“The House That Heaven Built” Japandroids
The standout track on the best rock album of the year is “an absolute barn burner,” said the A.V. Club. Give us “some big guitars, a fast tempo (anchored by propulsive percussion), and make it all super-catchy,” and we’d be happy even if the lyrics didn’t essentially say, “Don’t let anything stand in your way.” But they do. And the sing-along “whoa oh ohs” don’t hurt: We “still feel a charge” every time we hear them.
“Call Me Maybe”
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“Pyramids”
Frank Ocean
The “tour de force” cut on the year’s most acclaimed album plays like a “10-minute history of R&B, arcing from club-thumping beats to a sultry drawn-out jam,” said Time. The song’s narrator begins by singing of Cleopatra and ancient Egypt before time traveling to the present to praise the stripper he loves. Delivering all this in a voice “veering from a velvety croon to an endearingly creaky falsetto,” Ocean “easily holds your attention.”
