Three Brooklyn girls who try so hard to sound tough and gully but fool no one, even on "Hey Mami," Miami bass hip-house by way of Bring It On (non-John Kerry version).

6. "Still Ray" | Raphael Saadiq | Instant Vintage | Universal | 3:03

A former member of Tony! Toni! Toné! (he was Toeneeeigh), Raphael Saadiq New Jack swung his way into a technicolor-coated neo-soulja. On "Still Ray," a 2003 single from his horribly titled 2002 album, Saadiq clads full-lunged R&B in a tuba solo and a drip-drip-dripping two-fingered piano riff. Dashiki-donned for 789 straight days!

7. "Sister Savior" | The Rapture | Echoes | DFA/ Strummer/Universal | 3:51

Matty Safer, the youngest member of the Rapture, is the NYC band's best songwriter. In "Sister Savior," he plays Donna Summer to production team DFA's Giorgio Moroder, cooing femme fatalistic lyrics over keyboard bubbles while six-string scratches counterpoint his wet-ear earnestness. (I just noticed that this is my third straight year with a Rapture song on my Flak mix, by the way — "The Jam" in 2001, "House of Jealous Lovers" in 2002.)

8. "It's My Life" | No Doubt | Singles 1992-2003 | Interscope | 3:46

Mick Jagger in 1965: "It's the singer, not the song." The Stones' self-tooting defense of their own early songwriting ineptness also serves as the unlikeliest of anti-rockism defenses. But Mick was only half-right: it's the singer and the song. No Doubt's cover of Talk Talk's "It's My Life" pairs the original's anchor-bobbing bass line with Gwen Stefani's pleading delivery.

9. "Cry Me a River" | Justin Timberlake | Justified | Jive | 4:50

See the main mix.

10. "Deaths" | Country Teasers | Secret Weapon Revealed at Last | In the Red | 4:38

An e-mail I sent Country Teasers guitar player Robert McNeill earlier this year:

"Deaths" might be the best Teasers song ever. "Ahoy There" and the Cohen cover are amazing on the Rebel MD. "Prettiest Slave on the Barge" might be the strangest/most offensive/most endearing thing I've ever heard.

In any event, listening to all of this has made me want to, more than anything, pound out a 1,000 words or so on the band. A rambling piece that makes no sense and talks about how Ben wrote the best song about tennis ever ("Panty Shots") and how I bet he's read "Catcher in the Rye" at least a dozen times and how the band is Big Black and if it's a shtick and how it is a shtick but obviously you guys have found some truth within the absurd even if you can't even identify it yourself and how what makes the Teasers so special is that normally bands put everything into each song ("I'm gonna sing the fuck out of this bridge; let them feel my pain") but how the Teasers put so little into each song and it's not just for effect (which it is) but it's also cuz there are so many more songs to write and battles to be fought and etc etc and how I've thought a lot about Ben's child prodigy thing and so OF COURSE he writes songs like these and how none of this matters one fucking bit cuz intent means absolutely nothing (I'm steadfast on this point) so once it's out there in the ether then "It is My Duty" becomes anti-semitic whether you want it to be or not (you don't, but again, it doesn't matter) and how surely this must be realized, but i think it's almost like playing chicken with your own beliefs — maybe you don't like other liberals (I don't, generally I feel embarrassed by them), so there's a desire to shake their belief system while at the same time wink at 'em cuz yr just having a laugh and it's risk fucking free in a really perverted, risk-filled way.

Anyway. While I'm at home in Va. surrounded by the Confederate flag I'm gonna work through all of these ideas.

Also, does Ben hate America, but he's totally fascinated by its underbelly at the same time? Or he loves it for the wrong reasons (which are really the right (ha!) ones)?

11. "Don't Be Scared" | A.R.E. Weapons | A.R.E. Weapons | Rough Trade | 4:07

Melissa Maerz put it better than I did, but I still can't remember the last record that meant so much to me. My clear favorite album of the year. For more, see the main mix.

12. "Comin' Round" | Bubba Sparxxx | Deliverance | Interscope | 3:21

Maybe the sixth best song on the album, "Comin' Round" bounced in and out of my mix for several months (most commonly replaced by a nonalbum version of "Nowhere" with Kiley Dean suddenly singing "Cry Me a River" at the mournful finale). Which isn't to say that it isn't a great song (it is), but that Bubba's hick-hop masterpiece, Deliverance, made it difficult to shake the single from the whole. The "Comin' Round the Mountain" hook's novel, I guess, but Bubba's subliminal, quietly confident delivery stands out more.

13. "A.D.I.D.A.S." | Killer Mike | Monster | Sony | 3:27

In case you didn't know, 2003 was the year of the South (the talk shows were right: it really is 1844 again) as twanged-out hip-hop dominated charts and strip clubs (the two most important musical barometers). "A.D.I.D.A.S.", from OutKast cohort Killer Mike (the bark behind "The Whole World's" best verse), serves to represent Banner, Lil Jon, Lil Flip, Bonecrusher, et al., with its batter-dipped organ loop and Mike's keep-it-wrapped riff putting the ATL native on Trojan's spokesperson shortlist and the Falcons' VIP list. Could've done without Big Boi's gay-baiting verse, though.

14. "Under Control" | The Strokes | Room on Fire | RCA | 3:06

My father said that this song sounded like a Dan Penn cover, and suddenly the new Strokes (near-same as the old Strokes) began sounding more and more like mid-'50s Sun Records. Nick Valensi's lyrical guitar doubles Julian Casablancas' resigned vocals (Scotty and Elvis and every band since, but the sparseness and tossed-off deliberateness of "Under Control," in this one means only, strongly recalls "That's Alright Mama") and the gauzy production isn't just an affectation, it's an aesthetic (a thin line between those two, yes). Taken together, these factors help explain why the song sounds so timeless not in that it'll sound good, like, forever (which it may), but that it could've been made at any point in history and at no point in history at the very same (non)time. Don't worry, I don't understand this either.

15. "No Letting Go" | Wayne Wonder | No Holding Back | Atlantic | 3:33

A song that's alienating in its beauty — each element gorgeous and perfectly placed (especially the Diwali rhythm that simultaneously counters and buttresses the song's weary, never-say-never hope), there was absolutely no way this wasn't going to be a hit.

16. "Ever Blazing" | Sean Paul | Ragga! Ragga! Ragga! 2003 | Greensleeves | 3:05

The stuttered harpsichord chime deep in this song's mix is Sean Paul's unaffected monotone turned inside out and X-rayed.

17. "Send the Pain Below" | Chevelle | Wonder What's Next | Epic | 4:12

"Send the Pain Below" is Shudder to Think's biggest hit ever. Too bad they didn't write it. Chevelle, a trio of brothers from Chicago, writes songs that exploit a total disconnect between vocals and arrangements. While the guitars blandly churn, singer Joe Loeffler melismatically flourishes with reaching pleads and sighs that suggest both Shudder to Think's enthusiastically bizarre frontman Craig Wedren and Morrissey.

18. "Feeling This" | Blink-182 | Blink-182 | Geffen | 2:54

Fuck shit jokes, let's emote!

19. "Electricity" | A Frames | 2 | S-S Records | 2:45

Blackout 2k3 rock, yo! (losing steam here)

20. "Jezebel" | Dizzee Rascal | Boy in Da Corner | XL | 3:37