On his first album in three years, pioneering ambient architect Brian Eno unveils yet another brand of sonic manipulation, a type of music he vaguely labels "drop." Angular melodies, bent guitar notes, piano drizzles and manipulated effects make up The Drop's mixed bag of 17 minicompositions (most clocking in at under three minutes). As usual, Eno is more interested in introducing new musical equations than in actually solving them: He leaves behind the cinematic spaciousness that characterized much of his earlier ambient work and instead creates a series of musical interludes that sound as if they've been stripped of their original contexts — fragmented webs that, strangely, end up connecting nothing.

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."