The duo responsible for this century's most wacked-out and visionary party music is back with two songs from Elliott's upcoming first album in seven years – but the mood is not quite celebratory. Timbaland's beats (his finest in some time) have a dark cast, with classical flourishes brooding over minor keys and the usual woozy, oddly accented beats and blips. The lyrics find Missy in a defensive crouch: "Thought I fell off?/Ain't quite finished," she raps in "9th Inning." In the moderately more upbeat "Triple Threat," we get a hint of the old goofy braggart: "I'm a pretty diva/Call me señorita..../Hits like Venus and Serena."

Listen to "9th Inning":

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."