Sufjan Stevens

Pinback, “How We Breathe”

Well, that’s very pretty.

Here Lies Man, “Collector of Vanities”

A side project of Antibalas folks, Here Lies Man plays a meld of Afrobeat and psychedelic rock, often to pretty solid effect. This is from their latest, Ritual Divination, which pushes a little more towards the rock end of things, so depending on your preferences it’s either the place to start or the place to end up.

The Presidents of the United States of America, “We Are Not Going To Make It”

The Presidents were viewed as a novelty act, which is kind of inescapable when your hits are things like “Lump” and “Peaches”. And, yeah, there’s a lot of breezy nonesense in Ballew’s lyrics. But there’s some genuinely charming stuff in there, some real wit, and of course, some self-deprecation like in this tune. But, more importantly, the songs themselves were crisp, memorable, and catchy, and that means that their rock/pop/punk melange is just plain fun.