Wire
One of Us (Pink Flag)

With its gritty, pulsating bass, danceable beat, and sardonic refrain (“One of us will live to rue the day we met each other”), this is a concrete example of why Wire has outlasted all of its first-wave punk peers.

The Clientele
Share the Night (Merge)

The Clientele—known for its very English brand of reverb-saturated twee pop—combines a funk beat, acid-washed guitar swirls, and a Dylanesque lead vocal while somehow sounding like itself.

Sufjan Stevens
Ring Them Bells (Sony)
Sufjan Stevens takes an obscurity from 1989’s Oh Mercy and recasts it as a Basement Tapes–era gem, complete with Woodstock-approved folk-baroque production flourishes.

Rat Wakes Red
Energy Garage (Rat Disk)

Sentimentality at its best that will have you pining for the musings of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and nights spent lolling about town as a young buck. Or buckess.

Neil Diamond
Pretty Amazing Grace (Sony)
The vintage hit machine gives us an age-appropriate “Solitary Man” (with a familiar touch of bossa nova in the chorus) while contemplating the long taper of a legendary life.

Fur Bearing Animals
Ivy Harvey Shoes (Indie)
A blast of old-school funk and gritty folk, infused with mild-mannered synth and violin, that’s irresistibly dance-worthy.

Tom Taylor
Wagon Train (Curve Music)
Former singer-guitarist for local roots-rock faves She Stole My Beer tells a compelling tale of pioneer life back in the old west, made particularly tasty by Steve Dawson’s ace slide guitar.

Brant Bjork
Punk Rock Guilt (Low Desert Punk)
The title track of the former Kyuss and Fu Manchu member’s new solo CD shows that the spirit of stoner rock is not only alive and well, but also getting fried in Palm Beach somewhere.

Hot Rod
I Like to Fuck (Interscope)

G Unit member Hot Rod spits rhymes so filthy we can’t bring ourselves to quote them. Let’s just say that every man with a functioning libido will relate. Even MySpace ’ho Tila Tequila can’t ruin this jam.

Sigur Rós
Gobbledigook (EMI)

Everyone’s favourite band of Icelandic wood sprites goes acoustic for its new single, an uncharacteristically up-tempo stomp-along.

Common
Universal Mind Control (Geffen)

A nod to Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force circa “Planet Rock” (but minus the Kraftwerk melody), this Neptunes-produced banger is an electro-fuelled throwback, made for bumping with the windows rolled down.