What to download and listen to this month.
1. The Raconteurs, “Salute Your Solution”With nary a Meg nor a red-white ensemble in sight, Jack White’s other band drops a head-spinningly verbose rawk monster.
2. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, “Dead Right” Hushed indie rockers nab the melody from “Summertime Blues” and deliver a gorgeous, airy warning to a noncommittal ladyfriend.
3. Wale feat. Bun B and Pusha T., “Back in the Go Go” A D.C. savant, Houston genius and Virginia Beach wiseass unite for an all-star brainiac-rap think tank. The subject: the flyest metaphors facing the hip-hop community today.
4. Chairlift, “Evident Utensil”Sweet, Blondie-inspired new-wave reggae about pencils, stencils and falling in love.
5. The Roots feat. Patrick Stump, “Birthday Girl”Hip-hop’s ruling bohemians meet the whiny dude from Fall Out Boy for a surprisingly sweet ode to banging underage groupies.
6. LCD Soundsystem, “Big Ideas”From the
21 soundtrack, more funky-ass disco rockery from James Murphy and Co.
7. Mariah Carey feat. Rick Ross and The-Dream, “Touch My Body” (Remix)The new Mimi come-on gets a twitchy, electronic redux, featuring two chubby dudes with badass voices.
8. Death Cab for Cutie, “Cath ... ”Lush, stammering guitar rock about a wedding where the bride just ain’t that into the groom. Sorry, bro.
9. Lil Wayne, “A Milli”Weezy’s new single comes hook-free: just straight-up 808 bass, a droning vocal sample and the craziest punch lines since … the last Weezy song you heard.
10. 2 Pistols feat. T-Pain & Tay Dizm, “She Got It”A love jam from a Florida rapperwith the best MCname that isn’t the word Florida witha hyphen.
11. Be Your Own Pet, “Food Fight!”“Extra cheese! In your face!” These Nashville brats return with a noise-punk salute to that vaunted American tradition: hurling cafeteria food at your friends.
12. Nelly feat. Fergie, “Party People”It’s Ms. Humps vs. Mr. Tailfeather on this one, as Polow Da Don whips up a honking, strutting beat.
13. Panic at the Disco, “That Green Gentleman”More hummable psychedelic fun from the artists formally known as emo.
14. Robyn, “Handle Me”A Stargate-sounding girl-power celebration from
Blender’s new favorite Swedish export.
15. Big Boi feat. André 3000 and Raekwon, “Royal Flush”If it weren’t for Big Boi’s rhymes about Iran warmongering, we’d swear this was an outtake from the duo’s white-hot
Aquemini days.
16. James Otto, “Just Got Started Lovin’ You”A boner-ific country come-on for mornings when once just ain’t enough.
17. Lykke Li, “Little Bit”OK, forget three songs ago—this is our
real new favorite Swedish export.
18. R. Kelly, “Hair Braider”He’s done it in the kitchen, in the bedroom and in the closet. Next stop on Kells’s boot-knockin’ tour: the salon!
19. Ciara feat. Ludacris, “High Price”The duo that brought you “Oh” reunite over ridonkulous horror strings for this ode to upmarket-ness.
20. My Morning Jacket, “Highly Suspicious”N.E.R.D.-esque bass lines, vocals that sound like that big snaggletoothed Muppet and lyrics about “peanut-butter-pudding surprise”? We don’t know what the hell’s going on, but it sure is awesome.