Completely untethered to any genre and and almost impossible to mix, ‘Unruly’ lives up to its name. UK club producer Ploy has covered a lot of stylistic ground over the past few years, shifting with ease between weighty, pressure-cooker techno and nimble, percussive house, but ‘Unruly’ puts it all into one head-spinning track designed for adventurous dancefloors. Most of this year’s four-on-the-floor techno cuts look pedestrian in comparison. SW

Lorenzo Senni pays tribute to free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman and his hardcore heroes Refused with The Shape Of Trance To Come. But the title is more than simply a nod to past favorites; the track’s endlessly-rising, intense emotion gives the title heft and it stands as a singular, definitive statement for Senni. With rumors of a Warp full-length in 2018, it also feels like the calm before the storm. MB

This standout from Murlo's underrated Club Coil EP is the perfect synthesis of the Mixpak producer's futuristic sound palette and all of the best aesthetic parts of ’90s eurodance. It builds on the chemistry he and vocalist Gemma Dunleavy nurtured on 2015’s ‘Deep Breath’, this time going straight for the jugular. They're increasingly perfect foils for each other and ‘I Need’ is the best example of their cohesion. CL

Sure, ‘Passionfruit’ is a jam, but Wizkid’s ‘Come Closer’ is the best track Drake’s greasy fingers have smudged this year. He’s almost unnecessary, in fact, as Nigerian superstar Wizkid sings with a more pointed sense of melancholy over a skeletal Afrobeats backdrop that more than stands up to multiple repeat plays. ‘One Dance’ may have catapulted UK funky back into the public consciousness but ‘Come Closer’ hints at something far more contemporary. JT

Baltimore was never far from the headlines in 2017, as the justice department announced in September that federal charges would not be brought against the six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray in 2015 and crippling structural racism continued to rattle the city’s foundations. But solidarity is one thing the state can’t strip from its subjects and local crew Creek Boyz’s ‘With My Team’ is the year’s best ode to camaraderie. Sad, heartfelt and poignant, it highlights the bonds that hold Baltimore together, even as it shakes. JT

David Byrne said it best: "I really like the song... and her performance too!" Not since Spring Breakers have we felt this connected to Selena Gomez's artistic choices, but this deconstruction of Talking Heads sacred text 'Psycho Killer' uses its source material cleverly - no "fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh, fuh-fuh-fuhfuh-fuh-fuh" interpolations here - and Gomez's vocal timbres are interesting and unexpected. Stay away from Marshmello and those other EDM boys, Selena; you’re much better when you’re wearing weirdo clothing. CL

Ty Dolla $ign reconnects with ‘Toot It and Boot It’ collaborator YG for a tale of a seedier kind of reconnection on ‘Ex’. “I just text my main chick, told her I ain’t coming home,” Ty sings in a boozy haze as he retreats into the arms of a former lover. He proclaims it’s an unavoidable product of his hedonistic way of life and YG concurs in his guest verse: “A hundred times told her, I was gon’ stop / But it’s kinda hard, when every night them bottles pop.” Probably not the sort of men you want to introduce to your nan, then, but no one could deny the song’s melodic sparkle. AH

‘Your Kiss is Sour’ floats in a beatless orbit where alien synths and ominous drones move in slow motion, but collide with maximum impact. It sounds several solar systems beyond James Blake’s acclaimed Hemlock debut, Air & Lack Thereof, but its take on dubstep is just as significant. MB

'No Big Bang' is the spiritual successor to Bikini Kill's ‘I Hate Danger’: both songs give the drummer the mic to explore just how alienating it can be when you're talking to someone who claims to share your worldview, but your conversation proves otherwise. For Bikini Kill's Tobi Vail, it was about exterior - being forced into a group hang with ersatz-allies who don't practice - but for Priests' Daniele Daniele, her monologue goes inward as she espouses the psychic ills of wanting to create while being hindered by anxiety. CL

‘Love Galore’ is about the half-truths of digital intimacy, the text message-only paramours who aren't quite catfish because they're are, indeed, who they say they are, but have no intent the slide the relationship out of the DMs. “I remember my sister went all the way to go visit some guy and he just didn’t show up. At all. In a whole ‘nother state,” she told Genius about the song's lyrics. “That’s never happened to me before. However, if it did, I would have to murk somebody. “You said you wanted to do all these things. Like, you wanted to spend time and, you know, talked a good one. Via whatever. Via text, via on the phone, and then you go ghost.” It recalls a scene in the, otherwise trite, rom-com He's Just Not That Into You where Drew Barrymore laments how modern dating has too many platforms where you can be ignored or rejected. No wonder SZA’s a fan. CL

One of year’s most deliriously effective remixes, Pangaea’s flip of 1994 house track ‘Stand Up!’ sets Loleatta Holloway’s vocals against a crushing bass drum and filtered percussive loop. Holloway is one of the disco era’s most sampled vocalists, but her trademark ‘whoop’ has rarely felt this infectious. SW

The first lady of Lil Yachty’s Sailing Team collective has impressed throughout the year, but never more than on ‘Level Up’, a sticky-sweet slice of Caribbean pop that amplifies Kodie Shane’s impressive range. Her youthful exuberance is infectious and her passion palpable as she fuses flavors of Atlanta, Kingston and London with molecular efficiency. This is modern pop music done right. JT

Calvin Harris cemented his pop credentials with Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, an album that brought together Pharrell, Young Thug and Ariana Grande (‘Heatstroke’), Kehlani and Lil Yachty (‘Faking It’) and Snoop, John Legend and Takeoff (‘Holiday’), just to name a few. None of those tracks had the lazy summer luster of Harris’s ‘Slide’, though, a Migos and Frank Ocean collab that was undoubtedly one of the best pop songs of the year. Like Picasso’s Garçon à la Pipe, which Frank sings about emptying his bank account for, this is high art. AH

Manchester wunderkind Diana De Brito aka IAMDDB is destined to take 2018 by storm - it’s written in the stars and on countless ones to watch lists. At the heart of her identity lies a passion for jazz that brings a swing to De Brito’s samba-tinged, R&B-soaked trap sound, self-described as “urban jazz”. ‘Shade’ is her swagger-filled breakout single and a bold, brash fuck you to all the haters. “Bitch I'm the wave, you can go home,” she asserts in a rich, smoky voice. It’s a low-key anthem from an artist who’s going places. ACW

There’s no shortage of contemporary club tracks using well-worn jungle and hardcore signifiers right now, but few producers have managed to do it as effortlessly as Shanti Celeste. It shouldn’t be surprising, really: Celeste worked at Bristol’s Idle Hands store for years and approaches the weight of her task with wisdom, humor and restraint. You won’t find any cheese here, just pure vibes: dusty breaks, rainforest blasts and vocal cuts echoing over the kind of bass that’s engineered just for 3am. JT

Manchester’s Finn drifts from his grime roots on his new collection of “house jams for trying times” and its opening title track hits like an emergency shot of optimism. Its bleary synth progression and unashamedly funky rhythm provide a feel-good backdrop for a powerhouse vocal that turns the title into a rally cry for perseverance. After a year like this, ‘Sometimes The Going Gets A Little Tough’ is exactly the pick-me-up we need. MB

Proper dubstep, breakneck electro, loopy techno and, now, ‘90s house - is there nothing Objekt can’t do? ‘Theme From Q’ draws inspiration from Kerri Chandler's barreling breakbeats and the Korg M1 stabs from ‘Show Me Love’ to create a tribute so true to the era that it even had its own fanciful backstory to go with it. This is Objekt though, so it’s hardly a nostalgic facsimile – the result is more like a precision-engineered floorfiller from the far future. SW

If ‘New Slaves’ was Kanye West's autopsy of the racist capitalism that allowed for the decadence on Watch the Throne, then Jay-Z's ‘The Story of O.J.’m wraps up their intended, but poorly timed, message of defiant indulgence with a take on financial guidance. There is advice on how to launder your drug money as a landlord and to prioritize building credit over making it rain; Jay extols his own regrets missed about real estate opportunities and buying cars with money he should have saved; more importantly, he reminds that even when a black person "transcends" their race, as O.J. Simpson claimed to do at the height of his NFL career, once you're perceived to have transgressed, all the stereotypes you thought you thwarted are thrust back upon you. CL

Last year, Anastasia Vtorova was lamenting Tinder dating and the loneliness of Berlin’s club scene. It’s amazing what a difference 12 months makes: ‘Camile From OHM Makes Me Feel Loved’ is the polar opposite of those moody, introspective club tracks, paying tribute to her favorite nightclub bouncer with a warm hug of a chord loop that’ll lift any dancefloor’s spirits. SW

Kendrick Lamar’s innate strength and virtue barely needed stating before his Good Friday release, DAMN. That album’s biggest banger spelt it out anyways: “I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA / I got hustle though, ambition flow inside my DNA,” he spits over a punishingly hard Mike Will beat, a self-help mantra that anyone can recite as a reminder that, in even the most arduous circumstances, the power to pull through is within you. When the track flips halfway through, the intensity skyrockets further: another Kendrick classic to add to the canon is born. AH

‘Blue Pedro’ is the sea shanty house jam we never knew we needed. A beacon of joy sailing across the grey sea of misery that is 2017, nothing about it should work: the melody is taken from ‘Barnacle Bill’, a nautical-themed 1930s composition by Herbert Ashworth-Hope that’s been used as the theme music for long-running British kids’ TV show Blue Peter since 1958, and Bullion’s use of it initially seems like a bad joke. Once it gets going though, it turns into an irresistible Highlife-meets-boogie jam that’s probably had more rewinds on the dancefloor this year than anything else. Get yourself on a narrowboat and play this on loop at full volume. All aboard! SW

‘Lemon’ is a hyphy-propelled thunderbolt from the blue that’s elevated a couple of thousand stories by an effortlessly amazing Rihanna rap: “I get it how I live it, I live it how I get it, count the motherfucking digits,” she implores, before lecturing paparazzi to “get the lens right” as they snap her in her new $1.5m Ferrari. No big deal. In one four-minute swoop, N.E.R.D proved they could remain vital in 2017. AH

Miles Mitchell’s stripped down approach to pop music came into full focus on Devout, an album that cuts out all the fat, leaving behind rhythm, harmony and plenty of hooks. ‘VPN’ is its crowning achievement, blessed with an assured vocal performance from similarly-minded pop sculptor Palmistry who runs circles around the current chart crop while sounding seemingly like he isn’t even trying. Introversion doesn’t have to sound sad and lonely. JT

Don't roll your eyes at us for picking a former member of Fifth Harmony's debut solo single as one of the best tracks of the year - just embrace this ode to the dancefloor as a sanctuary because it's a pure banger. CL

‘To The Moon and Back’ found Swedish pop agitator Fever Ray, aka the Knife's Karin Dreijer, return to the fold after 8 years away sounding recharged and fired-up. The first single from new album Plunge, this Peder Mannerfelt-assisted anthem pulsed with life, lust ("I want to run my fingers up your pussy") and butterflies-in-your-stomach nervous energy that made you want to scream into the sky. AH

‘Mask Off’ finds Future reveling in the self-inflicted chaos around him. With a toast to some pharmaceutical muses and an instantly-iconic flute hook, it is his peak of luxury and loneliness. MB

“I am a black woman, a second-generation Ethiopian-American, who grew up in the ’burbs listening to R&B, jazz and Björk,” Kelela said upon announcing her long-awaited debut, Take Me Apart. She explores that identity with a crystalline, future-facing beat from Jam City on ‘LMK’, one of the prettiest songs on the album. It finds her at the height of her seductive powers, too. “You don’t know my bed / Well tonight you might find out,” she tempts, subverting gender stereotypes in the process with the assurance: “It ain't that deep either way / No one's trying to settle down.” ACW

‘Glue’ doesn’t have a commodifiable theme or message and it isn’t tied to a particular scene or other - it’s just a simple, effective slice of hybrid dance music, bringing together brittle breaks, melancholy vocal snippets and trance-like euphoria without a hint of bitterness. Sometimes it’s okay for dance music to work on a purely utilitarian level. JT

2017 was a great year for R&B and The Internet’s Syd impressed with her debut album FIN, a record that sounded both crushingly contemporary and decidedly throwback all at once. ‘Know’ is the stand-out, with Syd’s vulnerability anchoring a Timbaland-influenced syncopated beat and clubby neon synths. It’s clichéd to mention Aaliyah yet again after over a decade of iffy references, but this is one instance where the comparison is actually appropriate. JT

Like all of Lanark Artefax’s IDM-tinged tracks, 'Touch Absence' is a melting pot of likely reference points: Autechre’s Artificial Intelligence track ‘Crystel’, Jega’s ‘Geometry’ and anything from Selected Ambient Works 85-92 are just some of the classics that echo in the background of the young Glaswegian’s breakthrough single. Retreading sacred musical ground is always risky, but 'Touch Absence' transcends its influences because it comes from the heart. Wide-eyed and optimistic, it’s 2017’s most emotional club moment. SW

Zora Jones and Jlin demonstrate their power over the club with ‘Dark Matter’, a hybrid footwork cut that highlights why both artists are basking in well-deserved acclaim. Jones’ heaving vocals and unmistakable synths dance around Jlin’s rapidly-shifting rhythms and the result is a track that practically commands you to move. JT

Playboi Carti may hail from Atlanta and milly rock in New York, but his heart belongs to New Orleans on his monster hit ‘Magnolia’. Named after the New Orleans housing project that Southern rap luminaries Birdman, Juvenile and Soulja Slim all once called home and propelled by a New Orleans bounce beat courtesy of Pi’erre Bourne, ‘Magnolia’ was one of the biggest rap singles of the year for good reason: rappers don’t come more carefree than Carti atop this banger’s swirl of keys and rattling bass. AH

What better way to represent the West Midlands than with a track that celebrates the region’s long-dominant fusion of soul, 2-step and bassline. Walsall-born singer Jorja Smith has risen fast this year, appearing on Drake’s More Life and getting her hometown a long-overdue shoutout in the process, so teaming up with Brummie producer Preditah was an inspired - and fitting - move. It’s a throwback cut, no doubt, but brims with genuine love rather than awkward scene-jumping cynicism (*cough* Ed Sheeran *cough*). Smith sounds as if she’s having the time of her life and her excitement is so infectious that it’s hard not to crack a smile, even on the 50th spin. A collaboration with Goldie (or Noddy Holder?) has to be next, right? JT

‘Show You The Way’, a collaboration with blue-eyed soul god Michael McDonald and ‘Danger Zone’ singer Kenny Loggins, is immediately the most absurd part of Thundercat’s personality-packed and impossibly fun Drunk. Once you adjust to the song’s silky smooth alternative-reality, however, it also becomes the best. That success hinges on the song’s complete and utter sincerity. Most fans grew up knowing the two singers as larger-than-life jokes, but ‘Show You The Way’ transports you to their glory days, when a young Thundercat saw them as heroes. That nostalgia is made even more vivid with sound effects from Sonic The Hedgehog and Thundercat’s warm spoken introductions for each singer. It navigates the past, the present and the future all at once, with three wise soul survivors to, well, you know the title. MB

One of the most important parts of railing against vanity is making sure you don't get caught up sounding conceited in the process. Stormzy's propulsive 'Big For Your Boots' isn't just party-primed, rage-fueling anthem that lambasts the (unjustly) self-obsessed, it's completely and hilarious self-aware: "Try tell me I'm way too big to rebel? / Nah man, you're never too big to rebel / I was in the O2 singing my lungs out, you're never too big for Adele". It's funny and just cocky enough, a perfect punchline punctuating dexterous, dubious lyrics. CL

E.M.M.A. delves into the past on ‘Mindmaze’, her best track of a busy year. Built around a baroque sample from Encarta ‘95’s bundled puzzle game, ‘Mindmaze’ has been described by the producer as “medieval funky” and we can’t find a better way to describe it. Lost in its passageways of hypnotic loops with colorful melodies twisting around every corner, it's a maze from which you never want to find our way out. MB

M.E.S.H. has never combined his love of frenetic club rhythms and Hollywood blockbuster-inspired sound design as successfully as he does on ‘Search. Reveal.’ Starting as a whisper and growing to a cacophony, it’s one of the year’s most panic-inducing club tracks, swooping into view like a swarm of unmanned drones. Propelled by ragged, twitchy, drums that sound like T++ making kuduro and dominated by a rising siren-like sound that may as well be a doomsday whistle, the highlight of M.E.S.H.’s second album Hesaitix feels like a suitably anxious way to dance away the slow-motion collapse of western civilisation. SW

Since J Hus dropped his 15th Day mixtape in 2015, he’s nabbed a Mercury Prize nomination, a MOBO Award and has become the poster-boy for UK rap in 2017. Produced by the impeccable Jae5, J Hus’s banger-packed debut album Common Sense showcases his unique ability to morph from hard-as-nails roadman to crooning pop star in a breath and ‘Did You See’ stands as a shining synthesis of the two; he channels an elastic blend of grime, Afrobeats, bashment, hiplife and trap, nodding to his Ghanaian heritage and his east London upbringing in a single song.

No protracted marketing campaigns or songwriting bootcamps went into the making of ‘Did You See’ - like plenty of the best rap, the song acts like a diary. "I went to this BBQ in the ends with my one friend in his black Benz, and my other mate picked me up in his white car and took me home,” Hus told i-d. “It's just what happened and I was singing that line the next day, and my manager was like 'That's hard, record that'. I went to the studio and recorded it.” Like the brains behind it, ‘Did You See’ doesn’t mess about. ACW

Cardi B has proven herself to be a malleable performer since she released her first mixtape, 2016's competent Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1. With ‘Bodak Yellow’, she takes Kodak Black's ‘No Flockin'’ flow out of its Southern fried Florida origins and makes it pure NYC: incredulous (“Now she say she gon' do what to who? Let's find out and see") and hard-working ("Dropped two mixtapes in six months / What bitch working as hard as me?"). Before ‘Bodak’ went to No. 1, making Cardi only the second female rapper in history to top Billboard's Hot 100, she caught a lot of flack for "ripping off" Kodak, despite the fact that hip-hop has a storied history of rappers paying tribute to each other's work, and its success was attributed to her aping an already-tested flow.

But without her personality, this song isn't a hit; her unfiltered sharing of herself on Instagram and Love & Hip-Hop: New York is what got her here in the first place. It's also what makes ‘Bodak’ so replayable because the original beat made by J. White Did It doesn't really cut it. It hardly gives Cardi a properly menacing backdrop for her blood-soaked Louboutin brags. Enter Fractal Fantasy bosses Zora Jones and Sinjin Hawke who reinvent the song into something from a dark future. It's the perfect reminder that even when Cardi is doing fairly standard I'm-a-boss raps that she is flexible and doesn't have to be tethered to a trap milieu. CL

Currently sitting at a four million views on YouTube, 'Jacaranda' is the viral, dembow-worshipping hit from the assless chaps-wearing rapper and producer Alba Farelo, aka Bad Gyal. It’s a passionate, hopeful track and one that calls for unity - and dancing.

Farelo dropped her breakout single last spring - a Catalan-language remake of Rihanna’s ‘Work’ called ‘Pai’ - and has in that time evolved into an internet sensation, with a high-powered homecoming show at Barcelona’s Sonar in the bag. Bad Gyal’s preference for singing in Spanish or Catalan, which she flirts with on the hybridized language of ‘Jacaranda’, links her with the Puerto Rican-born genre that has in recent years ballooned into a mainstream pop phenomenon: reggaeton.

Alongside artists like Oakland’s Las Sucias, Madrid’s Ms Nina and Chilean artist Tomasa del Real, Farelo is part of a loose group of femme reggaetonas taking charge of the underground and turning a historically male-dominated genre inside out. Bad Gyal’s hot-take is to throw an ardent love of dancehall into the blender with a stick of pop-rich melody and a generous helping of Auto-Tuned rhymes, giving her a truly unique spice.

“I’m not in Jamaica but it's going to sound / That the world rumbles from the dancehall,” she declares on ‘Jacaranda’, while her choice of collaborator - Popcaan producer Dubbel Dutch (aka Marc Glasser) - adds more weight to her intentions. Glasser lays down a sci-fi patchwork of synths and drums that is as cavernous as it is intimate, letting Farelo's vocal shine. ACW

Written by Miles Bowe, Al Horner, Claire Lobenfeld, John Twells, April Clare Welsh and Scott Wilson.