Pure Bathing Culture
“Ivory Coast” 
Take Beach House’s dream-whipped shoegaze pop, strip away the gloss, and drug it with a killer dose of Julee Cruise. Presto—you’ve got the gorgeous hipster lullaby “Ivory Coast”, which makes you wish David Lynch would start making movies again, if only because this gold-star wonder is pretty much tailor-made for the soundtrack.

Killer Mike 
“Reagan”
Part of the fun with Killer Mike’s furious history of class war in the U.S. is watching liberal bloggers wring their hands over its “controversial” content. Suck it up, dummies! That’s Bonzo lying through his leathered ass in the song’s intro, as surely as his administration ran both sides of the drug war and slaughtered a lot of peasants while they did it—a program that, as Mike notes, continues in other forms under President Charming B. Wonderhope. Not to get all dark or anything, but Mike’s shit is a fuck of a lot more real than the preferred middle-class form of protest (going to see Eddie Vedder high-five Bruce Springsteen).

Santigold
“Disparate Youth” 
Its whip-snap beat and machine-gun guitar bursts are an odd yet somehow perfect counterpoint to the airy synth washes and Santi White’s compelling matter-of-fact vocal delivery. The song’s lyrics are political and empowering (“We know now we want more/A life worth fighting for”) but with no particular agenda. In a year without much action from the Occupy set, “Disparate Youth” was the best inchoate protest going.

Merchandise
“Become What You Are” 
This 10-minute track from Tampa Bay–based faux-punk project Merchandise embodies early ’80s British tendencies and a bass line that will not quit. The song is haunting, beautiful, and extremely catchy. The band’s EP Children of Desire is filled with similar good stuff, but “Become What You Are” is among the most infectious songs of the year.

Pussy Riot 
“Putin Lights Up the Fires” 
Just when you thought punk had lost its power to truly fuck with the system, whatever that means, Pussy Riot reminded us that the spirit of the genre is alive and kicking, especially where its combative self-expression is most needed. At first glance, “Putin Lights Up the Fires” may be your standard three-chord blitz. But it’s remarkable when you consider that the subversive single was released just hours after three Pussy Riot members were sentenced to two years in a Russian prison camp for protesting Vladimir Putin’s oppressive regime.

Carly Rae Jepsen
“Call Me Maybe”
The pride of Mission beat out all other contenders for the year’s top chart sensation. So call us, baby. Just don’t call us on the embarrassing fact that not only do hipster rock journos know who Jepsen is, they watch her videos.