• "Bleeding Heart Show" - Twin Cinema, The New Pornographers

This stout effort from our favorite Canadian indie-pop pastiche is way too elegant and dynamic to be paired with a shady online university that gave Shaquille "The Big Aristotle" O'Neal a Masters and is currently in the midst of fighting a slew of lawsuits. The first verse almost sounds like a tune-up, with just a few strums of an acoustic guitar, a couple of taps on the piano keys and the odd snap of a drum serving as backdrop for folky vocals reminiscent of Richard and Linda Thompson. But it doesn't take long for the song to pick up steam, leveraging a powerful but straightforward low-end, which provides an anchor for soaring vocals and a sing-song chorus that makes audience participation an involuntary reflex. Lexicographers coined words like "sweeping" and "epic" for songs like this one.

• "Rent a Wreck" - #3, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names

We've heard of commercial music mismatches, like Iggy Pop's junkie anthem "Lust for Life" being used for Carnival Cruise Lines, but this one might take the cake. Who knew the song used to advertise a technologically advanced hybrid car was called "Rent a Wreck?" But ads are all about getting the viewer's attention, and this song delivers with a quirky hook and a kinetic disco dance beat. By the time the first minute of the song is over, you've heard the "ba-ba" part we all recognize and love from the Prius commercial. So why are we still listening? Is it the clever and literate, but lighthearted, lyrics we never knew existed? Is it the vocals that bring back fond memories of Magnetic Fields or Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, but with a more chipper attitude?

• "I Think I Need a New Heart" - 69 Love Songs Pt. 1, Magnetic Fields

Yet another gem from the master of the literate love song, this one surfaces in a gourmet dog food commercial of all places. Stephin Merritt's light and airy Andalusian-influenced ditty has shades of the Mark Mothersbaugh score to Bottle Rocket or Jonathan Richman celebrating a languid New York spring afternoon. That is, until Merritt's deep, throaty vocals kick in. This song could also serve as a primer on the difference between rhythm guitar and lead guitar, offering a simple series of strums as the underlying rhythm for a light and airy picked guitar. Add in chock-a-block percussion, almost like horse hooves clopping on cobblestone, and you've got Spanish gypsy music with English-major lyrics. Could it be that Cesar Canine Cuisine wants to convey that their food is light and airy, but also sophisticated and rich in nutrients?

• "Sweet Road" - Sung Tongs, Animal Collective

It's no wonder that this one-minute fifteen-second eccentricity caught the ear of the people charged with creating a commercial for Crayola's line of markers. The track, from Animal Collective's 2004 release Sung Tongs, succinctly captures the thrilling unpredictability and the occasional swell of feeling that characterize an adventurous life. A little picked-out banjo riff, clacking percussion, laughs and exhortations (aie-yah!) lend a distinctly Afro-Cuban feel to the song. It's a colorful and plural cacophony, all about lighthearted discovery, creativity and wonder. Just like childhood.

• "Huddle Formation" - Thunder, Lightning, Strike, The Go! Team

The Go! Team's ubiquitous, Gary Glitter-inspired indie-pop dance track fans out in all directions like a team of cheerleaders forming the letters of their educational institution. A whirring guitar sound, hand claps, and muffled, exuberant vocals make for a pep squad vibe. A foot-shuffling rhythm steered by a dynamic bass line makes it -- like almost everything the band does -- eminently danceable. The raw energy of "Huddle Formation" makes it an obvious choice for an ad for Honda's peppy Civic coupe.

• "Insistor" - The Loon, Tapes 'n Tapes

As a backdrop for a baseball video game, it's a strange choice indeed. It sounds like a less gloomy Nick Cave song, or something Frank Black might have done for one of his solo albums, not your typical scoreboard music. "Insistor," as the title suggests, is an up-tempo blues stomp with a relentless rhythm guitar and a double-time oompah drum beat that has a careening feel. The song is schizophrenic, at once dark and exhilarating, disturbing and celebratory, draining and restorative, full of possibilities but dooming. Come to think of it, sort of like going to a Giants game.

• "Hey Now Now" - The Cloud Room, The Cloud Room

The epic rock song, as a genre, is built on a foundation of anticipation. The verses are there to get us yearning for the chorus. The Cloud Room builds tension in the verses of this track through angsty lyrics and a wavering rhythm that recalls Joy Division and Echo & The Bunnymen. They then offer sweet release in the climactic and surpassingly catchy chorus. This slightly paranoid yet hopeful song is seemingly about a sinister force getting in your head and controlling your thoughts -- a sinister force like, perhaps, Pepsi? This type of paradox is fitting for a post-punk band that self-releases their albums yet is named after the private billionaires club on top of the Chrysler Building. The story goes that they were signed on the basis of this one song alone.

• "Thanks I Get" - Sky Blue Sky, Wilco

There are complex songs and there are trifles. There's the obviously challenging and the deceptively simple. There are the lyrics seemingly addressing a lover that may end up more aptly being an expression of shocked disappointment with capricious fans and critics. Wilco's latest album has polarized their audience, some of whom argue that Sky Blue Sky lacks the creativity and complexity of recent efforts like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born. After a long and enlightening journey on the fringes of rock, a more content Jeff Tweedy does indeed seem to have found his way back to the simpler days of Wilco's first album, A.M., but as an older, wiser and more polished songwriter. The subtly layered beauty of "Thanks I Get"Â? is proof positive -- and for that reason, a logical choice for Volkswagen's effortlessly hip image. The more I listen to it, the more I am reminded of "Maggie May," especially in terms of tone and phrasing. Listen for the gospel organ way down in the mix, the bluesy electric guitar riff and the "Casino Queen"Â?-esque piano. As Tweedy so aptly sings and Volkswagen hopes will strike a chord with prospective buyers, "We can make it better."Â?

• "Remind Me" - Melody Am, Royksopp

Paving the way for what will heretofore be known as escalator music, Royksopp's "Remind Me" finds Geico's modern-day, preppy, angst-ridden caveman at peace on a moving sidewalk in the airport until he catches a glance of a Geico ad that insults his intelligence. Sparse and breezy electronica accented with soothing, reverberated vocals creates a calming atmosphere. But the regimented rhythm of a drum machine, a tinny cymbal, a light keyboard leaning heavily on sustain, and synthesized buzzes and beeps only heighten the sense that this is one homo-erectus who just wasn't made for these times.

• "I Woke Up" - The One-T's ABC, One-T

One-T's hip-hop head-bopper really swings. Take a sugary-sweet vocal flow with a Jamaican lilt and add the clap of a drum machine, the rhythmic clasp of a cymbal and a jaunty piano. Throw in a couple layers of scat singing along the lines of Cab Calloway, and you get an unexpected and fun-loving track with an improvised feel. The chorus is catchy, but it's the whistling and the scat singing that really provide the hook. The commercial for Cingular's Pantech phone, said to be the smallest clamshell on the market, couldn't have found a bigger aural boost.