November was a relatively light month for (good) new tracks, although we did get a few singles of note ahead of January/February album releases, including the return of Wild Nothing and a second single from Savages. Not on this list but worth a mention – Mercury Rev released The Light in You, their first new album in seven years, in October. Like much of their work, it’s better enjoyed as a full album, without any huge standout singles, with the first two-thirds filled with spacey soundscapes before they conclude with a run of ebullient pop tracks. I don’t like it as much as I did Deserter’s Songs (which they just remastered a few years ago) or All is Dream, though.

Grimes – California. The first full track off Grimes’ incredible Art Angels album and probably my favorite, although it’s hard to choose given how many outstanding, clever songs this album features. It’s the first year I can remember where the two best albums I’ve heard were both from solo female artists (the other is Courtney Barnett’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit).

Wild Nothing – To Know You. A welcome return from Jack Tatum, who writes and records Wild Nothing’s albums himself (a la Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker). This first single from Wild Nothing’s third album, due out in February, returns to the psychedelic rock/dream-pop fusion of Nocturne, with over allusions in the music and lyrics to Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.”

Hinds – Garden. Hinds, formerly known as Deers, will finally put out a proper album in January after a year-plus of hype, one that I hope will dispense with their earliest singles’ production values (where it sounded like they recorded everything inside a phone booth located in a bathroom stall). The Spanish foursome has kept their slightly offkey vocal harmonies and punk-tinged folk style, music that verges on the slightly annoying but keeps you coming back because of the underlying melodies … and maybe because there’s something a bit charming in their entire approach.

Cloves – Everybody’s Son. The Australian teenager who records as Cloves released her debut EP XIII last month, featuring the two impressive singles she dropped over the summer (“Frail Love” and “Don’t You Wait”) as well as two new tracks, including this song, which drops the piano for an acoustic guitar but still has the stripped-down feel of her previous songs.

City Calm Down – Rabbit Run. Another Australian act, this Melbourne quartet appears to have listened to a lot of Echo and the Bunnymen with some New Order thrown in for good measure.

The Gills – Rubberband. Blues-punk from Pensacola by way of Nashville, the Gills have their self-titled debut due out in a few months, but you can grab this song and the single lemonade for free via NoiseTrade.

Daughter – Numbers. Daughter’s second album drops in January, and this single features some wordplay on top of a gothic dream-pop (or perhaps nightmare-pop) track that isn’t so much catchy as it is insinuating.

Savages – T.I.W.Y.G. “This is what you get when you mess with love.” I wouldn’t mess with Jehnny Beth, though. She sounds pissed off.

Ten Fé – In the Air. A London duo whose name means “have faith,” Ten Fé merge some very British sounds (Madchester, the Verve) with a sizable dose of American roots-rock on this five-minute track that grooves along at a much faster pace than you’d expect.

Chairlift – Romeo. I can’t wait for their album to drop next month. “Ch-Ching,” the first single, is one of the best songs of the year. “Romeo” has a similar feel, kind of somewhere west of Sleigh Bells’ overt cacophony, stronger melodically and of course featuring Caroline Polachek’s lovely voice.

Floating Points – Peroration Six. A name drawn from math, with a great vocabulary word in the song’s title? I’m in. (A peroration is the conclusion of a speech, usually the kind used to whip up the crowd.) This is highly experimental music, dispensing with conventional song structures, totally instrumental, but grabbing the listener’s attention repeatedly with sharp changes in direction and the judicious use of silence. It reminds me a bit of These New Puritans, just without the vocals of the latter’s work.

Rare Monk – Warning Pulse. Yes, the intro sounds a bit like the Offspring’s “Self-Esteem,” but I promise it’s not the same song or genre. They describe themselves as “experimental,” but I don’t hear the experimentation – it’s conventional indie rock with some subtle layering in the guitar and keyboard lines, built more around textures than giant hooks.

Sunflower Bean – Wall Watcher. This odd Brooklyn trio – I should probably have a macro for that phrase – deliver music as strange as their personal style, with a sort of hepped-up stoner rock here on this short, almost poppy single that comes two months ahead of their debut album Human Ceremony.

Wolfmother – Victorious. The Aussie trio’s best track since “The Joker and the Thief,” although I know that’s not saying a whole lot. The Sabbath-esque riff at the 2:40 mark elevates this from a good album-rock track to a memorable one.

The Fratellis – Baby Don’t You Lie to Me! The Scotsmen behind “Chelsea Dagger” released their fourth album this summer, and while they’ve had a handful of catchy singles over the years since their signature song came out and became a sports-arena anthem, I think this is their best hook since their debut – both tracks have the feel of a rousing hard-drinking song, but approach it from different directions, with “Baby Don’t You Lie to Me!” like something from a bar scene in a lost episode of Firefly.

Freddie Gibbs, Black Thought – Extradite. The best hip-hop song of the year, off the best hip-hop album of the year, although the lyrics are way over the top (for example, I counted over 40 uses of “bitch” in the first half of the album alone). Gibbs’ delivery is very old-school, with a deep voice like Rakim’s, a bit like Tupac with a head cold, and he rhymes fast and can be very clever when he’s not running over the same tired rap memes.

Krayzie Bone – Cloudy. Speaking of old-school, Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony founding member Krayzie Bone – who, per Wikipedia, has eight children, none of them with his wife – is back with his first proper solo album in a decade. I’m including the single primarily out of historical interest; his style and technique are still strong, but the song lacks a good hook to make you come back for a second listen.

After a slew of highly-anticipated albums hit stores from mid-August to early October, I figured we’d get a lull in good new music … only to have lead singles show up from forthcoming records from Savages, Grimes, Chairlift, and St. Lucia in the second half of October. By the way, my MLB free agent rankings will be up for Insiders on Friday.

Zhu with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Trombone Shorty – Hold Up, Wait a Minute. I hadn’t heard of Zhu before this track, but of course I know BTNH from their 1990s heyday and have heard Trombone Shorty before. Zhu’s work is all electronic dance music, but this track draws more heavily from 1970s funk than his previous work, and I don’t mean in the way that Mark Ronson just appropriates stuff and claims it’s his own. It’s great to hear Bone Thugs-N-Harmony active again ahead of their upcoming album E. 1999 Legends, especially as their faster, melodic style of rapping has completely disappeared from the scene. This might be the best pop song of the year for me.

Savages – The Answer. The all-female quartet Savages had my third-favorite album of 2013 with their debut Silence Yourself, and are set to release their follow-up disc in January. This lead single is harder and angrier, teetering on the edge of total collapse for most of its length, and I love it.

Chairlift – Ch-Ching. Chairlift’s “I Belong in Your Arms” is one of my favorite songs of the decade so far, more than their more popular track “Bruises,” and I think “Ch-Ching” – the first single from their album Moth, due in January – is more in the former vein, a song that blends strong hooks with elements designed to put you on edge or even slightly irritate you, like the duo are trying to ensure they have your full attention.

St. Lucia – Dancing On Glass. Jean-Philip Grobler’s debut album as St. Lucia also made that list of my top albums of 2013, and he also just released the lead single from his upcoming sophomore disc, which doesn’t seem to have a release date yet. It’s the same kind of bright 1980s electronic new wave music that populated that first album, and while I preferred some of the tracks with a little hint of darkness (“All Eyes on You,” “September”) Grobler has created another very sunny, catchy hook here.

Grimes – Flesh without Blood. It’s been a tumultuous couple of years since Grimes’ last album, Visions, but her sound has evolved for the better, with two non-album singles in “Go” and “REALiTi” that weren’t similar to each other or her earlier work. Her new album, Art Angels, will be released in digital format this week, and she’s promised yet another change in sound, with most songs recorded with “real instruments” according to a tweet of hers from May. This lead single seems like her most commercially viable song yet, but it’s also still distinctively her in the vocals and biting lyrics.

Moon Taxi – Red Hot Lights. The fourth album from this Tennessee rock act came out in early October, featuring this heavy blues number that would draws from the more progressive side of 1970s classic rock.

Laura Stevenson – Claustrophobe. Stevenson grew up a couple of towns over from me, and it seems like the music that surrounded me in college became her primary influences, as this hazy, slow rocker is very college-rock circa 1994 or so – very Belly, Throwing Muses, Helium, Blake Babies kind of stuff, with a sweet voice singing acerbic lyrics over dissonant guitars.

City and Colour – Runaway. City and Colour is actually Canadian singer/songwriter Dallas Green, who is not the former Phillies manager, and puts out inconsistent, pleasant folk-rock tracks that only sometimes have the kind of biting edge that I think songs in this genre require to separate themselves from the masses of Mumford & Sons clones. The melody here really reminds me of Violent Soho’s “Fur Eyes,” released in April.

A Silent Film – Paralysed. This is a pop song, right? A Silent Film were pretty well under the U.S. radar, with a few songs I liked between their first two albums (especially “You Will Leave a Mark”), but the duo seems to have thrown their alternative sensibilities out the window to record something far more commercial. There’s nothing directly drawn from it but “Paralysed” keeps calling to mind Cause and Effect’s minor 1994 hit “It’s Over Now.”

A Tribe Called Quest – Bonita Applebum (Pharrell Williams Remix). I dislike remixes as a general rule, since most of them render the original song worse and/or unrecognizable … but Pharrell did a pretty good job here with a Tribe hit that isn’t one of my favorites by them.

Martin Courtney – Airport Bar. Real Estate singer/songwriter puts out song that sounds like Real Estate.

Ten Commandos – Staring Down the Dust (feat. Mark Lanegan). Ten Commandos features Soundgarden’s bassist, Pearl Jam’s drummer, QotSA’s other guitarist, and Off!’s guitarist, with Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan contributing vocals here but sounding nothing like himself at all. It’s full of grunge heroes but the song is distinctly stoner or desert rock, reminiscent of peak Masters of Reality.

Porches – Hour. I vaguely knew Porches as singer Aaron Maine’s folk-rock project, but it sounds like he’s been possessed by Vince Clarke here on this gothic synth-pop track.

Co-pilgrim – You Come Over, You Go. This kind of indie-rock seems like it’ll never really catch on in the U.S.; it’s a little too lush, a little too ethereal, not enough of any one thing to fit neatly into a specific bucket like hard rock or folk or whatever the latest term is.

Bloc Party – The Love Within. This sounds more like a Kele solo jam than a classic Bloc Party track, and given how mediocre Four was, I’m okay with this.

Pure Bathing Culture – Palest Pearl. PBC’s solo album is solid but couldn’t live up to the huge promise of its lead single and title track “Pray for Rain.” This is a little poppier, less wistful, my second-favorite song from the album so far.

Deerhunter – Duplex Planet. Never was much of a Deerhunter fan before this latest album, but they’ve expanded their musical palette enough to rope me in; “Snakeskin” is a top 20 or so song for me for the year, and “Duplex Planet” has some of that same frenetic energy and psychedelic vibe.

Panama – Jungle. I loved Panama’s minor 2013 hit “Always,” and this is somewhat in that vein, a more soulful take on classic new wave reinterpreted through current electronic music sounds.

The Creases – Point. The Creases made my top 100 in 2014 with “Static Lines,” an annoyingly-catchy song that was very distinctly Australian in its pop sensibility; there’s a certain sound that’s come from Down Under for about three decades now – I trace it back to the Go-Betweens, who were hugely successful and influential in their home country and nearly unknown here in the U.S. This song is a little catchier and a little less annoying, as if the Creases have maybe decided to lighten up a little bit.

Disciples – Flawless. This London production trio (also written as DISCIPLΞS) had a huge hit in Europe earlier this year with “How Deep Is Your Love,” hitting the top ten in at least sixteen countries (per Wikipedia, which is never wrong), but I like this song more – it’s a darker track, emerging from the depths of late-80s acid house, a sound that originated in the U.S. but really caught fire in the UK.

Lemaitre featuring Jennie A. – Closer. I’ve included Lemaitre on the site before for their 2013 song “Iron Pyrite,” which placed 44th on my list of the top songs of that year. Their sound here is different, with prominent horns and better vocals (I have no idea who Jennie A. is, though), more electronic-jazz than straight electronica and I think a welcome evolution in their sound.