Earlier this year, Austin hipster-pop duo Neon Indian had a brush with the bigs when they recorded an EP with the Flaming Lips. They've earned it: The band's second disc improves on the "chillwave" (read: low-fi synth pop) of its 2009 debut, dunking dreamy early-MTV haircutband balladry in layers of psychedelic schmutz, almost hiding excellent songs in the murk. When Alan Palomo moans about trying to "fall out of love with you" over cavernous Anglophile disco, he sounds unreachable – a lonely planet boy sending out distress signals from the saddest corner of the solar system.

Listen to "Fallout":

Related:
• Bonnaroo 2010: Neon Indian

“Helen Wheels”

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"