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The 25 Best Singles of 2010

I don’t want to overstate the case for our new decade’s first breakout star, but I can’t help hearing 2010’s pop music in terms of the Gaga Effect.

The 25 Best Singles of 2010
Photo: Def Jam

I don’t want to overstate the case for our new decade’s first breakout star, but I can’t help hearing 2010’s pop music—at its schlockiest and its most inspired—in terms of the Gaga Effect. On the one hand, opportunistic label hacks interpreted the Gaga phenomenon as a call to the dance floor—specifically, the dance floor of a trashy European discotheque, possibly located in Paris or Berlin, but more likely stashed away in the coke-addled collective memory of the 1980s. Everyone from Christina to Usher to Ke$ha tried to cash in with their own bombastic club records, but anyone who thought that manufacturing “the next Gaga” was as easy as stacking synths behind their pop star of choice was mistaken. Gaga wasn’t challenging her fellow musicians to a dance-off, she was challenging them to get smarter, get stranger, and go for bigger hooks and concepts.

Take Robyn and Kanye West, who between them fill one-fifth of the spots our singles list. Their ambitious brands of pop auteurism predate Gaga considerably (you can see both of their faces on Slant’s Best of 2008 list), but it’s also easy to see each of them reworking their craft for maximum impact on the pop landscape she defined. If Gaga can drop a killer eight-song EP that hits harder than her full-length, then why shouldn’t Robyn drop three? If Gaga can do a nine-minute art film for “Alejandro,” then what should stop Kanye from producing his own 35-minute “Runaway” video?

Still, not all praises are due to Gaga, whose own success owes to a confluence of forces that always make for great pop, and all over the year’s musical map those same qualities continued to yield great rewards. You want dance music that’s not afraid to push boundaries? Hot Chip, Crystal Castles, and La Roux had you covered. You want to see artists toe the line between novelty and instant classic? Look no further than Cee-Lo and Gorillaz. You want ambition? Check out Sade and Hanson, who no one thought would be relevant in 2010, but here they are, doing some of the best work of their careers by trying their hands, respectively, at trip-hop and power-pop.

And if there was ever a year where we needed pop to do its exhilarating best, 2010 was it. Beyond escapism, pop music provided the brainpower, the emotional nuance, and most of all, the vision that the rest of the country, particularly in the political arena, lacked. Though we always count on pop music to give us what we want, the best pop is just as capable of giving us what we need. Matthew Cole

Editor’s Note: Check out our list of the 25 Best Albums of 2010.

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25. The Drums, “Let’s Go Surfing”

Jonathan Pierce and his bandmates are gifted, bittersweet nerds, reinvigorating the old Weezer-esque image of geeky high schoolers caught between unrequited romance and suburb-driven escapism. “Let’s Go Surfing” is “Surf Wax America” for a new generation, its whistled melody line and hair-thin accompaniments somehow heavier and more meaningful than they seem at first listen. Pierce’s sly, beckoning vocals hold the barest hint of angst during the verse, only to explode into a ludicrously worded, strangely melancholy chorus of “Mama, I wanna go surfing/Oh, Mama, I don’t care about nothing” Even when breaking down into the simple but oh-so-catchy refrains of a popular jump-rope sing-along, the Drums evokes a savvy mix of tongue-in-cheek melodrama and genuine wistfulness. Never has a surfing-based song been filled with so much wry—and oddly satisfying—despair. Kevin Liedel


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24. Laurie Anderson, “Only an Expert”

Laurie Anderson, like William S. Burroughs and the makers of Pontypool, considers language a virus. This is why her voice on Homeland, an album steeped in confusion and dotted with lacerating humor, is often made to sound diseased. Perhaps its most indelible track, “Only an Expert” is a scathing amalgamation of observations about climate change, the shithole of war, our obsession with Oprah Winfrey, and our alarmist’s populace’s subservience to corporate interests. The borderline-cat-lady kookiness is alleviated by Anderson’s customary wit and fondness for BPM. This is dance music for people barely getting by. Ed Gonzalez


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23. Drake f/ T.I. and Swizz Beatz, “Fancy”

Like T.I., who offers a guest verse on Thank Me Later’s fourth single, Drake’s popularity undoubtedly owes some credit to his broadly appealing good looks. But songs like “Fancy” offer a look into an artist with a careful eye for the kind of niceties that most rappers ignore. Too often that perceptiveness is directed inward, hamstringing his songs by picking at his insecurities; here it’s pitched toward the insecurities of others, a conceit that’s more interesting and leaves more room for specific detail. Using a woman’s mirror ritual as a window into her soul, the song paints a complex personal character portrait that finds a neat abstract in its hook and is equal parts teasing and admiring. Jesse Cataldo


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22. Japandroids, “Younger Us”

Japandroids put out a couple singles this year. Of the two, “Art Czars” actually pushed their sound and thematic concerns forward a bit, while “Younger Us” provided a roundly un-progressive example of Japandroids doing the two things they do best: slacking off and looking back. Okay, three things: They also play incredibly fast and loud, churning out more noise than a drum kit and a single guitar should be capable of producing. Melodramatic from start to wailing, wordless end, the song is an ode to the days when you stay out late and get trashed because it’s genuinely exhilarating and fun, not because there’s nothing better to do, when your friends are the people you feel closest to in your life, not a grab bag of neighbors and co-workers, and when, most of all, you can’t even imagine a time when your life won’t seem all that exciting. Here’s to never getting too old for Japandroids. Cole

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21. Laura Bell Bundy, “Giddy on Up”

The western-as-drag-revue video for “Giddy on Up” actually does a considerable disservice to Broadway vet Laura Bell Bundy’s debut single, making it all too easy to dismiss her for not taking her stab at a country-music career seriously. But what works about “Giddy on Up” is absolutely worth serious consideration. Bundy’s performance teems with genuine personality and verve, the production takes an inventive and refreshingly contemporary approach to pop-country, and the songwriting and the arrangement pay respect to some of country music’s most important signifiers. Of course, genre purists still hated it on principle, and there’s no getting around the hook’s deliberately bad pun, but “Giddy on Up” announces the arrival of a fascinating new voice on Music Row. Jonathan Keefe


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20. LCD Soundsystem, “I Can Change”

Self-interested, defeatist, and angry, James Murphy is practically a distillation of every obsessive character from a Jonathan Franzen novel. He is also, like them, open to change, even if it sounds as if it will take much prodding for him to even get halfway there. The silver lining in This Is Happening’s collection of downers, “I Can Change” boasts the album’s most succinct and vivid illustration of Murphy’s doubts and resentments as a lover. It’s woozy, glitchy synths are the sounds of a man wanting but resisting to give in to happiness, light beaming outward from a very dark void. Gonzalez


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19. Kanye West f/ Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, and Nicki Minaj, “Monster”

Forget the countless guest verses she’s dropped over the last two years, and even put aside the majority of Pink Friday: “Monster” is the point at which Nicki Minaj actually managed to live up to her considerable hype. Hell, the verse she drops here doesn’t just live up to hype, it fully upstages what the two biggest names in hip-hop put down. Whether she’s eating brains or killing other women’s careers, Minaj and her flat-out unhinged delivery simply ride the track’s beat better than any of her collaborators. However much Jay-Z may claim that “love” is his Achilles’ Heel, and however fully My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy remains ‘Ye’s show, “Monster” belongs to the self-proclaimed Harajuku Barbie. Watch the Queen conquer. Keefe


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18. Gorillaz f/ Bobby Womack and Mos Def, “Stylo”

A postcard from the far-flung wasteland that is Plastic Beach (the exclusive members lounge for counterculture icons like De La Soul and Mark E. Smith), “Stylo” provided a tense foretaste of the Gorillaz’s third album. Though Mos Def bookends the track with two terrific lo-fi verses, it’s blues legend Bobby Womack who steals the show with his apocalyptic wailing. Both men talk about harnessing electricity, which fits the stark atmosphere that this monotone, bass-heavy beat fosters. A brave choice of lead single for Damon Albarn, who could easily have turned to cheerful numbers like “Superfast Jellyfish” or anthems like “On Melancholy Hill” to spearhead the album’s hype machine. Huw Jones

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17. Hanson, “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Somethin’”

Thanks to its sincere—and sincerely terrible—dancing and its Blues Brothers homage, the music video for “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Somethin’” earned Hanson more mainstream attention than they’ve received in nearly a decade, and it’s a real shame that didn’t translate into actual airplay. “Thinkin’ ‘Bout Somethin’” isn’t the first time Hanson has released a single that, by all rights, should have turned into a radio anthem, but it’s yet more evidence that, when they hit their marks, they’re simply a phenomenal pop band. The cowbell, the airtight vocal harmonies, the cowbell, the B3 organ, the cowbell: All of it works to turn “I’ve been gettin’ a love that moves me/While you’ve been gettin’ around” into the year’s most exuberant kiss-off. Keefe


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16. Yeasayer, “O.N.E”

Perhaps the most buoyant ditty of 2010, “O.N.E” is an inescapably infectious number that draws on a vast arsenal of influences to create its wonderfully eccentric sonic. It almost feels as if the Brooklyn trio has thrown ideas at this single just for the hell of it; steel drums, soulful disco backing vocals, a distorted synth break, and the sprightliest guitar melodies imaginable. Rather than feeling haphazard, though, the track plays like an exciting medley of multifarious vibrant sounds, all vital ingredients for this outrageously catchy cocktail. Chiming and sparkling from beginning to end, it’s bound to be catalogued as an indie dance-floor classic for years to come. Jones


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15. Sade, “Soldier of Love”

It was probably too much to ask for an entire Sade album that sounds like it was produced by Timbaland and Portishead, because that’s the only way to describe the title track from the band’s first record in 10 years. Their best single since their best single, “Ordinary Love,” “Soldier of Love” is an anthem that, after a decade of public silence, find’s lead singer and namesake Sade Adu’s reliably supple voice hardened by bitterness and frayed by time. The six-minute “Soldier” is the band’s most aggressive track to date, a stately trumpet declaring war on behalf of wounded lovers everywhere, Sade intoning robotically atop a military march: “I’ve lost the use of my heart, but I’m still alive” Sade, both the band and the singer, have never sounded this edgy. Sal Cinquemani


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14. Little Big Town, “Little White Church”

Country singers are generally too polite to come right out and ask, “Whose pussy is this?” the way, say, Nicki Minaj might, but that’s still the gist of Little Big Town’s ultimatum here. Karen Fairchild gives a throaty, lived-in performance that spells out exactly what her man stands to lose, lest he make an honest woman out of her. The blues guitar riff that drives the song dirties up the arrangement a bit, but it’s the handclaps-only B section and, as always, LBT’s impeccable four-part harmonies that really make “Little White Church” distinctive and seductive, one of the few bright spots on country radio this year. Keefe

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13. Crystal Castles f/ Robert Smith, “Not In Love”

Crystal Castles brought the original “Not In Love,” a wispy 1984 hit by Canadian hair-rockers Platinum Blonde, into the new decade by dressing it up in their own brand of dark, chunky synth-play. The single version adds a layer of winking irony by replacing the ambiguous vocal filtering with the Cure’s Robert Smith, therefore making the track sound more authentically ’80s than even the original Platinum Blonde version. The crunchy production combined with Smith’s familiar pangs is heart-wrenching and nothing short of blisteringly gorgeous: His voice strained, centered, and unabashedly naked, Smith takes the song from quirky, gloomy cover to electro-goth tragedy, and likewise, Crystal Castles from shadowy provocateurs to post-punk superstars. Liedel


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12. Florence and the Machine, “Dog Days Are Over”

This year started out kind of rough and ended up kind of awesome for me, and through the whole thing, “Dog Days Are Over” was my jam: in bad times, it’s the kind of song that works like a mantra of affirmation; in good times, its huge chorus and propulsive tribal beat is pop revelry of the highest level. But whether you’re celebrating or just keeping your head down, the central appeal of the song is the same. Florence Welch’s voice rivets from beginning to end, and when she instructs, “Leave all your love and your longing behind/You can’t carry them with you if you want to survive,” she doesn’t sound Zen or new age, she sounds like she’s commanding you to run for your life. The song’s triumphal message was ripe for commercial appropriation, but Florence’s performance was huge enough to weather the Eat, Pray, Love trailer, the VMAs, even a half-assed Glee rendition with power to spare. Well done, Flo. Now I just need you to kick Justin Bieber’s ass at the Grammys. Cole


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11. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, “Round and Round”

So much of Before Today seemed dependent on an ironic recasting of cheesy musical relics, but a song like “Round and Round,” itself timelessly tacky and simple, would work in any context. Whether it’s a wholehearted embrace of the kind of earnestness Pink seemed to have been tweaking, or a more grounded of example of inhabiting a bygone sound, the song’s repainting of shopworn elements hits a perfect chord. Latching onto a paired bass/marimba line through an uncharacteristically peaceful intro, it shoots off onto brief, silly larks (a telephone-call voiceover, comet-trail synth swoops) returning again and again to its beautifully straightforward melody. Cataldo


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10. Kanye West f/ Dwele, “Power”

The fascinating dialectic between the halves of Kanye’s fractured persona has always been based on diverging desires, his compulsion to invoke grandiosity into everything, and his obvious discomfort with the results. This is pushed to its furthest with “Power,” the slain-king imagery of the single’s cover acting as the dreary inverse to that of the album itself: there he willfully embraced his demons; here he’s toppled by them, indicating a tone which wavers between celebration and self-condemnation. Even without the complexity engendered by the song’s vacillation between these two poles, “Power” would be an awesome achievement, a rich, buzzing patchwork of obvious samples and unexpected sounds. Cataldo

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9. Hot Chip, “One Life Stand”

The title track and lead single from Hot Chip’s latest album may be the sweetest and most genuine ode to monogamy that exists anywhere. Forget about dates, forget marriage; Alexis Taylor is interested in so much more, as he affirms “I only wanna be your one life stand” with his convivial everyman charm. It’s a lovely message, and serves as a splendid centrepiece for this single. The verses are accentuated by deformed Caribbean steel drums and laser sound effects, while the chorus boasts a barrage of warm, sonorous synths. This could be the most radio-friendly slab of upbeat pop we’ve heard from Taylor and company, but it struggled to chart significantly on either side of the Atlantic as the record-buying company parted with their money for messages of promiscuity and bad romances instead. Oh well. Their loss. Jones


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8. La Roux, “Bulletproof”

There’s really no explaining how or why British synth-pop duo La Roux managed to sneak itself onto U.S. radio playlists this year while the likes of Robyn, Little Boots, and other Euro pop acts remained largely ignored. Not that “Bulletproof” is undeserving: It’s all video-game bleeps and stiff beats, with singer Elly Jackson fancying herself an impenetrable computer. But with a malfunctioning communication system (“I won’t let you in again/The messages I tried to send/My information’s just not going in”), Jackson’s declaration that “This time, baby, I’ll be bulletproof” ultimately just sounds like wishful thinking. Cinquemani


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7. Robyn, “Indestructible”

The last sentence of my Body Talk Pt. 2 review pretty much sums it up: “If the acoustic version of the song is any indication, the forthcoming ‘four to the floor’ mix is likely to match or even surpass both ‘With Every Heartbeat’ and ‘Dancing on My Own’ for sheer emo power in Robyn’s increasingly impressive canon” “Indestructible” doesn’t quite match, let alone surpass, those songs, if only because it follows the template (employed throughout the Body Talk series with aplomb) so faithfully, but its Cerrone-inspired disco strings and the way in which Robyn proclaims her love with such fearless abandon (the antithesis of La Roux’s “Bulletproof”) makes it another in a series of near-perfect electro-pop jewels from the Swedish pop singer. Cinquemani


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6. Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, “Telephone”

Lady Gaga originally wrote “Telephone” for Britney Spears, though, as someone who likes to dance and resents having to take my phone everywhere, I could believe that Mama Monster wrote the song just for me. Britney’s probably regretting her decision to pass on the tune, but there’s no doubt that her loss was the dance floor’s gain. It came out of the box with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hooks and a genius double-timed verse, but, for DJs, it was the gift that kept on giving, inspiring countless club-destroying remixes (picks of the litter: Passion Pit and Alphabeat). And thanks to Beyoncé’s hysterically overdriven solo, it’s also one of the rare marquee pop collaborations that lives up to its potential. Cole

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5. Big Boi f/ Cutty, “Shutterbugg”

Just as Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty fully revealed the layered complexities lurking behind Big Boi’s straight-man image, its lead single, seemingly a low-key piece of airy fluff, proved to be a work of striking craftsmanship. The Scott Storch-produced song’s beat functions as a breathy respite on an album packed with thick funk and towering horns, offering a crisply cycling undercurrent that shifts beneath the rapper’s soft touch. It’s the kind of backing track that can easily slip by unnoticed, but the consummate care devoted here, whether in the fresh crispness of its handclaps or the burbling bassiness of its inspired vocal riff, is what truly elevates the song. Cataldo


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4. Cee-Lo Green, “Fuck You!”

Behind its coarse, unimaginative title, “Fuck You!” is a revelation—a gospel-fueled romp which proves that all the usual industry go-to’s (no-frills pop production, teenage-friendly narratives, a dash of retro flavor, and good-natured shock value) still make for interesting listens when done right. Cee-Lo Green ends up channeling another famous Green (that would be Al) in an ecstatic rant of self-deprecation, humor, and heart-on-his-sleevism, even having the courage to tear into a full-on, whiny temper tantrum mid-song. As bitter as the events he recounts might be, the Goodie Mob/Gnarls Barkley alum is clearly having fun, and ably spreads it out onto the listening masses. “Although there’s pain in my chest,” Green croons sincerely, “I still wish you the best…with a ‘fuck you!’” Liedel


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3. Kanye West f/ Pusha T, “Runaway”

Once you get past the fact that “Runaway” sounds a lot like a mashup of Primitive Radio Gods’s 1996 hit “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” and a movement from György Ligeti’s Musica ricercata, it’s hard not to get pulled into West’s quasi-self-deprecation. Though the song’s lyrics run an inventory of the rapper’s relationship failures, some forgivable (“I’m so gifted at finding what I don’t like the most”) and others not so much (“I sent this bitch a picture of my dick”), it’s hard not to read it as both an apologia for, and a celebration of, his perpetually bad public behavior. Cinquemani


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2. Janelle Monáe f/ Big Boi, “Tightrope”

Monáe’s ode to keeping your cool is easily the best song on The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III of IV). What’s harder is picking out the best part. Is it the joyous breakdown, where Monáe shouts, “You can’t get too high!” and sounds like a young Michael Jackson? The Motown horn riot that breaks out afterward? Or the way the whole thing moves seamlessly from party music to spooky, noirsh soul in the final minute? Big Boi’s verse, where he rhymes “ass crack” with “NASDAQ” is a strong contender, so is Monáe’s own rap, which rhymes “alligators” with “rattlesnakers” and “terminator” In fact, the only part of the song I don’t love is where it ends. That part always comes too soon. And for the record, my favorite part is when Monáe says, “Some callin’ me a sinner/Some callin’ me a winner/I’m callin’ you to dinner and you know exactly what I mean!” Gets me every time. Cole

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1. Robyn, “Dancing on My Own”

Few artists risk Robyn’s emotional nakedness, and with “Dancing on My Own” she reveals the exquisite flipside to her more empowered “With Every Heartbeat” Once upon a time, she walked away from him, accepting a broken heart because to stay would have hurt infinitely more. Now he’s with someone else. She’s still alone. In the club, in the corner somewhere, her body, like her mind, spinning in circles. Something about those bouncing beats, the way they shoot from the speakers and ricochet around her like beams of light, resonates with her feelings of yearning, doubt, regret. For most, the club is an arena for escape. For Robyn, it’s a place for heartbreaking introspection. Gonzalez

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