1. Simian Mobile Disco, "I Believe" (from Attack Decay Sustain Release, Interscope)
2. Dennis Ferrer, "Church Lady" (single, King Street)
3. Róisín Murphy, "Let Me Know" (from Overpowered, EMI)
4. Donnie, "Over-the-Counter Culture" (from The Daily News, SoulThought)
5. Pharoahe Monch, "Push" (from Desire, Universal)
6. K-OS, "Sunday Morning" (from Atlantis: Hymns for Disco, Virgin)
7. Rihanna ft. Jay-Z, "Umbrella" (from Good Girl Gone Bad, Def Jam)
8. Britney Spears, "Get Naked (I Got a Plan)" (from Blackout, Zomba)
9. Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson & D.O.E., "The Way I Are" (from Shock Value, Interscope)
10. Justin Timberlake, "LoveStoned/I Think She Knows Interlude" (from FutureSex/LoveSounds, Jive)
11. Too $hort ft. E-40, "This My One" (from I Love the Bay, Up All Nite)
12. Lil Mama, "Lip Gloss" (single, Jive)
13. Beyoncé, "Get Me Bodied (Remix)" (single, Columbia)
14. Lloyd, "Get It Shawty" (from Street Love, Universal Motown)
15. T-Pain ft. Akon, "Bartender" (from Epiphany, Zomba)
16. Mario ft. Rich Boy "Kryptonite" (from Go, J)
17. Rahsaan Patterson, "Water" (from Wines & Spirits, Artistry)
18. Tay Zonday, "Chocolate Rain" (MP3)

Compiled from the detritus of unraveling major label mergers, Live Nation muscle-flexing, Radiohead-Williams-Reznor marketing experiments, and lo-fi hip-hop dance novelties, 2007's best-of music lists are full of tunes that wouldn't even have made anyone's Top 100 in a less tentative year. Inspired musical statements seem increasingly harder to find in an increasingly cluttered marketplace populated by uncertain pop aspirants and jaded superstars.

Dennis Ferrer's dank and eerie electro-stomper "Church Lady" made Saturday night dance floors feel like Sunday morning, while retro synth-dance tracks like Simian Mobile Disco's hallucinatory "Believe" and Roisin Murphy's mellifluous "Let Me Know" are much groovier than they have any right to be.

Donnie's The Daily News is the year's most profound album. Defiantly rejecting post-9/11 cynicism and pessimism on songs like revisionist "Atlanta Child Murders" and sassy War on Drugs retort "Over the Counter-Culture" (featuring a wisened rhyme by Little Brother's Phonté), The Daily News is stankin' gospel-funk agitprop, the sort not heard since, well, the Voices of East Harlem. To all the customer reviewers on amazon.com who had dilemmas processing Donnie's startling lyrics while shaking their groove thing: if you want revolution, you better be able to think and dance at the same time, to paraphrase Ntozake Shangé.

Pharohe Monch and K-OS gave us eclectic, visionary records that succeeded artistically where will.i.am's flimsy Songs About Girls or Kanye's overpraised Graduation could not. Catastrophe-generating superstar Britney Spears delivered the pop album of the year (Danja-produced future-stripper-classic "Get Naked" is a superb emulsion of Euro-house and Baltimore voguing music) and how she continues to solicit next-level electro-pop production in the midst of unprecedented personal melodrama is the stuff of mystery (and legend).

Hard to choose just one Timbaland single from the urban assault on pop that was Shock Value, but the pulsating "The Way I Are" sounded like nothing else. Teaming up with Tim and Danja, Justin Timberlake finally created a worthy successor to anything on M.J.'s Off the Wall with his string-laden "Lovestoned/I Think She Knows."

The year's club bangers include Too $hort's barely-heard "This My One," L'il Mama's audaciously narcissistic "Lip Gloss," Rihanna's well-sung "Umbrella," Beyoncé's ultra-campy remix of "Get Me Bodied," Mario's neo-classical-meets-video-game "Kryptonite," and Lloyd's minimalist ode to Technotronic, "Get It Shawty." Given no love by critics at year's end, T-Pain is hip-hop's commercial success story artist of '07 (and probably '08). Tallahassee's crunked-out Muslim Vocoder freak spins a heart-on-your-sleeve pop soul yarn on "Bartender" that surprises with genuine moments of vulnerability.

Rahsaan Patterson will never receive his full due in an industry where urban audiences remain preoccupied by staged album release battles between insecure multi-platinum hip-hop moguls. But operating under the radar has allowed Patterson to release a consecutive string of masterful albums that place him squarely as the true heir to Stevie Wonder's artistic legacy.

Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain" is for sure the song of the year, a dissertation-worthy indictment of global racism that somehow managed to get multi-millions of views on YouTube. OK, it wasn't officially released, so it probably shouldn't count for this mix. But given the people-have-the-power social-networking era in which we live, isn't it time we rethink the meaning of the 'officially released' single?

Jason King is the Artistic Director and founding full-time faculty member of the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music at New York University, where he teaches classes on record producing, branding and marketing, hip-hop, and R&B. A longtime journalist for magazines like Vibe, Blender, and the Village Voice, he has produced multi-day conference events at NYU such as "Sylvester: The Life and Work of a Musical Icon," and "The Making of Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.'" His company, the Superlatude Music Group, works with independent and major label recording artists to develop brand strategies. Jason serves on the advisory board of the R&B Foundation and has completed his first book, Blue Magic: Spirit and Energy in Popular Music, for Duke University Press.