Hip-hop and mall rock have all but replaced dance pop on American airwaves, but every once in a while a Euro-style club mash-up breaks through. Barbados-born emigre Rihanna's huge dancehall pop hit last year, "Pon De Replay," was savvy and sexy, and her new smash, "SOS," is even more so. Singing a snaky Destiny's Child-like melody around synth riffs and machine beats from Soft Cell's Eighties classic "Tainted Love," Rihanna proves America still appreciates clever pop when it hears it. Like her filler-packed debut album, this similar but superior follow-up doesn't deliver anything else as ingenious as its lead single: Lightweight dancehall and R&B jams lack the single's ear-bending boldness. But the burning rock guitar of "Kisses Don't Lie" and haunted strings of "Unfaithful" help make A Girl Like Me much more likable.

“Jimbrowski”

Jungle Brothers sampled, among other things, jazz, James Brown and house music. The New York crew's lyrics were equally diverse but never short on clever wordplay or a playful sense of humor, as exemplified by this song from 1988's Straight Out the Jungle. "The idea for that came at the end of a studio session, with Mike, me, Red Alert and a woman Red was dating at the time," says the group’s Afrika Baby Bam. "Red was flirting with her and kept saying 'Jimbrowski' the whole night. Mike and I wrote the rhymes on the way back from the subway."