The 100 Best Songs of the Year

51 "Black Sweat" [Listen]
Prince
A tune that finds Prince at his horniest and most inspired, brandishing the world's best falsetto over a killer bump-and-glide beat like James Brown and vowing to make her scream "like a white lady."

52 "Makedamnsure" [Listen]
Taking Back Sunday
A knee-crumbling emo anthem so masterfully formulated that you'd have to be a heartless bastard not to wipe away a tear as you holler along with its love-sucks chorus.

53 "O Valencia!" [Listen]
The Decemberists
True love takes a hit in a bullets-and-hot-rods adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, fueled by spangled folk-rock guitar and garage-combo organ.

54 "Kilo" [Listen]
Ghostface Killah
The hottest song about the metric system ever. Ghostface and Raekwon rhyme about lowlife dealers hooked on cranberry Snapple as a Sesame Street-style soul chorus delivers the goods.

55 "Nausea" [Listen]
Beck
Beck writes like a man overwhelmed -- "I'm a seasick sailor/On a ship of noise" -- but vocally he hangs ten on this choppy-water collage of Marc Bolan-style strum and Kraftwerk electronics.

56 "Promiscuous" [Listen]
Nelly Furtado with Timbaland
Timbaland has never jacked the 1980s as shamelessly as he does here -- it's easy to imagine the Force M.D.'s or Gregory Abbott singing over this, and that's a compliment.

57 "Love Me or Hate Me" [Listen]
Lady Sovereign
"I ain't got the biggest breastesses, but I write all the best disses": A defiant theme song that hews to the theory that no insult can hurt if you say it about yourself first, all while bubbling with Atari electro effects.

58 "Idlewild Blues" [Listen]
Outkast
The supercatchy soundtrack cut drags hip-hop into the Cotton Club: Amid a dusty, swinging riff and party-people whoops, Andre 3000 channels both old blues records and his id, transmitting heartache through swishy croons and swishier scats.

59 "Bossy" [Listen]
Kelis with Too $hort
The lady makes demands. Kelis continues her amazing roll with this fierce hip-hop dominatrix anthem. Nas, be very afraid.

60 "Phenomena" [Listen]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Karen O gets hot for a dude who's "something like an astronomer," while Nick Zinner's space-punk guitar rocks like a hip-hop DJ on the cut.