• "French Navy" - My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura

ROMANCE: Camera Obscura's tunes have a way of tugging at heartstrings and "French Navy," the cutesy new single from the band's third album My Maudlin Career, is no exception. Lead singer Tracyanne Campbell injects just enough bitters into her sugary mix to prove that singing about love doesn't have to be banal. The music video mimics the song's tooth-aching sweetness, following two lovers as they caper in and out of love across Europe. Just try not to grin. -EH

• "Verdens Storste Land" - Fot I Hose, Casiokids

FOREIGN: Norweigan electropop trio Casiokids made their stateside debut last month with ten shows at Austin's South by Southwest music festival. Their new album Fot I Hose was released in Europe last month by UK label Moshi Moshi and is truly a multicultural experience -- the band sings in their native Norwegian and samples afro-beats. Like a good foreign film, the album's catchy beats transcend the language barrier. Its a conscious move -- when asked what their target audience is, the bandmates, who previously performed for kindergarteners and seniors while touring as a shadow-puppet troupe, have said: "Humans. Human beings." -TS

• "If I Had A Heart" - Fever Ray, Fever Ray

HORROR: The first single from Fever Ray's debut album is spooky, to say the least. Karen Dreijer Andersson, one half of the electropop brother-sister duo the Knife, distorts her voice into an eerie growl that sounds like the demonic spirit that hijacked a teenage girl's body in The Exorcist. Equally chilling is the song's music video (directed by Andreas Nilsson), which feels like an entire film boiled down to 4 harrowing minutes. The camera lurches past a foggy river and through the woods to a party-turned-murder-scene and finds a drained pool littered with the dead, a roaming German Shepherd, and a skull-faced Andersson petting a bunny. Be afraid, be very afraid. -EH

• "Feeling Good" - Dark Was the Night, My Brightest Diamond

NOIR: This song doesn't even need a video -- just listen to her voice, and you can see My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden as the femme fatale, strutting across a smoke-filled detective's office, pulling the Venetian blinds closed with a flourish. The track is a cover of a Nina Simone song, which My Brightest Diamond recorded for Dark Was the Night, a gem of a compilation album featuring tracks by Bon Iver, The Decemberists, Feist and Yo La Tengo (among others), produced by the Dressner brothers of the National to benefit the HIV/AIDS charity the Red Hot Organization. -TS

• "UFO" - A South Bronx Story, ESG

SCI-FI: With their special blend of minimalist funk, live instruments, and futuristic synths, South Bronx hip-hoppers ESG (short for Emerald, Sapphire and Gold) cranked out quite a few addictive jams in the early '80s that were before their time. In "UFO," the band uses a supernatural whirr and a killer beat to create a sinister soundscape that's out of this star system. If invading aliens blasted this from their flying saucers, I would totally let them abduct me. -EH

• "When I Get to the Border" - The Go-Getter OST, She & Him

WESTERN: "When I get to the Border" was the song that first brought M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel together -- they recorded a cover of the 1974 Richard and Linda Thompson song for the 2007 independent film The Go Getter, which starred Deschanel and featured Ward's music. From there, the duo went on to form She and Him and become the indie darlings of 2008. Deschanel's voice may sound like that of an ingénue, but the lyrics capture the gritty and unsentimental mood of the western: "If you see a box of pine/ With a name that looks like mine/ Say I drowned in a barrel of wine/ When I got to the border." -TS

• "Wake Up" - Paint Your Face, Sliimy

CHILDRENS' ANIMATION: "Wake Up" is a giddy track by 20 year old Sliimy, who hails from France and was discovered on MySpace after covering Britney Spears' unfortunate "Womanizer." Anyone who can make that song even a smidge tolerable deserves a pat on the back and maybe even a record deal (which is exactly what Sliimy got from Warner Music). Over upbeat, skittering bleeps that sound like they were grabbed directly from a Saturday morning cartoon, Sliimy sings about being sick of people blathering on about their "office, about gossip and colleagues" and urges them to get childish instead. The kitschy video does just this, toying around with playful claymation and featuring dancing rainbows galore. -EH

• "I Love College" - Asleep in the Bread Aisle, Asher Roth

FRAT PACK: This song is featured in reference to a pretty specific sub-genre that has dominated at the box-office the last few years, the frat-pack comedy. You know the ones I mean -- those featuring the comedic stylings of Will Farrell, Owen and Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and more recently Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd. With the lyrics, "I want to go to college for the rest of my life" there is the easy "Old School" comparison, but Roth does a pretty good job capturing the essence of almost all Judd Apatow's slacker stoners. It's all just a front for Roth though, who has actually been hard at work recording and promoting his first full-length album, Asleep in the Bread Aisle, coming out this month. -TS

• "Red Light Special" - Crazy Sexy Cool, TLC

PORN: When TLC busted onto the scene in the early '90s with a safe-sex message, not to mention colorful condom accoutrements, they began a career of in-your-face indecency and unapologetic female sexuality. No song better exemplifies their raunchy bedroom lust than "Red Light Special." With suggestive lyrics about taking "the southern route," this song belongs behind the XXX curtain at your local video store. -EH

• "Back of the Van" - Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke

BRAT PACK: New Zealander Ladyhawke took her name from the 1985 Matthew Broderick/Michelle Pfeiffer medieval fantasy film, but her music sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack to a Molly Ringwald coming-of-age high school drama. While it may seem like a niche genre whose time has come and gone in the film world, I had to pay homage because it's a favorite and Ladyhawke is just one of the female artists (think Bat for Lashes and La Roux) who are channeling the '80s in their new pop tracks. -TS