As countless indie rockers root around in Eighties synth pop, it's a relief to hear others advancing that decade's other great cybernetic subgenre: techno. Keeping grooves minimal but sonic detailing maximal, Modeselektor smear snarky flows by avant-rapper Busdriver and, on two tracks, colorize fragments of fan Thom Yorke's voice, whose falsetto conjures Billie Holiday as a disco diva on "Shipwreck." Elsewhere, "Blue Clouds" offers nothing but beat brilliance and sick synth morphs, which turns out to be enough.

Listen to "Shipwreck":

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.