"2009, 2010/Wanna make a record how I felt then," sings Win Butler on "Month of May." As usual, the Arcade Fire frontman is feeling a lot. Childhood nostalgia, suburban ennui, parenthood, war, death — these are just some of the themes crammed into the songs on Arcade Fire's fabulous new double-sided 12-inch single. "The Suburbs" is a piano-fueled shuffle that starts dreamy and then turns vaguely paranoid as it looks back at a teenage wasteland with longing and amusement: "You always seemed so sure/That one day we'd be fighting/In a suburban war. . . ./But by the time the first bombs fell/We were already bored." "Month of May" is a furious punk boogie about disaffected kids that suggests a Crazy Horse-backed Neil Young shaking a fist at America's listless youth. Both songs reveal a band looking more and more like Springsteen's and U2's rightful heirs, with an undiminished appetite for grandeur — big themes, big emotions and an even more potent sound.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.