R.E.M. "Discoverer"

The final R.E.M. album begins and ends with "Discoverer," an ecstatic song about facing new challenges and adventures with bravery and enthusiasm. It flashes back to the early days of the band and Michael Stipe's first visit to New York City, recalling the first rush of excitement at the sheer number of opportunities and possibilities offered by the city and the world in general. It all happened for him, too. Stipe and R.E.M. had a phenomenal, unparalleled career and have lived remarkable lives. They did it all on their own terms, with a combination of raw talent, ambition and idealism. "Discoverer," like a lot of the best R.E.M. songs, is an expression of incredible optimism. This is probably the aspect of the band's body of work that resonates with me most deeply. Stipe genuinely believes that the future offers us the chance to live better lives. He believes that positive change can happen if we work for it. And he's right. He's so right. And that extends to this song, and the end of this band. When this song is reprised at the end of Collapse Into Now, it sounds like a moment of pure, heroic triumph. It's a beautiful and appropriate finale for their career – moving forwards and embracing new opportunities while radiating genuine pride over what has already been accomplished. Buy it from Amazon.

Tune-Yards @ Le Poisson Rouge 9/20/2011 Do You Wanna Live? / Gangsta / You Yes You / Es-So / Riotriot / Bizness / Powa / Doorstep / Not Dead Yet / My Country // Hatari / Killa Tune-Yards hasn't been in heavy rotation for me in the past couple months; it was a thrill to see these songs performed again and be reminded not only of their incredible quality, but of my own connection to the music and lyrics. And the performer! The audience is more crazy about Merrill every time I see her perform -- the cult is growing and getting more intense. She really earns this incredible adulation, and the more love the crowd gives her, the more she gives back. It's so nice to go to a show and see the audience and the artist be so totally into it. Everyone was having so much fun.

Tune-Yards "Powa"

I don’t know much about Merrill Garbus’ life, but I feel like I know a lot about her voice, which might be a separate thing. Garbus sings like a person who, at some point in the not-too-distant past, stopped caring about holding herself back. “Powa” starts off sorta gentle and demure, but as it progresses, there’s a clear physicality to her vocals — a startling, defiant swagger. Unlike a lot of “swagger” you hear in modern pop music, it’s not a put-on or thinly veiled insecurity. It doesn’t sound like control or a desire to be controlling either. It’s more about self-possession, and making a clear decision to be exactly who you are and go for what you want, and take what you deserve after years of feeling unworthy. “Powa” is a song about sex, and it feels triumphant and glorious, like a long-earned reward. There’s still conflict and angst, but it all disappears in moments of pure pleasure, as when Garbus’ voice shoots up into into high notes, yanking us up with her into her giddy stratosphere. You feel her pleasure along with her, but you know that it’s an abstraction. If you really want it, you’ve got to get it for yourself. You’ve got to be more like Merrill. I’ve lived with “Powa” for a while now, and I’m pretty confident in saying that it ranks among my favorite songs of all time. I feel like I could gush endlessly about it — in addition to what I wrote over a year ago, I know I could go on and on about every detail in the structure, performance and production of this piece. But the thing that really blows me away is this: “Powa” is a song about love and sex that factors in insecurity about one’s body. When you think about how common it is for people to feel awkward about their bodies — if not outright disgusted by them — it is shocking to realize how rarely this comes up in songs about love and sex. Sex tends to be idealized and abstracted in music, in a way it’s not that different from Hollywood or pornography. “Powa” is astonishing not only because it presents the singer as a fully-formed person with body image issues and stress and real world problems, but because it expresses genuine love and gratitude for someone with whom she has true intimacy. Aside from Carole King’s wonderful “(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman,” I can’t think of many songs on this level of quality that articulate this sort of feeling. (Originally posted 1/4/2010 and 4/15/2011.) Buy it from Amazon.

Gauntlet Hair "My Christ"

It seems like we're only starting to come out of a phase of indie music dominated by excessive use of reverb, so it's actually surprising to hear a band play around with those tricks and come up with something that sounds fresh. "My Christ," one of the best and most tuneful tracks from Gauntlet Hair's debut album, essentially sounds like a late 80s sort of INXS/Tears for Fears type song that has been pushed to a severe extreme without losing its shape and basic appeal. The distortions here don't blur the composition – it's rather sharp and dynamic – but they do sharpen up the treble and exaggerate the impact of the drumming. I get the feeling that a lot of people are going to sleep on this record, which is unfortunate: These guys are figuring out some interesting new angles on late 80s arena rock. Buy it from Amazon.

Craig Wedren "I Know"

There is a lot to recommend to Craig Wedren's voice, but I've always been fond of the way he can affect this sorta sexy-brat tone. A little bitchy, a little flirty, a little silly. "I Know," a cut from his new solo record, is a showcase for this quirk as he admits that "it's fun to treat you badly" over this heavy, stomping groove that reminds me a bit of Basement Jaxx's "Cish Cash." He sells the message just right – his voice conveys a bit of regret and shame for his cruelty, but also a lot of genuine glee in being a total dick. Buy it from Amazon.

Slow Club "You, Earth or Ash"

The first few times I listened to this song it didn't register beyond the lovely harmony hook in the chorus, but as I've become more acquainted, it's revealed itself to be one of the most moving, gorgeous and well-constructed pop songs that I've encountered this year. Every sound and texture in this stark, minimal arrangement is careful and thoughtfully deployed, but it's not stuffy or overworked. It's organic and loose, with all the sounds framing Rebecca Taylor's vocal performance, which is so nuanced in its phrasing that tiny inflections convey volumes of emotional subtext. The text is gutting enough as it is – she's singing about knowing that her close connection to someone is going to end one way or another – but the mature musical decisions made at every moment in this piece result in something incredibly moving. Buy it from Amazon.

Kathryn Calder "Who Are You?"

I feel like every time I write about Kathryn Calder, I am compelled to describe her voice as "princessy." But that's how it sounds to me – not in the Taylor Swift sense, but in a regal, demure yet self-possessed sort of way. I was disappointed by Calder's first solo record from last year, but this number from her second album is much more of what I'd like to hear from her – crisp, clear and catchy like music she plays in the New Pornographers, but in a style that wouldn't quite fit in with that band's style. In this case, it's synth-pop. Calder's voice slips perfectly into that milieu, amping up her gentle humanity on the verses, and an ethereal School of Seven Bells quality on the chorus. Buy it from Amazon.

Los Campesinos! "By Your Hand"

It's funny how the sound of five years ago always seems to feel a bit uncomfortable. Los Campesinos! are an extremely mid-00s band, essentially the U.K. answer to hyper-articulate, sharp-tongued emo-pop bands like Fall Out Boy and Say Anything. This song, the first single from their upcoming fourth album, weds that style to the overblown everyone-singing-at-once style that's just as much Alphabeat as it is the Arcade Fire or Bright Eyes. It's all basically the same, though: Overwhelming romance filtered through defensive cynicism. That feeling may well be out of place in the current cultural climate, but I don't think that will stop a lot of people from caring about this sort of thing. It's just that it won't be cool again for some time. I get the sense that a lot of people are a little embarrassed by these sort of huge, heart-on-sleeve tunes and have, in large part, moved on to artists who are more cerebral, aggressive or stoned into total abstraction. I hope bands like this stick to their guns instead of folding and coming back together when it's their time to get on the reunion circuit. Pre-order it from Los Campesinos!

St. Vincent "Dilettante"

St. Vincent's Annie Clark is very fixated on how we create a public facade. While Actor was focused on a struggle to hide inner turmoil from the outside world, Strange Mercy is more concerned with relationships and how the persona and image we project informs how we connect – or do not connect – with other people. A lot of the characters on the record possess some degree of confidence or charm, or at least sell people on the idea that they do. The anxiety in the music mainly comes out of a feeling that you're betraying yourself on some level for the sake of pragmatism and social advantage. The characters in "Dilettante" are slippery and emotionally distant; neither seems to be sure of where they stand with the other. There's a lot of implied sexual tension, but even more overt contempt. Clark's protagonist is undermining and dismissive, but in a sexy, cavalier sort of way. Most other St. Vincent songs convey some sense of angst and dread, but the arrangement of this number has a glamorous swagger to it, it seems to strut around imperiously with excellent posture. It's vaguely funky in its sway, her voice is lightly flirtatious even when uttering lines like "I have no patience for an estrangement." There's a touch of ugliness and discomfort along the way, but for the most part this is an incredibly well-drawn portrait of someone whose callousness has made them very attractive. Buy it from Amazon.

Wild Flag "Something Came Over Me"

Wild Flag is more surprising and interesting for me as a Mary Timony fan than as a Sleater-Kinney fan. Carrie Brownstein is very much in her element and her obvious thrill in playing energetic, fun rock music is one of the top selling points for the band in general. Even still, when she sings I can't help but hear the absence of Corin Tucker, who complemented Carrie's rock spirit with raw, visceral emotion. Timony's a very different foil, but even when she's singing lead on songs that boast her distinctive singsong and curling guitar melodies, I hear Brownstein's influence on her style and phrasing. It's not a bad thing, though – after a decade or so of solo records full of good ideas that didn't always translate into great music, it's exciting to hear Timony sound so focused and bold. She's never sounded so extroverted! "Something's Come Over Me" is the best of her lead vocal tracks – there's a flirty quality to it, as though she's revisited the sexuality of her early Helium material but replaced her early-20s coyness with a forthright, mature femininity. Buy it from Amazon.

The Weeknd "Life of the Party"

Rap and R&B; songs weren't always about ostentatious wealth and the hedonistic yet rigid mating rituals of "the club," but after more than a decade of these ideas being the center of popular music, it's easy to feel like it was ever thus. The Weeknd belongs to this tradition, but with two caveats: He writes about entering this world as an ambivalent outsider, and he presents even the elements he enjoys as sorta grotesque and soul-deadening. Everything we're used to hearing as glamorous and sexy gets turned into a horror show. His two albums from this year are essentially the interior monologue of a guy who is trying to satisfy his desires and make use of his social capital while desperately trying to cling to his humanity, and the struggle can get pretty harrowing. This seems to be a thread in a lot of R&B; and rap right now – you hear it in Kanye West, though he's pretty far gone down his crazy rabbit hole, and you definitely hear it in Drake, though he's so self-absorbed that he rarely includes the well-observed details of other characters and social dynamics that make The Weeknd's music so rich and compelling. Get it for free from The Weeknd.

The-Dream featuring Big Sean "Ghetto"

Most of The-Dream's 1977 – technically it's a mixtape, but it's as deliberately conceived and constructed as a proper album – finds the singer engaging in some rather bitter rants against his ex-wife. Most of the songs are like the musical equivalent of the crazy, gut-spilling emails you might find yourself writing in the middle of the night in a fit of intense emotion but should never ever ever ever actually send. The-Dream is consistently self-aggrandizing, but apparently has no concern for how he may be interpreted – one way or another, he's clearly brave enough to be willing to come off like a petty, horrible person on record, because oh boy does he ever. Some of the tracks are a bit too toxic for my liking, but I am very fond of "Ghetto," a track that grinds through a few different modes as the singer grapples with complicated, wildly conflicting emotions as he gets used to the idea of not having sex with his ex anymore. As on previous The-Dream songs, his excessive investment in his sexual prowess is fascinating – the bravado is so transparent, the raw desperation to assert his masculinity and eagerness to please is impossible to miss. Get it for free from Dat Piff.