuses to pander, floating in a way that seems tailor-made for open-air parties, yet far more durable than that context would imply. It reached "song of the summer" status on arrival in early 2012, and in a few short years it's gone on to become a bona fide classic. —Philip Sherburne

Andrés:  "New For U"

It’s tough to make out exactly what it is he’s saying, but John Maus pushes out every word on "Believer" with conviction. Is he singing "fee fo fi"? Could be. His voice seems to be emanating from the heavens, so it would make sense if he spoke in the parlance of giants from fables. "They call me the believer," he tells us, his proclamation heralded by elated, crystalline synths and an unrelenting, thudding pulse. That balance is key here—the one between "beatific" and "urgent." Maus is, after all, a notably intense performer behind a song that could be reasonably categorized as "rapturous" or "blissful." We don’t know any specifics about "Believer"’s narrator—everything is delivered in broad strokes—but what’s certain is the inescapable feeling of hope that comes with its central message. —Evan Minsker

John Maus: "Believer" (via SoundCloud )

It isn't hard to believe Johnny Jewel could get away with murder. The analog-prizing multi-instrumentalist has had his hands on a whole host of outstanding projects in recent years, all without leaving a trace of his Television-repping stage name in the "Artist" column. As a producer for—and member of—various bands on Portland's Italians Do It Better, including Glass Candy and Desire, the After Dark compilation guru has tended toward a noir-ish, punk-scuffed take on the rippling synths and whispery vocals of Italo disco. Though much of Chromatics' staggering 2012 Kill for Love points toward Jewel's work on the Drive soundtrack and as one half of the duo Symmetry, the title track is a bombastic rock anthem writ synth-pop. By the time Ruth Radelet coolly intones "I killed for love," it's fair to wonder why Meat Loaf was so restrained about what he'd do for the big "L." Clearly, he'd never seen that handsome Ryan Gosling. —Marc Hogan

Chromatics: "Kill for Love" (via SoundCloud )

The whole map of Mark Kozelek, all 47 years of his dogged life, will unfold when you realize his favorite parts of Led Zeppelin are, let’s see: a plaintive seven-minute ballad, a two-minute acoustic instrumental, and a goddamn organ sound. Benji is full of recursive odes to music, and all his experiences and emotions fold into his “beautiful musical world” he has made for himself. He sees his past through an imperfect prism that can hopefully articulate how he’s feeling right now, in this moment, as he's playing his guitar. He’s not defined by his childhood, or his curious empathy with death. He’s not defined by his long-standing remorse for punching some kid on the playground, his aversion to football, or his record contract at 19. He’s defined by music. Don’t believe anyone who says they like “ Bron-Yr-Aur ” more than John Bonham’s drums, except Mark Kozelek. That’s just exactly who he is. —Jeremy D. Larson

Sun Kil Moon:  "I Watched The Film the Song Remains The Same"

It's not often that a song beginning with a line like "Sent ya bitch a dick pic and now she need glasses" turns into a frantic meditation on getting older and struggling to succeed, but that's exactly what Danny Brown does here. Over stumbling drums and a chorus of broken horns, he writes about the desperation that he's experienced: from borrowing a neighbor's power to play Nintendo, to heating his house with an oven to…well, this would be the point where the great success story would kick into place, but Brown is not a conventional rapper, and "30" is not a story of redemption. The track ends with Brown more successful than he was, still stressed, and still unsure of what will happen next. History shows that he ended up just fine, but the constant mental struggle he's dealing with here, the anguished moments of emotional exorcism, never quite left his music. By the end of the track, Brown is ready to move forward, and keep chasing success or death—in the story he writes in "30" they don't really seem so different. —Sam Hockley-Smith

Danny Brown: "30" (via SoundCloud )

“I Belong In Your Arms” is the third track on a record that begins with Caroline Polachek threatening vehicular manslaughter and calling it a “Sidewalk Safari”. It ends with a convoluted breakup-as-trial metaphor, and in between, there’s its lead single, titled “Amanaemonesia”. All of this provides crucial context to understand “I Belong in Your Arms” because it’s not just a love song—it’s the ideal for wish fulfillment amongst self-identifying, shy indie boys and girls, where they stop dithering about and yammering and JUST KISS ALREADY. Polachek’s no different here, as she tries to clever herself out of saying the primal, simple sentiment of “I Belong In Your Arms”: “you’re my crystal and clover”? “Banana split, honestly you’re my remote controller”? But when she’s caught within the irrepressible, hormonal surge of the chorus, she finally sings the title because nothing else will do, in unearthly high notes that don’t seem like her own—nailing the miraculous phenomenon where your heart is so full, your brain shuts down for your own good. —Ian Cohen

Chairlift: "I Belong in Your Arms" (via SoundCloud )

The only chart-topping song in recent memory to trigger Vanilla Sky associations as it smashes through the speakers, “I Love It” is a giddy, indelible instance of pop-as-generational-itch-scratcher. Assuming that you don’t die after reading this very sentence, you will most likely hear “I Love It” for the rest of your life—at football games, in romantic-comedy movie trailers, and at any celebratory event that has an open bar, be it a wedding, bat mitzvah, or clock-punching free-for-all. Its shout-along, sing-when-we’re-anything attitude is an update of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” that actually wants to be loved; alternatively, you could refer to “I Love It” as a millennial update of “We Are the World”, if Icona Pop themselves hadn’t gone on to write a song with a very similar title . Boneheaded jock-rockers Buckcherry recently offered their own take on the song —which almost makes too much sense—but no amount of dick-swinging can come close to matching Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo’s life-affirming, distinctly feminine effervescence, two 48-hour-party-people shouting endlessly and awesomely over a bassline that sounds like a Transformer vomiting rainbows. Live fast, die young, best friends do it well. —Larry Fitzmaurice

Icona Pop: "I Love It" [ft. Charli XCX] (via SoundCloud )

Since the release of 2010’s Swim , Dan Snaith has specialized in variations on genteel, erudite body music. That record was warm and organic, fusing Snaith’s previous full-length genre digressions—the brainy motorik of The Milk of Human Kindness , the rich ’60s pop of Andorra —to propulsive, dance-ready beats; his 2012 album as Daphni, Jiaolong , was a crate-digger’s delight, lean and brittle and lightly funky. “Can’t Do Without You” is the first single from his upcoming sixth LP as Caribou, Our Love , and you can hear Snaith starting to bring those two distinct styles together with the sort of playful inquisitiveness that marks all of his work: a raising of the stakes that's less a drop than a swallow, synths that bloom and balloon like lazy bulbs, a love song that makes obsession seem tender. It’s just another bold step forward from one of music’s brightest minds, the perfect closer for a club in a tea cup. —Jamieson Cox

Caribou: "Can't Do Without You" (via SoundCloud )

Our best friendships are really just love stories dressed up in different clothing. Leave it to Brian King and David Prowse, those patron saints of platonic male friendship, to write the kind of love song those stories deserve. “Younger Us” is a testament to the power of youth that transcends the sum of its parts; it’s the glance and grin down the pale light of the bar that says, “I will never be this young again.” There’s a definite sadness to the way Prowse and King rummage through the province of their memories, and to the uptick in musical intensity when words can’t express their feelings. They’re redeemed by the surprising maturity of the song’s inherent conclusion: We can never really go back, but we can come close. Songs like this are how we get there. —Jamieson Cox

Japandroids: "Younger Us"

Sky Ferreira knows this world is bullshit —like her hero Fiona Apple, she goes with herself, even when warding off the hounds of hell and her complicated trouble-girl rep. Taking no short cuts, the sharp, plainspoken Night Time, My Time centerpiece "I Blame Myself" could join the canon of great American pop songs about being misunderstood. It’s easy—basic, even—to tear-down one's detractors by straight-up shredding them to pieces, but it is harder to be rational. Ferreira accepts the challenge. "I Blame Myself" is pissed, but empathetic; fierce, but realistic; vulnerable, but strong. It is direct, but not simple. Ferreira's diction is piercing—"I trust you'd never like to guess/ What I think above the shoulders"—turning her own estrangement into a refuge of pop catharsis. When the new wave thud-thud-th-th-th-thuds crank "I Blame Myself" wide open, they mean something new. —Jenn Pelly

Sky Ferreira: "I Blame Myself"

On “Desire Be Desire Go”, a cut from Tame Impala’s 2010 debut, Innerspeaker , Australian psych-rock wizard Kevin Parker asked: “Every day, back and forth—what’s it for?” On “Apocalypse Dreams”, he sings another series of questions, but here they seem grounded in a kind of certainty: “Does it even matter? Do I really need it?” The song is the closest thing on the band’s second LP, Lonerism , to a full-on anthem of estrangement, with producer Dave Fridmann refracting Parker’s dream-like reveries into bright, psychedelic sunbursts. And the line could easily refer to a number of concerns typically tied to sophomore releases—money, validation, a comfortable routine. But its exact nature seems irrelevant next to the heady rush of muddied piano chords, martial drums, and billowing falsetto that accompany the question. “Apocalypse Dreams” wrangles with the existential dilemmas of the universe, and nullifies them through an explosion of obliterating beauty. —Abby Garnett

Tame Impala: “Apocalypse Dreams” (via SoundCloud )

Where Crystal Castles’ debut wallowed in glitchy, 8-bit distortion and frantic punk-electronica, the duo’s follow-up took those elements and put them on ice. “Celestica” is a perfect example of the shift into steely territory: backed by a gorgeous melody from Alice Glass, the track blasts through Ethan Kath’s cavernous synths and scraping guitars to reveal a more controlled chaos than what everyone had come to expect from the Toronto noisemakers. According to Kath, the track was inspired by a suicide in the Celestica factories in Canada, wherein a worker allegedly leapt into a tub of hot plastic that was later rumored to still be used in products. It’s the kind of dark, grisly story that bodes well with the duo’s appreciation for all things cold and macabre, but it’s also one perfectly at odds with the huge, crowd-pleasing pulse that makes “Celestica” so memorable. —Eric Torres

Crystal Castles: "Celestica" (via SoundCloud )

An indie-rock variation on the theme of Common's " I Used to Love H.E.R. ", built around a line from Souls of Mischief's " Step to My Girl "? Sounds questionable, on its face. But confronting the concepts of appropriation and tourism head-on has always been a big part of what Vampire Weekend are up to, and "Step" honors its hip-hop ancestors by sounding nothing like them until its final syrup-slurred flourish. Its arrangement bares the most delicate side of Ezra Koenig's voice, but behind the song's flurry of hit-and-run allusions (Jandek! Martin Luther! Run-D.M.C.!), he's singing about a specific side effect of being older and wiser than one's subculturally hyper-particular youth: not being such a goddamn Hipster Ariel about things that other people might love too. —Douglas Wolk

Vampire Weekend: "Step"

In the balance of intrigue between planes, trains, and automobiles, no single form of transportation delights our imagination while driving our anxieties quite like flying. The view is beautiful, of course, but the dramatic and certain end remains one misstep away. That’s the power that Bill Callahan harnesses for “Small Plane”, a steadfast ode to the bliss of domestic contentment that acknowledges the peril inherent in trusting any other vessel, too. Callahan has a reputation for abstruse language, for turning individual k ? ans into musical mantras. But “Small Plane” is one of the most direct songs of his career, an earnest if elliptical ballad that smiles pleasantly at the thought of traveling with a constant companion despite the knowledge that these situations and their landings haven’t always gone well. Callahan’s wisdom has often seemed childlike, but in both temperament and tone, this is the work of an adult, suddenly comfortable behind the controls. —Grayson Haver Currin

Bill Callahan: "Small Plane"

"The Morning" is arguably the lightest and prettiest song in Abel Tesfaye's oeuvre, but it didn't start out that way. While the lyrics and melody of the original version remain intact, Jeremy Rose's production —a twisted gnarl that feels like it's moving both forwards and backwards at once—is downright hellish compared to what ended up on House of Balloons . We can thank producers Doc McKinney and Illangelo for extracting the pop song that was hiding in plain sight, replacing the claustrophobia of the original with a spacious and gorgeous throb that lets Tesfaye's falsetto float through the track like the substances he and the girls he sings about are smoking. He might have an icebox where his heart used to be, but, over these five minutes, Tesfaye convinces us there might be some hope left for him yet. —Renato Pagnani

The Weeknd: "The Morning"

We don’t know much more about Jai Paul than we did when the first strains of his mutant pop surfaced in 2010, and it’s frustrating because his music is so left-of-center it stokes our nerdy desire to scavenge for undiscovered tidbits and artifacts to help us process it. “BTSTU (Edit)” is every bit as confounding today as it was on the first play. The entire record exists in a perpetual state of collapse, machines falling apart around that angelic falsetto. What do you mean “Don’t fuck with me, don’t fuck with me”? Why do the drums feel faintly out of pocket? How’d he sneak past us with a hook made out of wet synth farts? The mystery remains every bit as thrillingly offbeat as the music. —Craig Jenkins

Jai Paul: “BTSTU (Edit)” (via SoundCloud )

It’s a little funny, really—the guy dead-set on keeping his music free from the distractions of persona becomes an unintentional torchbearer for tasteful anonymity, and surrenders good-naturedly, at long last, with a selfie . (He would be a fox, too, the bastard.) It wouldn’t be the first time Burial’s trademarks have backed him into a bit of a corner. When your second album single-handedly brought dubstep to the bedside tables of a sizeable chunk of people who’d otherwise probably have a vastly different understanding of the term today—not to mention fathered a generation of baleful, night-bus-riding bedroom producers—what’s your next move? It turned out to be pretty simple, actually: where Untrue shuffled in anxious circles, giving new meaning to “two steps forward, one step back,” “Street Halo” pulled its hood up, put its boots on the ground, and marched dead ahead in 4/4 time. —Meaghan Garvey

Burial: "Street Halo"

Drake rarely makes music without a wink or a grin. The former "Degrassi" star dares people to mock him because he’s become such a pro at beating sideline jesters to the punch. “Started From the Bottom”, performed with a straight face, is an exception, never tipping its hat to bleacher commentators or to even Drake’s own self-deprecating persona. Here he made a play for the universal because even handouts and Lil Wayne assists can’t guarantee success in this crumbling music industry. “I wear every single chain even when I’m in the house,” he confesses, their weight reminding him that all of these successes are indeed real. —David Turner

Drake: "Started From the Bottom" (via SoundCloud )

James Murphy is a student of pop history who borrows without shame, yet he manages to make his thefts into something that sounds fresh and personal. When we first heard "All I Want" in 2010, we didn't know yet that it came from what would be the band's last studio album ; what we noticed is that its banging piano and Frippish guitar sounded an awful lot like David Bowie's "Heroes". It also felt like a spiritual sequel to " All My Friends ", revisiting some of the same themes from a place of even greater loneliness and self-doubt. Hearing it again a few years on, it embodies beautifully something crucial about LCD: they explored dark feelings in a way that sounded like a celebration. Implicit here is the idea that music is a powerful tool for getting through it all; "All I Want" isn't "about" that, but rather, an example of the magic at work. —Mark Richardson

LCD Soundsystem: All I Want

A story you sometimes hear about extreme athletes is that in pushing their bodies to their limits, they discover a hyperreal reserve, a point beyond exhaustion where some unknown power takes over and pilots them to glory. Basically, a story in which someone discovers within their limited human capacity a force that seems inhuman. 

“Higher Ground” is like that: a jock jam so rigorous and bionic that it verges on absurd. (The occasional cheap-sounding samples of a single dog barking helps.) TNGHT’s sleight of hand is that they presented as dance music but got their muscle from Southern rap, which levies its heavy blows in light, dancing syncopations—a sound both bruising but buoyant. Note the state of athletic gear, which makes us look more like tiny spaceships every year. The goal is no longer to commune with our bodies, but to transcend them. —Mike Powell

TNGHT:  "Higher Ground"