1. Beyonce and Shakira – Beautiful Liar (Freemasons Radio Vox)

The top track for dancing (and slagging) in 2007. The Freemasons are so good at fixing Beyonce songs–they turn the lame original into something angry and unforgiving. The name calling is great.

2. Girls Aloud – Call the Shots

Love love love this. It’s sounds like having the wind swept through your hair on a yacht in the tropics. It’s a bit pensive, a bit gramatically incorrect, and has a hauntingly perfect beat.

3. Sugababes – About You Now

Popjustice called it “a barnstorming pop-electro-rock masterpiece.” I completely agree.

4. Britney Spears – Break the Ice

The ‘Ooh, looks like we’re alone now’ chorus is certainly the best bit of any Britney song to date. So slick.

5. Groove Armada – Song 4 Mutya

The top-down, perfect summer in the sunshine song. Great synth.

EF, the EF sis and I went to see Panic! live a couple weeks ago, and despite our lack of black eyeliner (and sadness about everything–emo!), we had a pretty good time. The band put on a good show, though the covers of Karma Police and Tonight Tonight were uninspired, and Brendon or Brandon or whatever his name is didn’t exactly go for the high notes (making me think: autotune on the album?). In any case, this remix actually slows down and ‘electro-fies’ the original song, and it’s very good. And the Sugababes–I somehow missed this one (as a single). Don’t really like the opening guitar twang, but then it starts sounding like Goldfrapp, which is almost always a good thing.

Madonna – Jump (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)
Sugababes – Push the Button (DJ Prom Mix)

Both of these are about 8 minutes long–normally I like shorter mixes and radio edits that get right to the point, I guess I get bored during repetitive longer mixes, but these two remixes are very good. Very lush, great builds and crashes, evocative. I wasn’t very impressed with Stuart Price’s recent remix of The Killers’ When You Were Young, but that song wasn’t that great to begin with. This rework of Jump is much better. And the Sugababes track is off their Overloaded remix album–it’s quite good.

Paris Hilton – Nothing in this World (Kaskade Radio Remix)

Like everyone else, I really should hate Paris Hilton. But Nothing in the World as it’s originally mixed is incredibly catchy. And this remix changes it entirely, makes it almost angry, much like perhaps my favorite song of 2004, the Above and Beyond remix of Britney Spears’ Everytime.