Below there is a clip of each song. The entire playlist is also available on YouTube.

Favorite Song 2009

Artist: Miike Snow
Song: Animal
Album: Miike Snow

How did I determine which would be my overall favorite song of the year? In 2008, I could not stop listening to “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon  over and over and over again. This year, that honor goes to Miike Snow’s “Animal”. I still am not sick of it. It is just catchy and makes my head start bouncing whenever I hear it. I heard it for the first time while I was listening to the new releases on Amazon, which I really need to get back to doing. I then heard the song a couple of times on 94.7. It wasn’t played too often, but I loved it. They are a Swedish band. I saw them live a few months back. They were excellent.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Best of the Rest

The rest of these are not in any particular order.

Artist: Phoenix
Song: 1901
Album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

This song grew on me. It was released early in 2009 and I didn’t think much of it, until one day, it just clicked. Whenever I heard it (on the radio, in commercials, etc.), it made me very happy when it was stuck in my head. They are French. I know they have been around a few years and I think I know one of their older songs, but I never bought anything from them until this year.

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I didn’t even know this song was an official single. They never played it on the radio around here. It is my favorite song on the album. The only songs that were played off of it were “Lucid Dreams,” which I thought was only okay and “No You Girls,” which I found to be a much better song. I’m not sure why this never made it into regular rotation. I have never seen the video before today and it is damn goofy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no idea why I keep buying albums from The Killers. I usually really like one or two songs and then the rest of the album gets ignored by me. I saw them live for their first tour and was not impressed, which can kill my  love for a band. The latest album came out and, of course, I really liked one song on it and the rest seems to only be okay to me.  I had never seen this video before today, either. What is up with Brandon Flower’s outfit?

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I’m cheating on this one. The album was released towards the end of 2008, but I didn’t discover it until early 2009. I got to see the band at the Sasquatch music festival up in George, WA. What a trip! There were so many costumes and weirdness going on, that I couldn’t believe I was sober. There is no official video for this and the live versions I found had horrible sound quality so it’s just a non-video linked below.

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It’s the group made up of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. They all work at Saturday Night Live, but they have been friends and making funny stuff for years. They are mostly famous for “I’m on a Boat” or “Dick in a Box” that are popular on SNL. The entire album is completely juvenile and is quite popular with teenage boys. I do love this song. It’s catchy. I also love listening to Julian Casablancas singing with more emotion than I hear on The Strokes songs. Sadly, there is no official video and most  that I find are scary. The WoW one is my favorite.

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This is another cheating one since it also came out at the end of 2008, but I discovered it at the very beginning of 2009. It is essentially a band for Victoria Hesketh from the UK.  I read about her in Rolling Stone and went to check out her music based on what they wrote. She has a bunch of EPs and extended singles. Her first full-length album came out last year as an import, but I can’t find it available to download anywhere so I’ll just wait for that to happen. There’s no official song for this video either so you’ll just have to listen to it while staring at the random girl in the clip that isn’t Victoria.

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I love Kinky. They get no radio airplay that I know about in the States. They put on fabulous live shows. I learned about them years ago from a CMJ cd that had one of their songs on it. Sadly, my favorite song on the latest album does not have an official video. I did find some live versions, but the sound quality on most of them were really bad. I did find some in studio performances, but it is a shame to watch them in the studio when they have so much energy live. While searching for a more exciting video of this song, I did stumble across them doing a cover of “Mexican Radio,” complete with accordion. Awesome!

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For old school Prodigy fans, I think you will be pleased with this album, if you decided to ignore Prodigy lately. This goes back to their old school sound. I really didn’t think I would like the album, but just bought it for the hell of it. I was pleasantly surprised. I love this song. It reminds me of the poppy goodness of  “It’s No Good.”

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The New York City band’s second album was produced by Britt Daniel from Spoon. I really like “Percussion Gun”, but the rest of the album didn’t grab me as much. It’s still a really good song. I love the dual drums.

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I’ve heard about Grizzly Bear for a few years. I’ve heard some of their songs, but for some reason, none of them resonated with me until this past year. They were just one of those bands that snuck up on me. I never hated the songs, but they just didn’t do anything for me until recently. As for the video, it freaks me out in a good way.

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This was the first song that I blipped on blip.fm back in April 2009. They formed down in Southern California, but wanted to move somewhere else so they ended up in Portland. This song is beyond catchy. I saw them play up at Sasquatch Music Festival in May and they were very entertaining live. The rest of their songs are as catchy as this one.

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Even though “Sleepyhead” showed up on the Chunk of Change EP in 2008, it also showed up on their first full-length album in 2009. I also discovered both EP and album in 2009 so it all counts in my book. I read about Passion Pit while I was at Sasquatch. They sounded like something I would like from the description, but they were playing at the same time as the Doves so I chose to see the Doves. Little later on in the  year, I kept hearing a fifteen-second snippet of a song on the radio as new music they were playing. I wanted to know what it was and I wanted to hear the entire song. It turned out to be “The Reeling.” I bought everything I could find from them at that point. That’s when I fell in love with this song.

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This was another song that  slowly grew on me. I loved that it wasn’t a typical-sounding song. I didn’t think I would really like much more from the band than this song, but I saw them live last month. They were phenomenal. The live energy was insane. Good stuff.

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I discovered this band by listening to an ITunes indie music sampler a few months ago. It doesn’t appear that you can buy it from Amazon, except as an import. It is on ITunes and I downloaded it from emusic.com since I subscribe to it. I downloaded this album and the previous EP. They are both really good, dance rock tracks.

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This is another song I discovered this band by listening to an ITunes indie music sampler a few months ago. I just downloaded the album and started listening to it. The rest seems to be more in a ’70s rock vein, moreso than this song, but I do love this song. It has a poppy feel with a great guitar sound.

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I fell in love with this song first before I saw it in 500 Days of Summer. The guitars sound like U2, but while I do not like U2, I like this. I believe it is the singing that makes all the difference.

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I found this song on an Austin City Limits sample from ITunes earlier this year. I don’t know anything about the band, but I really like the song.

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I really liked “Young Folks” when it came out a few years ago, but I took it as a one-hit wonder and ignored the band. I really like this song, so I really should buy something from them. I just haven’t done it yet.

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Spearhead used to be played on the radio station I listened to in high school and college. I was not a big fan. I do love this song, but that’s probably because it is different than anything Michael Franti and Spearhead have ever done. It is a happy song so I’ll just enjoy this one.

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I’m not a Pete Yorn fan but I do like this song. Maybe it is because of Scarlett Johansson. I just love the chorus when they are both singing together.

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Entire YouTube Playlist: Summer ’09 Playlist

Miike Snow – Animal

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Franz Ferdinand – Can’t Stop Feeling

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Hockey – Too Fake

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Kinky – Hasta Quemarnos

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Little Boots – Meddle

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Of Montreal – Triphallus, To Punctuate

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Of Montreal – The Party’s Crashing Us

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Passion Pit – The Reeling

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White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

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http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0B3B5BD49FE889A7&page=2

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=25A9D49A5C86A636

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A9D04643930DDACC

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Best of the Best

#1

Artist: Kings of Leon
Album: Only By the Night
Released: September 23, 2008

I don’t think it is a shocker for anyone that was in my vicinity when “Sex on Fire” came out that this would be my choice for number one album of the year. I found quite a few songs that were my current favorite song for a few weeks throughout the year, but I was obsessed with this one when it came out. I played the video non-stop on YouTube, just waiting for the album to be released. Luckily, I found the rest of the album just as great, bought all their past albums and then saw them live. It was one the best live shows I have ever been to so good thing that song came out.

Best Tracks:

• Sex on Fire
  

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• I Want You
• Closer
• Revelry
• 17
• Use Somebody
  

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• Cold Desert

#2

Artist: TV On the Radio
Album: Dear Science
Released: September 23, 2008

TV On the Radio are a hard band to get into. I love their songs, but they aren’t very accessible. Some of their other albums are a little too much the definition of art rock. I think this is their most accessible album. There are a lot dancier, plus they have a lot of beautiful slower songs on the album too.. It is just a really good album and I’m very happy that Rolling Stone named it the album of the year, even if I didn’t. As you can tell below, I have a hard time picking a favorite song. I almost put them all down.

Best Tracks:

• Shout Me Out
• DLZ
• Dancing Choose
  

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• Golden Age
  

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• Family Tree
  

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• Crying
• Lover’s Day

#3

Artist: My Morning Jacket
Album: Evil Urges
Released: June 10, 2008

I had heard about them for years, but they seemed to be too much on the alt country side of rock for me so I avoided them. I fell in love with “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Part 2″ so I just bought the album and found it to be such a strange mix of everything. There are the rocking songs like “Touch Me”, followed by the Prince-sounding songs, like “Highly Suspicious”, and then there are the straight-sounding country songs that I actually grew to like. Me, like country? Impossible!

Best Tracks:

• Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Part 2
  

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• Highly Suspicious
• Evil Urges
• Thank You Too!
• Smokin from Shootin

#4

Artist: Coldplay
Album: Viva La Vida
Released: June 17, 2008

I really seem to like every other Coldplay album a lot more than the other ones. I found their first album, Parachutes, pretty good. I could not stop playing A Rush of Blood to the Head. I never fully got into X&Y, but loved this latest album right off the bat. It is very similar to their second album where I can’t stop listening to it and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get sick of it.

Best Tracks:

• Violet Hill
  

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• Viva La Vida
  

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• 42
  

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• Lovers in Japan
  

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#5

Artist: Cut Copy
Album: In Ghost Colours
Released: April 9, 2008

I found them by going from eMusic recommendations based on other stuff that I liked. It was a great recommendation. I found out that I love this synth-pop band from Australia that sounds like they are right out of the ’80s. I still think any of their songs could be on a movie soundtrack from that decade. When I first heard it, I didn’t think it had a lot of substance, but it was fun to listen to. I have found that I am still listening to it almost every day months after I purchased it, so it seems to hold up. It just really makes me happy to listen to while I am at work.

Best Tracks:

• Feel the Love
• Out There On the Ice
• Lights & Music
  

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• So Haunted
• Far Away
• Strangers in the Wind

#6

Artist: MGMT
Album: Oracular Spectacular
Released: January 22, 2008

They are a couple of young guys that sound much older due to their influences. They sound like a mix of Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd and Talking Heads. Their songs are pretty varied so I was surprised while listening to it on shuffle on my Ipod that I would look down and find out some songs were by them since I didn’t even recognize it to be the same band.

Best Tracks:

• Time to Pretend
  

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• Electric Feel
• Weekend Wars
• Of Moons, Birds & Monsters
• Future Reflections

Almost Perfect

#7

Artist: Bloc Party
Album: Intimacy
Released: October 28, 2008

It took me a while to get into Bloc Party. I really liked their first album by the time the second one came out and then didn’t buy that one until just before this one came out. I actually bought this one in time! I wasn’t sure what to think about the non-stop loud dance electronic force of it, but it grew on me. I have found that I like this album more than other ones that I bought at the same time so that’s a good sign! The only fault is some of the songs sound similar, but I’m still liking that sound so far.

Best Tracks:

• Ares
  

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• Mercury
  

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• Signs
• One Month Off
  

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• Ion Square
  

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• Your Visits Are Getting Shorter
• Flux
  

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#8

Artist: Duffy
Album: Rockferry
Released: May 13, 2008

She sounds like she just stepped out from the ’60s soul era. She is very reminiscent of Dusty Springfield. If  you like Amy Winehouse, you will love her and she’s much better.

Best Tracks:

• Mercy
  

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• Delayed Devotion
  

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• Hanging On Too Long
  

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• Warwick Avenue
  

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• Stepping Stone
  

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#9

Artist: Keane
Album: Perfect Symmetry
Released: October 14, 2008

Their first two albums were very pretty pop albums. This one is different. I really like it, but it is a departure from their first two albums. I really liked their earlier stuff, but it seemed to always be missing something on the CDs. I loved the band more after I saw them live and enjoyed the songs more. The energy from their live shows seems to come through on this album more.

Best Tracks:

• Spiralling
• The Lovers Are Losing
• You Haven’t Told Me Anything
  

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• Again & Again
  

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• Pretend That You’re Alone

#10

Artist: Boys Noize
Album: Oi Oi Oi
Released: September 27, 2007

It didn’t come out in 2008, but I discovered it at the beginning of the year so I’m including it. I am not the biggest fan of electronic techno music. I really like lyrics, but for some reason I can’t get enough of this album. The band is one guy from Germany who is a music producer and has done a lot of remixes for Bloc Party, Depeche Mode, Feist and Justice. The style is very similar to Daft Punk. I discovered them from CMJ Music Monthly magazine.

Best Tracks:

• & Down
  

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• Arcade Robot
• Superfresh
• Shine Shine
• Wu-Tang (The Battery pt. 2)
• My Moon My Man remix

#11

Artist: Switches
Album: Lay Down the Law
Released: March 18, 2008

It is dancy rock music that is really catchy. I found them by their song “Drama Queen” being played on the radio, bought the album and loved it.

Best Tracks:

• Drama Queen
  

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• Step Kids in Love
• The Need To Be Needed
• Lay Down the Law
  

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• Snakes and Ladders
• Testify

#12

Artist: Carolina Liar
Album: Coming to Terms
Released: May 19, 2008

The lead singer is from South Carolina with the rest of his band filled with Swedish musicians, even though they look like they could be from S.C. too. I fell in love with “I’m Not Over” when I first heard it on the radio. The rest of the album was a surprise with every song being really solid, melodic rock songs. There isn’t any filler on it.

Best Tracks:

• I’m Not Over
• Coming to Terms
• Show Me What I’m Looking For
• California Bound
• Better Alone

#13

Artist: Louis XIV
Album: Slick Dogs and Ponies
Released: January 29, 2008

They are completely stuck in the ’70s rock music and sound like they should be from England, but they are actually from San Diego. They have a gritty, dirty rock sound that I love. I think this album is a lot more polished compared to their debut.

Best Tracks:

• Guilt By Association
• Stalker
• Slick Dogs and Ponies
• Misguided Sheep
• Tina

#14

Artist: Republic Tigers
Album: Keep Color
Released: May 6, 2008

They are a very melodic band from Kansas City, Missouri that I discovered when I was posting what new CDs came out each week. While I was listening to their stuff, I thought it sounded good and bought it. Apparently they have been played a lot of Gossip Girl, but I don’t watch that show, so I would have never heard of them besides randomly stumbling across them.

Best Tracks:

• Buildings & Mountains
  

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• Golden Sand
• Feelin’ the Future
  

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• The Nerve
• Fight Song

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Mika

Mika was born in Lebanon, but raised in Paris and London. He seems a cross between Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and Jellyfish. It is completely catchy pop music. His album, Life in Cartoon Motion, has hit number one in the UK and is released in the US this week. There are a few songs on You Tube that you can listen to. My favorite is Grace Kelly.

• Grace Kelly
• Love Today
• Relax, Take It Easy

Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor was born in Moscow in the former Soviet Union, but her family moved to the Bronx when she was a teenager. The Strokes decided they loved her and had her open up for them on their last tour. The first time I heard Fidelity, it bugged me. The second time, I loved it so I say give it a second shot after you hear it for the first time since the different singing style can grow on you. These songs come off her fourth album, Begin to Hope.

• Fidelity
• Better
• Samson
• On the Radio

The Kooks

The Kooks hail from Brighton, England. Their name comes from a David Bowie song, Kooks. Their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, spent more than half of 2006 in the top 20 in the UK. They are just starting to get notice in the U.S. where they are currently touring and selling out gigs all over the place, including the stop in Portland in May. Naive is the first song that I heard from them and loved. I am also a big fan of Eddie’s Gun, which you can hear on MySpace. They are guitar pop goodness.

• Naive
• Seaside
• Sofa Song
• Ooh La

The Fratellis

The Fratellis are from Glasgow, Scotland. They have been greatly loved in the UK and dubbed as the “next Oasis”, but many other bands have been dubbed that in the UK press. They are fickle there. They won the Brit Award (Grammy equivalent) for Breakthrough Act. Their sound is along the same line as The Kooks with guitar pop, head bopping good times. Their debut album is Costello Music. Their first song, Flathead, was used in an iPod commercial. I never saw it. The first song I heard by them was Chelsea Dagger, which is my favorite. Flathead seems quite catchy too.

• Flathead
• Chelsea Dagger

Peter Bjorn and John

Peter Bjorn and John are two guys from Stockholm, Sweden. They met in 1999 and have made three albums together. Their third album, Writer’s Block, has the whistling song on it! I first heard the song on a weekend on the radio. I was bouncing my head to it, and Jer said the song was annoying. I said I liked it! I didn’t know who sang it. Then I heard it dancing a week or two later. I kept referring to it as the whistling song, until I finally figured out who sang it. Now I know it is Young Folks and I’m happy.

• Young Folks
• Objects of My Affection

Sources: Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, Rolling Stone

Artist: Snow Patrol
Album: Eyes Open
Release Date: May 9, 2006

Their last album (Final Straw) pretty much covered a relationship going through some rocky times. This one deals with one falling apart in a very messy way. Even with the more depressing themes, the songs are more straight-forward rock style than Final Straw. It took me a bit longer to get into this album than Final Straw, but the albums that take me longer to love stick with me longer.

Best songs: Chasing Cars, Make This Go On Forever

Artist: Keane
Album: Under the Iron Sea
Release Date: June 20, 2006

Keane’s first album (Hopes and Fears) sounded pretty, but the lyrics covered troubled relationships of all kinds, especially friendships. This album seems an extension of the same themes, but it is even darker. The band is still just a singer, drummer and pianist. No guitar or bass player in this band. They don’t need it though. They do have one song, Is It Any Wonder?, that sounds like there are guitars, but they are just samples. My only complaint is Crystal Ball sounds like a cookie-cutter catchy song, but not in a good way. Beyond that song though, the rest of the album has more substance than the first album.

Best songs: Is It Any Wonder?, Nothing In My Way

Artist: Muse
Album: Black Holes and Revelations
Release Date: July 11, 2006

When the first single off this album was released, Knights of Cydonia, the prog rock titles were thrown around. While that song does fit in with the prog rock since it is epic and grand, it is the only song fitting the title. The album goes all over the place in terms of style of each song. Starlight is a super catchy pop song, while Supermassive Black Hole has a thumping beat and falsetto singing. The beginning of Assassin sounds like the Knight Rider theme before it dives into massive sound of guitars and Hoodoo is the piano-based song that appears on each of albums. The band stated that they didn’t want to do a concept album, but they just wanted to make a bunch of the best songs possible with no real theme through all of them. I think they accomplished it well.

Best songs: Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole

Artist: Kinky
Album: Reina
Release Date: September 5, 2006

A continuation on their third album from their first two, Kinky still has the weird-ass mix of bass, guitar, accordion, synths, percussion, dance, hip hop and more. This album is more similar to the second one with the mix of song sung in Spanish and English. I always prefer the Spanish songs since the lyrics are so simplistic and silly. I like just listening and dancing to the music.

Best songs: Sister Twisted , Una Linea De Luz