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The 25 Best Singles of 2012

Our list is a collection of songs that either survived their airwaves onslaught or deserved more.

The 25 Best Singles of 2012
Photo: Island Def Jam

What struck me when preparing to write this introduction wasn’t what made our list of the best singles of 2012, but what didn’t. Ubiquity is the surest way to kill a song, and surviving nonstop airplay, covers, and Internet memes is often the purest test of a truly great single. Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” landed at #12 on our list last year, before pop radio decided to (deservedly, but seemingly at random) pluck the New Zealander out of indie obscurity, but it likely still would have made our list again this year had it been eligible. And though the song didn’t make it, even Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” scored a couple of mentions (only the most hardened of music lovers didn’t let themselves succumb to this earworm for at least one day). On the other hand, Fun.’s “We Are Young” didn’t appear on anyone’s ballot, though it was nice to see Janelle Monáe on top of the charts where she belongs. And while there were a few K-pop songs shortlisted this year (including EXO-K’s “History” and Sistar’s “Alone”), the genre’s sole genuine crossover hit, PSY’s “Gangnam Style,” was decidedly not one of them.

What did make our list is a collection of songs that either survived their airwaves onslaught (by my count, Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been” was playing simultaneously on three different L.A. radio stations at one point this summer) or deserved more (if “Somebody That I Used to Know” could cross over, why can’t Dirty Projectors’ “Gun has No Trigger”?). Trend-spotting is always a dubious enterprise, but characters, both real and imagined, made for good song titles this year, some of which were generously sprinkled throughout our Top 75, including Andrew the drag queen, noted cancer patient Henrietta Lacks (Yeasayer’s “Henrietta”), and the titular other woman of Norah Jones’s “Miriam.” The ’80s are still being mined for gems (by Jessie Ware and Santigold, who both appear twice on our list), as are the early ’90s (Azealia Banks’s pointedly titled “1991”), which can only mean one thing: Expect the return of R&B girl groups singing about scrubs and bills, bills, bills once we go over the proverbial fiscal cliff. Sal Cinquemani

Editor’s Note: Check out our list of the 25 Best Albums of 2012.


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25. Liars, “No. 1 Against the Rush”

Liars’ best songs are about finding an idyll of relative calm within the hazy welter of peripheral noise. In “No. 1 Against the Rush,” it’s the undulating electronic pattern at the songs core, which transitions from a surging sine wave to a boxy circuitous loop, giving shape to the waves of synth and noise that surround it. Meanwhile, lead singer Angus Andrew offloads the usual cryptic lyrical gibberish, more focused on the shape of the words than their meaning, especially on the “again and again and again” verse endings. It’s another mesmerizing ode to obscurity from one of the most satisfyingly weird bands working today. Jesse Cataldo


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24. The Magnetic Fields, “Andrew in Drag”

Less fantastical and wistful than most Magnetic Fields tracks, “Andrew in Drag” is also one of Stephen Merritt’s most emotionally acute missives, with an emotional core that stands out amid all the barbs and entendres, focused on the titular character, an object of affection who doesn’t really exist, the result of a one-off gag drag performance by a heterosexual guy. Shaping an especially catchy rendering of his melancholy for the happiness existing just beyond his fingertips, the singer offers a blend of pained resignation and bottomless ennui with each mention of the titular name, resulting in a perfect expression of wryly inflected longing. Cataldo

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23. Santigold, “Big Mouth”

Dark, delusional, and dense with indictment, “Big Mouth” offers kiss-off lyrics to nameless haters. Its entrancing qualities are principally rhythmic and harmonic: Throughout Master of My Make-Believe, Santigold uses staccato twitches in her voice as a way to complete a beat, and this technique lies at the heart of “Big Mouth,” a track built otherwise on drum and bass, high-pitched faux-Gregorian chant, and the chugging stutter of a processed drumline. It’s a rave at a church, a neck-breaker that also feels like judgment day. The semi-scrutable lyrics project a knowing self-control that matches the steady thrust of the song. One imagines those downbeat references to Ke$ha and Gaga are intentional. But then one promptly forgets, and submits to the beat. Ted Scheinman


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22. Meek Mill featuring Drake, “Amen”

Following the release of “Amen,” Philadelphia reverend and self-proclaimed hip-hop fan Jomo K. Johnson made a show of publicly denouncing the track, revoking Meek Mill’s “hood pass” for the general disrespect conveyed therein. It’s hard to see what there is to get so worked about; even with the constant invocations of God’s house and Meek’s general malicious murmuring, “Amen” is about as harmless as modern rap tracks come, a good-natured backyard burble that’s pushes the off-color references to the background, more about the interplay between Meek’s off-the-cuff charm, a twinkling keyboard riff, and a wheezing organ line, possessing such a sturdy musical base that even Drake’s goofy verse feels right. Cataldo


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21. No Doubt, “Push and Shove”

No Doubt would have had to come back with a vengeance to justify its lead singer squandering a prosperous solo career in order to (admirably) regroup with her pals for their first studio album since before Osama bin Laden became a household name. Push and Shove’s first single, the catchy dancehall-pop hybrid “Settle Down,” is in many ways quintessential No Doubt, but the album’s title track had the potential to make a much more potent impact as a lead single, boldly pushing and shoving the quartet forward while maintaining their signature sound the way the first singles from their previous two albums did so successfully. Co-produced by Major Lazer, the reggae-fusion party anthem leaps from genre to genre and tempo to tempo with the kind of dexterity that can only be achieved by a band that’s remained as tight—and for as long—as No Doubt has. Cinquemani


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20. Usher, “Climax”

Both Diplo’s presence at the mixing board and the track’s similarities to the Weeknd’s drugged-out brand of R&B made “Climax” safe for tastemakers to like without sacrificing their street cred. Ultimately, though, it’s Usher’s masterful vocal turn that makes the single so effective. His lithe falsetto has never sounded better, but it’s the deliberate, measured patience of his performance that’s most impressive, particularly the way he slowly slides into notes and crescendos with each phrase in the song’s bridge. While so many of his contemporaries settle for singing that merely signifies emotions instead of actually evoking them, Usher’s delivery plays into the double entendre in the song’s title by methodically creating and then releasing tension. Jonathan Keefe

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19. Bat for Lashes, “Laura”

Natasha Khan knows how to inject just the right amount of showmanship into a song before things get too melodramatic, and the towering “Laura” stands as her best effort in straddling the line between her usual baroque-pop and the innate power of breathless histrionics. Building up like a grand stage production, “Laura” is most powerful when Khan reins in to humanize, rather than idolize, one of her familiar heroines: a wonderfully flawed, perhaps even delusional, starlet left withering without her spotlight. Fortunately, the proceedings never get too weepy, nor the swirling piano too syrupy, in our encounter with Khan’s delicate, tragic tale of faded celebrity. Kevin Liedel


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18. Kelly Hogan, “Plant White Roses”

“Plant White Roses” marks the second time in Kelly Hogan’s career, following a cover of “Papa Was a Rodeo” from the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs, that she’s taken one of Stephin Merritt’s downbeat pop songs and roped it into the country genre, making it sound like it’s always belonged there. Hogan’s greatest gift as an interpretive singer is her ability to fully inhabit even the most multifaceted of narrators, and that skill aligns perfectly with Merritt’s dense songwriting. “Plant White Roses” is one of Merritt’s finest efforts, and Hogan sings the line “You’re all I need/But you need more than country songs” with a blend of cutting self-deprecation and genuine heartbreak. Keefe


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17. Jessie Ware, “110%”

Mood and minimalism reign on “110%,” where British newcomer Jessie Ware uses hushed come-hithers and laidback sensuality to display a mastery of soulful synth-pop. The track harkens back to the simplicity of late-’70s quiet storm, an evening jam bubbling up and down with little more than some diligent percussion, a cloud of barely there synths, and a pitch-shifted Big Pun sample. Ware herself is both angelic and teasing, imploring her hesitant lover to join in on that proverbial dance of seduction with sweet but direct sexual provocations. “I know you hear me, but can you reach me?” she calls. “Feel free to touch me, and we can play hard” Liedel


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16. Alicia Keys featuring Nicki Minaj, “Girl on Fire”

The Beatles knew that a song about self-empowerment requires a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic—hence those Lennon lines about beating his wife in “Getting Better” Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj are a fitting pair for this formula, and “Girl on Fire” grooves on the interplay between Keys’s positive reinforcement and Minaj’s gimlet-eyed offerings. Minaj plays the stuntwoman here, opening the track with a morbid sequence of agile rhymes and interposing unexpectedly to offer wisdom halfway through. Those doom-struck opening lines distil a nightmare of Marilyn Monroe: “And she brought a gun with her/Pills and some rum with her” The message is that any “girl on fire” (read: super diva) should avoid the glamour of self-destruction, even if she’s aflame with inspiration and maybe has a little steam to burn off. It’s a salutary lesson, and Keys nails the chorus to the back of the stadium. Scheinman

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15. Rihanna, “Where Have You Been”

It’s telling that “Where Have You Been” omits the implied question mark in its title. Rihanna isn’t so much asking as she’s witnessing her own solitude. Like on “We Found Love,” Rihanna is almost incidental to the song, repeating the same verse and refrain while Calvin Harris’s long instrumental passages comprise the most ecstatic parts of the track. The synth-happy chorus, in which Rihanna repeats the titular rhetorical question over and over, builds to a dubstep rave-up that’s connected by the track’s single most rapturous element: a drum fill that lasts no more than a mere second. Cinquemani


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14. Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild”

While Jay-Z attempts to reconcile theology with thug life and Frank Ocean ponders the philosophical pecking order (“What’s a mob to a king? What a king to a god? What’s a god to a non-believer?”), co-producer 88 Keys morphs monkey screeches into police sirens and slows the track’s guitar sample and James Brown vocal riff down to a drawl, creating a grim, almost underwater effect. Kanye West’s boasts about snorting lines off an unnamed girl feel out of place at first, but this is, after all, a track that questions the purpose of piety in a world dominated by pain, money, and indulgence. Cinquemani


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13. Cheyenne Marie Mize, “Wishing Well”

A structural marvel that manages to be playful without ever threatening to become cloying or twee, Cheyenne Marie Mize’s “Wishing Well” owes as much to vintage R&B in terms of its form as it does to the experimental contemporary pop that makes up most of the singer-songwriter’s work. The song’s arrangement consists of nothing more than some inventively layered loops of “found” percussion that rattle and clang behind Mize’s sweet, girlish delivery as she sings of feeling increasingly hard-up: First she asks for a penny to toss into a wishing well, but by the double-timed bridge, she begs, “I’d sell my very soul/Just to get some of your anytime lovin’” Keefe

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12. WZRD, “Teleport 2 Me, Jamie”

If his rock-skirting success in side project WZRD is any indication, beneath Kid Cudi’s MC exterior beats the heart of a tortured hipster whose lovelorn agony is commensurate with his rhymes. Then again, Cudi’s melancholy has always seemed readymade for genre crisscrossing. Case in point: “Teleport 2 Me, Jamie,” an epic slice of alternative hip-hop that manages to balance its fun, Theophilus London-style slickness with a very coarse and strikingly sincere angst. Slowly unfolding with a reverb-smeared guitar riff and then culminating with the despondent strains of Desire’s ethereal “Under Your Spell,” the track is both methodical and effusive, no doubt a watershed moment for the manifold talents of Cudi’s bleak stoner persona. Liedel

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11. The Very Best featuring Seye, “Kondaine”

Esau Mwamwaya drew heat from some quarters for going too dancehall this year—perhaps under the influence of that shifty Swede Johan Hugo. In fact, 2012’s MTMTMK flipped the script, its premise being that world music over Scandanavian beats moves asses just as efficiently as Western pop over African beats. “Kondaine” affirms this premise with an assist from Nigerian-born singer Seye Adelekan and an uncredited trill or two from Ezra Koenig. All sunshine and bounce, “Kondaine” finds Mwamwaya alternating between English and his native Chewa, while Seye jumps into the chorus to celebrate a lady whom he invites on a chivalrous walk. “You walkin’ on water/You walkin’ on air,” Mwamwaya sings, and the song makes good on this sense of buoyant possibility—without losing the dancehall thump that constitutes the formidable backbone of the album. Scheinman


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10. Lana Del Rey, “National Anthem”

The fifth single from Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die doubles, much like the album, as a critique and a glorification of materialism and artifice, name-dropping “upper echelon” status symbols like the Hamptons, $2 million sports cars, and Page Six to paint a portrait of a girl looking for love in all the well-fixed places. Del Rey boasts of “blurring the lines between real and the fake” in the lyrics, and though she’s taken on various guises during her short run in the spotlight (“gangster Nancy Sinatra,” Ione Skye from Say Anything…, and, in the video for “National Anthem,” a 21st-century Jackie O), what makes the song feel authentic is the singer’s simple, robotic performance. She doesn’t try to affect a deeper, more “serious” tone the way she has on other songs, content to sing in her more natural higher register. “National Anthem” suggests what it might sound like if trip-hop had conquered hip-hop and Britney Spears actually had something to say. Cinquemani


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9. Azealia Banks, “1991”

So maybe it’s all a bit too on-the-nose as an homage, but it’s not like Azealia Banks is one for subtlety. She’s dialed back the inventive potty-mouthing that made “212” such an attention-grabber, but there’s so much going on in “1991” that Banks could never be accused of slacking off. She spits a rapid-fire 16-bar rhyme that’s a triumph of female sexual agency and makes it sound as effortless as snacking on a little pain au chocolat, and then she nimbly interweaves those rhymes into an onomatopoeic secondary vocal track before unraveling it all so she can do a spot-on impression of Ce Ce Peniston. Keefe


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8. Alabama Shakes, “Hold On”

The Alabama Shakes earned a following beyond the NPR circuit thanks to the lead single from their debut album, Boys & Girls. Built on a patient drum figure and guitar double-stops on loan from Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Hold On” isn’t just one great, glorious extended exhortation—from the singer to herself, but also to us. It’s also a fundament-kicking performance from singer Brittany Howard, almost unsettling in the range it displays. Her voice is a many-colored thing, childish and old-womanly within the same song, the kind of instrument that can turn a simple roots band into an emotional engine. The end of the song is a roiling, stutter-step carnival, and “Hold On” communicates a resilience that suggests the Shakes will keep this thing rolling. Scheinman

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7. Twin Shadow, “Five Seconds”

It follows that the music video for “Five Seconds” paints a Mad Max-style dystopia: This is an unapologetically cinematic chunk of new wave, its motoring percussion and descending chime melodies ideal for scoring a glamorous, violent car chase as it squeals across the scorched earth. It’s also Twin Shadow’s best track to date, as he channels a myriad of influences—from Phil Collins and Tears for Fears to the Psychedelic Furs and Prince—while casting off all of the residual lethargy he languished in on his debut, Forget. In embracing a new sense of speed, motion, and energy, Twin Shadow rightfully assumes the mantle as one of the most dynamic and committed of the current ’80s revivalists. Liedel


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6. Jack White, “I’m Shakin’”

Though his authenticity fetish has been present from the outset of his career, far too many of Jack White’s recent outings as both a recording artist and as a producer have been suffocated by a pervasive self-seriousness, his humorlessness coming to a head when he stormed off stage just 45 minutes into a show at Radio City Music Hall back in September. “I’m Shakin’” stands as a welcome course correction, then, as it’s as tongue in cheek and as purely fun as anything White has recorded in years. The arrangement boasts one of his most loose-limbed traditional blues licks, while his vocal turn, which peaks with a deliberately absurd exclamation of “You got me noivous,” is just one long piss-take. Keefe


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5. Santigold, “Disparate Youth”

From the very first strains of the reggae-tinged pizzicato that marks its opening, the apocalyptic “Disparate Youth” establishes itself as Master of My Make-Believe’s most hummable track. Santigold is on cruise control here, barely raising an arched eyebrow or her resigned voice throughout. Instead, she lets the rhythmic tandem of the song’s snapping drum pads, skittering keyboard flourishes, and raygun-firing guitar do most of the heavy lifting, and the resulting mix of blasé dread and dancehall funk is nothing less than infectious. If you’re going to prevail over both the sins of your fathers and an inevitably grim future, you might as well do it with a mix of derision and style. Liedel

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4. Dirty Projectors, “Gun Has No Trigger”

One of the best songs ever written about powerlessness, the title track off Dirty Projectors’ latest album offers a vaguely poeticized take on the recent financial crisis on the one hand, and a generally outlined take on impotence on the other. Whatever the authorial intent, group mastermind David Longstreth shapes the track into yet another keening, oddly shaped ballad, using his cooing female backup singers as a sharp instrumental force, their voices swelling with power only to fall back down into calm. A detached but still viscerally satisfying track, “Gun Has No Trigger” acts as the centerpiece of a roundly magnificent album. Cataldo


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3. Frank Ocean, “Pyramids”

If Drake established latent rapper guilt as a viable force in 2011, Frank Ocean made it blossom in 2012, most particularly on this massive, mournful ode to the manifold emotions accompanying a strip-club visit, swinging between bigheaded braggadocio, shameful introspection, and free-floating guilt. Shifting freely from ambient soundscapes to jagged funk guitars buried in reverb, the song also contains the best application of the album’s Stevie Wonder-aping clavinet lines, all condensed into a dizzying 10 minutes. Possessing an EP’s worth of ideas on its own, “Pyramids,” synthesizes everything that made Channel Orange the album of the year. Cataldo


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2. Jessie Ware, “Running”

Frank Ocean made a name for himself in 2012 without a distinct angle or pre-fab image, but even he had help getting thrust into the spotlight, from the Odd Future connection to the Watch the Throne guest spots to the 11th-hour coming-out blog post the day before Channel Orange was released. Even more elusively anomalous is Jessie Ware, a pop star without a hook, an astonishingly low-key presence in a year of aggressive female showmanship, getting by on her clear sense of quiet grace. Songs like “Running,” speak entirely for themselves, working off the dazzling interplay between a slinky guitar riff and Ware’s immaculately smooth voice. The track communicates that same elusiveness in a sleek, elegantly produced package, further establishing Ware as the distant, indefinable figure who remains tantalizingly out of focus. Cataldo


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1. Drake featuring Rihanna, “Take Care”

Take Care was a huge breakthrough for Drake, showing his newly developed ability to fuse his throbbing emotional core with an acute pop sensibility, shedding the drippy self-pitying bathos of his early mixtapes. The album’s titular single is the apotheosis of that development, an oblique love song that pits his hesitant croon against Rihanna’s soothing, motherly imprecations, shaking things up with an extended fugue courtesy of a reconstituted Gil Scot Heron sample. A gorgeous, enigmatic evocation of love and doubt, “Take Care” finds Drake at the height of his triple-threat powers, exploring the sort of emotional territory that most rappers are afraid to even enter. Cataldo

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