Keane collaborating with rappers? On their fourth album, the erstwhile Brit-pop whimperers join forces with K'Naan on "Stop for a Minute," where the Canadian MC rhymes while Tom Chaplin belts out one of the band's patented big, cresting choruses. Even better — and weirder — is "Ishin Denshin," a sprightly synth-propelled ditty with vocal help from Japanese baile-funk singer Tigarah. Elsewhere, there is brass-bolstered soul, electro-flavored dance pop and other un-Keane-like songs. The band can still deliver the angsty goods (check out the gusty "My Shadow"), but Keane have proved themselves masters of — gasp! — pop perkiness.

“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.