22 BLACK KIDS PAR TIE TRAUMATIC Victims of an Internet-buzz backlash before their debut album’s release, this interracial, mixed-gender Florida quintet inspired both adoration and bile. Mixing unrepentant earnestness with drolly goofy wordplay, flagrantly un-macho frontman Reggie Youngblood sighs and swoons over garage-pop melodies given a caramelized sheen by producer Bernard Butler. But even slicked-up amateurs don’t ordinarily wield hooks as commanding as the album’s opening glam-slam guitar fanfare. B.W.

21KINGS OF LEON ONL Y B Y THE NIGHT The Followill clan are the Chauncey Gardiners of rock. Since becoming stars (at least overseas) in 2002 chiefly by looking the part, they’ve gradually swapped out their Strokes-via-Skynyrd posturing for U2-leaning arena rock (after playing arenas with U2). And now the Kings’ fourth full-length finds this transformation paying full dividends— the slow-burn “Use Somebody” aims, expertly, for the cheap seats, while the charmingly dopey “Sex on Fire” is an indelible single, despite itself. S.K.

20GNARLS BARKLE Y THE ODD COUPLE A batch of “Crazy” sequels would’ve made more financial sense. But the world’s most depressing party band dialed back the sticky choruses and upped the cinematic self-doubt and loneliness, with Danger Mouse’s beats and backdrops providing gorgeously slippery ground for Cee-Lo’s soulful ruminations. The raspy frontman is both amped (the shimmying “Run” and “Going On”) and mournful (the trip-hoppy “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul”), but nearly always shattering. J.M.

19 OKKERVIL RIVER THE S TAND INS Who releases sequel albums? Only someone whose songs hold up to literary, as well as musical, scrutiny. The Stand Ins—which follows 2007’s The Stage Names—towers on both counts: Will Sheff’s alternately biting and weary stories of doubt and falsity resonate because he slings memorable poetic images (“You won’t wait for me in some secluded stand of trees / Some Christmas Eve, some god was kind enough to set aside”) wrapped in gorgeously unslick indie pop. J.M.

20 BEST SONGS 2008

1Paper Planes M.I.A. Purring over a slinky sample of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” portraying third-world capitalism as a blunted Crip walk across the international date line, M.I.A. finally busts up the hip-hop locker room, snapping towels. On the remix, a basso profundo Bun B’s got her back.

2Kids MGMT

In the mid-’90s, the film Kids stoked fears of young people as drug-damaged, disease-carrying rapists who beat old people bloody with skateboards. MGMT’s “Kids,” however, is an irresistibly wistful, electropop rite of passage where boys and girls are advised to “take only what you need from it.” Can it be that’s it’s all so simple now?

3A Milli LIL WAYNE

A Tourette’s refrain, trash-can beat, and lyrics that equate the writing process to leaking menstrual blood on a tablet. Only in Weezyana!

4Time to Pretend
MGMT

From wide-eyed to sarcastic to resigned in the space of a bong hit, the duo peer off their major-label sundeck and reminisce about Mom, Dad, and the dog through a gooey synth-rock haze.

5L.E.S. Artistes
SANTOGOLD

A thirtysomething vet of hipster warfare puts on her purple leotard and defiantly strides through this garage-pop anthem about the sacrifices of success.

6Little Bit LYKKE LI Backed by dabs of steel drum, wood block, and mandolin on a serenely bubbling bass line, Li coos the year’s most openhearted romantic ditty.

7Rockferry DUFFY

The Dusty-est of all Springfield pastiches builds a majestic pop-soul “house of sorrow,” and Duffy’s gale-force tremble of a voice blows it down.

8Golden Age

TV ON THE RADIO Postelection, this feels like prophecy, as Kyp Malone falsettos and shim-mies to the promised land, amid strings, congas, horns, and synth-bass fuzz, “blowing up like a ghetto blaster.”

9I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You BLACK KIDS

There’s no better way to spend a spring night than doot-dooting and spazzing out at this riot-grrrl (and boy) prom as the mirror-ball, indie-pop drama unfolds.

10High Cost of Living JAMEY JOHNSON Praying while getting high in a Southern Baptist parking lot, Johnson

plays this country saga like Toby Keith’s darkest night of the soul—no beer for his horses or for anybody else.

11Cappuccino THE KNUX A Creole stepchild of Beck’s “Where It’s At” and the Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By.” Crackling guitar, wheezing organ, and beignets included.

12Buriedfed MILES BENJAMIN ANTHONY ROBINSON

Like the soundtrack to an episode of Intervention directed by a passive-aggressive Sam Peckinpah. “Shit, man, I ain’t even dead,” says Billy the Kid to Pat Garrett as the casket passes.

13While You Wait for
the Others LIVE ON
KCRW , GRIZZLY BEAR

The most beautifully brittle of the 4,367 songs currently indebted to Brian Wilson and Pet Sounds.

14Put On (Remix) YOUNG JEEZY, FEAT. JAY Z Somehow, mid-recession, Jeezy’s consumerist catalog of crack-spot swag transformed into a nationwide anthem of hometown hood pride. Kanye’s sinister gospel production didn’t hurt (nor did that punch line about her weave looking like curly fries!).

15Fascination
ALPHABEAT

Imagine if Abba’s grandkids trashed High School Musical and made it even giddier.

16Supernatural Superserious R.E.M. Michael Stipe reaches out to humiliated summer-camp teens, and Pete Buck chimes in with his most thrilling power-chord riff ever.

17Violent Sensation
Descends VIOLENS

In 1966, this alternately ominous and sparkly nugget would’ve been the No. 50 British single of the year, after the Creation’s “Making Time.” It’s that good.

18Celebrate the
Body Electric
(It Came From
an Angel) PON Y TAIL

Punk-rock double Dutch, with all the B-girls screaming like their skulls are on fire.

19Blind HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR

Sylvester takes Kurt Weill to the threepenny disco and gets mighty real.

20Titus Andronicus TITUS ANDRONICUS

Indie-rock clarion call from butt-crack suburban New Jersey, with the traffic-stopping inspirational yawp: “Fuck everything / Fuuuuck me!”

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