Mélissa Laveaux
Needle in the Hay
Mélissa Laveaux, a Montreal-born singer-songwriter of Haitian descent, recasts Elliott Smith's bleak 1995 song for percussive finger-style guitar, double bass, claps and drums on her 2008 album Camphor & Copper.
Instrument
drums
66 tracks.
The Police
Roxanne
Sting wrote 'Roxanne' after seeing street workers near the band's Paris hotel in 1977: a plea to a woman to leave that life, set to off-beat reggae guitar and a tango-like rhythm, the A&M debut single that became the Police's signature song.
Freeland
Under Control
The lead single of Freeland's Cope swaps the guitar riff for a roaring synth and puts Kurt Baumann's deadpan vocal over breakbeat-bred drums: electronic rock with a raw, defiant edge.
Fort Minor
Remember The Name
'Remember The Name' by Fort Minor is an anthem of perseverance: Mike Shinoda and Styles of Beyond trade verses over a cello loop and a chorus that breaks success down into percentages, a song that became the soundtrack of sport.
Portugal. The Man
Feel It Still
Portugal. The Man's Grammy-winning sleeper hit: a quick, swinging slice of psychedelic funk-pop that borrows its melody from Motown's Please Mr. Postman and rides one of the decade's most recognisable basslines.
Pomplamoose
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Pomplamoose's 2019 cover of Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger': a robot anthem built from a sample and a vocoder, replayed by a live band with real keys, bass, drums and human voices, and filmed so that everything you hear, you see.
Feist
My Moon My Man
The first single from Feist's The Reminder (2007), co-written and produced with Chilly Gonzales: a sly, piano-led indie pop song about love and longing, danced through an empty airport at night in Patrick Daughters' video.
alt-J
Breezeblocks
A lullaby with teeth: alt-J's 2012 breakthrough wraps an obsessive love song, borrowed in part from Where the Wild Things Are, in plucked guitar, close harmonies and a refrain that piles up until it will not let go.
Deluxe
Tum Rakak
'Tum Rakak' is a song by Deluxe, the moustachioed band from Aix-en-Provence: a funky live-band groove in B-flat minor with Liliboy singing a gleefully absurd lyric about curiosity, party crumbs and a truck that reeks in the heat.
Miike Snow
Paddling Out
Miike Snow's 2012 lead single sets sing-along melancholy over glitchy piano chords and a four-on-the-floor house beat, recorded in a Stockholm studio once used by ABBA.
Kutiman
Inner Galactic Lovers
'Inner Galactic Lovers' is Kutiman's 2015 song assembled from parts recorded by 24 freelance musicians in a dozen countries: an ethereal, funky collage in which every player was hired online and never met the others.
Gregory Porter
Don't Lose Your Steam
Gregory Porter's up-tempo lead single from Take Me to the Alley: a warm, gospel-rooted jazz-soul song of encouragement, carried by his rich baritone and a small acoustic band.
Dead Kennedys
Too Drunk to Fuck
Dead Kennedys' 1981 single sets Jello Biafra's satire of a moronic party over East Bay Ray's breakneck surf-punk riff, and became the first UK top-40 hit with the word in its title, despite a BBC ban.
Björk
Kata rokkar
Before her solo career, Björk sang Icelandic popular songs and jazz standards with a veteran piano trio: Kata rokkar, from the 1990 album Gling-Gló, is a short, playful glimpse of that side of her voice.
Basement Freaks
Soul Intoxication (Lonely Boy's Detox Dub)
Los Angeles producer Lonely Boy strips a funk track by the Greek producer Basement Freaks down to a hypnotic house dub, issued on Jalapeno Records in 2013 and later picked up by French lounge compilations.
Controller 7
Get Ready for the Young Folks
A 2007 mashup by the San Jose producer Controller 7 that lays the Temptations' 1966 'Get Ready' a cappella over the rhythm section of Peter Bjorn and John's 'Young Folks', two songs forty years apart that line up uncannily well.
Chris Lorenzo & The Streets
Take Me as I Am
Birmingham bass producer Chris Lorenzo and The Streets' Mike Skinner meet on a fast, ferocious slice of drum and bass: tight drums, tearing bass synths and Skinner's dry, conversational vocal.