Songs 30-21 Are Cool. Songs 30-21 Be Poppin’.

In this edition,  lots of Europeans and lots of Americans.  Surprise!

30. Jens Lekman, The Opposite of Hallelujah

Jens Lekman originally released this song on an EP two years ago, but it was so good it ended up on the Swedish troubadour’s Night Falls Over Kortedala album, too. The upbeat string and bell-filled diddy sounds like a cheery Stevie Jackson composition, which is totally at odds with the melancholy lyrics (which are the best part of the song.) Lekman has a way of contrasting really tedious trivialities with romantic generalizations about life–in this case, trying to understand his sister by taking her to the beach and failing when he can’t talk to her in cliches. He’s sort of like a more cosmopolitan Eef Barzelay, less committed to rhyme and popular culture and with the added bonus of a seductively stoned-sounding baritone.

29. Stereo Total, Miss Rebellion des Hormones

Normally goofy and abrasive, or schlocky and cartoonish, Stereo Total kicked off their Paris-Berlin album with delightful and oddly mature keyboards. Miss Rebellion des Hormones still has Francoise Cactus’s crazy voice, and if I remembered any of my six years of French class I’m sure I could tell you that the lyrics are silly as heck, but this is the kind of song you might want to play at a dance party for your sophisticated friends that dress well and drink archaic cocktails, as opposed to your goofy friends that drink PBR like it’s cool and then watch Yo Gabba Gabba while they smoke pot.

28. Britney Spears, Toy Soldier

Blackout, Britney Spears’s good-if-not-amazing new album, could have gone in a lot of directions, and I really think it would have been better if it hadn’t veered so far in the “songs-that-are-obviously-about-my-ex-husband-that-my-army-of-songwriters-and-producers-wrote-for-me” direction. That’s lame. However, regardless of who wrote it or who’s singing it or who it’s about, Toy Soldier is a really good song. It’s all about the military drumbeat and the line about walking like the city boys do in New York. Well, also the one about hitting the scene in her new wagon. Britney’s vocals–not generally her strong suit–work here. She sounds like Betty Boop riding on a float in a victory parade.

27. Northern State, Sucka Mofo

Those of you that were listening to my countdown on the radio the other night might remember that I played Mother May I instead of this song at #27. I think both songs are equally good, but Sucka Mofo–the one with too many cuss words to play on the radio–kind of sticks with me more because, for one thing, I apparently like it when New York rappers pretend they’re country. (You know, like 718 by Fannypack two years ago–speaking of which, who knew that song would come back on the soundtrack to possibly the single dumbest-looking movie of this year?) More importantly, I like the verse about dumb rich people and global warming. That, and when they rhyme “shit is startin’” with “Olive Garden.”

26. Hilary Duff, With Love

Every year, one or two artists surprise me. Like Ashlee Simpson last year. Hell, this year even Avril Lavigne came out with a halfway-decent song. (Well, a decent chorus, anyway.) But I never, ever thought I would like anything Hilary Duff did. She’s so… Disney. And not even fun Disney. She’s really boring Disney. She’s like Helen Hunt for pre-teens. And I even liked the Lizzie McGuire show.

But then, totally out of the blue, With Love came out. What turned out to basically be an ad for her fragrance (as opposed to Stuff by Hilary Duff, her Target line,) the song was also one of the year’s tightest and bounciest. New, mature Hilary (note her darker hair) wasn’t quite vampy enough for my liking, but her electro-pop ditty was enough to make me almost forget that she’s basically a pawn of the world’s largest entertainment company, existing solely to market perfume and backpacks to children since she was about ten.

25. Bjork, Earth Intruders

A decade ago I thought Bjork was really awesome. And, you know, so did a lot of other gay fifteen year-olds. No disrespect to her early solo work (it’s still awesome), but the woman’s music just doesn’t speak to me these days. I don’t know if it’s because she’s gotten weirder, or if I’ve just gotten bitter. In fact, if it weren’t for Timbaland’s grubby yet talented mitts getting all over this song, her return to pop (ie not a cappella) music would probably have been pretty insufferable. The verses to this song are probably the Bjorkiest thing she’s ever done and, y’know, that’s pretty Bjorky. Try singing along with it if you don’t know what I mean. The chorus, if it is a chorus, grounds the song some, while the beats thump along unabated while she wails at length about carnage and furiosity. Just because of the strange energy, this is my favorite Bjork song since Selmasongs, or maybe even Homogenic. (Unrelatedly, I saw Chris Ewan from the Future Bible Heroes play this song when he DJed a gay goth night, and boy do the gay goths have trouble dancing to it.)

24. Jamelia, Beware of the Dog

I really have no problem with people ripping off other people, as long as they rip off something good. Like, Daughtry ripping off that dreadfully popular Nickelback sound? No, thanks. But when British R&B singer Jamelia decided to copy a certain mega-hit of last year, only with a Depeche Mode sample instead of a Soft Cell one, I had no qualms about playing the hell out of it. And, seriously, how can you argue (or avoid laughing) when she commands you to reach out and touch her?

23. PJ Harvey, When Under Ether

I’ve always really liked PJ Harvey, but never really got into her as much as I should have. Like, this year I read Kate Schatz’s book about Rid of Me, but even after finishing the book, I’ve still never actually listened to that album. Also, if my house was on fire and I had to grab something to take with me, I might be inclined to grab Dance Hall At Louse Point, the amazingly creepy CD that she made with John Parish, but I’ve never even bothered to buy Is This Desire? or Uh Huh Her.

Which is all leading up to me saying that I haven’t bought White Chalk yet, but I love the holy hell out of When Under Ether. I’m fascinated by the way Harvey can play the fragile female singer-songwriter without being cutesy or intentionally weird like, um, certain people that I wish would just go away and never come back.

22. Muse, Starlight

I don’t think anybody takes Muse seriously, and I’m not sure why. Ever since Muscle Museum (their still-great first single), they’ve been writing really catchy, inoffensively gloomy rock songs that aren’t much different in quality than, say, Depeche Mode in 1989. In the meantime, they’ve put out a bunch of solid albums, and all the while rock critics have been trying to insist that the really great music has been coming from boring lamewads like U2 and Coldplay. (Not to mention Wilco and the Flaming Lips….) Commercially they’re doing really well–Starlight got up to #2 on the modern rock chart this March, about six months after it was originally released, and it’s their biggest hit in the US to date. That’s as high as any British band got this year, incidentally, and for a reason–it’s just as commercial as Hilary Duff. But for tweens with dark sides (and their parents, for that matter), modern rock doesn’t get any better than this.

21. Lil Mama, Lipgloss

Do you ever have one of those moments where a song comes on and everybody around you all together starts dancing, or singing along, or just bobbing their head, and you feel like a scene from a musical could break out? I think that only happened to me once this year, and it was when I was standing in line at the ebar at Nordstrom and Lil Mama came on. The two barista people, the yuppie mom in line in front of me, her kids, some other lady and I were all overcome with happiness, and not just because it was the Nordstrom summer sale and all the coffee only cost a quarter.

This song has so many good parts. Like the part where Lil Mama reveals that her principal’s name is Miss McClarson, and then the “I be lovin’ it” theme that gets introduced right after that. There’s also the intro, and the part where Lil Mama rhymes “MAC brushes” with “these boys got crushes.” There’s also the part in the video where they drop out the music and there’s just handclaps, which is kind of funny because the only music in the song is beats designed to sound like handclaps anyway. Most of all, though, there’s the part where she says that her lipgloss is poppin’. I was hoping that poppin’ would catch on and be the new fetch, or jerkin’ (which, since I never heard anybody else say it, I guess it was.) Also, my roommate just pointed out to me that it’s kind of funny that she likes her lipgloss so much but can’t even decide what brand it is. Oh, that silly Lil Mama!

(Also, bonus points to her for making my favorite hip-hop remix of the year, where she dropped the stupid whiny verses out of Girlfriend but kept Miss Avril’s awesome catchy chorus.)