This list, now in its third year of existence, exists to support the argument that Top 40 pop isn’t only good for getting the conversation going at the (now mostly virtual) water cooler. It’s also great for listening. I’ve set some criteria here. I’ve included no zeitgeist-dominators; these are part of pop’s general flow. Each was released as a single in 2013, though some are from 2012 albums. Each found its place on Billboard‘s year-end Hot 100 chart. None have been featured in NPR Music’s other lists (thus no “Body Party,” a great song in any year). Most never built up that hipster patina that makes some aesthetes feel like certain songs are worthwhile despite the approval of the undiscerning masses.

These are pop songs, plain and simple. You heard them buying a birthday present for your niece at Hot Topic or grabbing lunch with your mom at your neighborhood family restaurant, pouring out of your kid’s bedroom or remixed in the club. Or, really, wherever you spent time living in the midst of people who might not be exactly the same as you. And maybe for a flashing moment you wondered, what is that? It sounds good.

Pop remains an antidote to niche-deep separations and habits of exclusionary thinking that so often afflict us as we huddle over our individual, ever-present screens, heads bound up in Beats by Dre. (Or Skullcandy, if, like my kid, you’re an aspiring Goth.) These ten songs employ emotionalism, high craftsmanship, and a devotion to the pleasure principle to create spaces open for laughs and tears and dancing. Enjoy them. That’s their point.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

King, “In the Meantime”

Each year in R&B, there are a handful of new artists who burst on the scene and ride a buzz with two or three debut cuts. This was the case with King back in 2011, when they put out an EP called The Story. In 2012 we heard from the L.A. trio through a collaboration with Robert Glasper. This year they delivered two more teasers to keep us hanging for a forthcoming album, a gorgeous midtempo version of Fela Kuti’s “Go Slow” for the Red Hot + Fela compilation and this song. Amber and Anita glide across Paris’ atmospheric arrangement and toy with the listener through the hook. Well played, ladies.

The Foreign Exchange, “On a Day Like Today” from Love in Flying Colors

Producer Nicolay and M.C. and singer-songwriter Phonte have released four albums as divergent from each other as their dedicated and diverse fans. This year’s Love in Flying Colors is the brighter side of its predecessor, Authenticity. Phonte’s pen offers an insightful view of love lost and found, while track by track, he writes through his adjustment to a new skin. Nicolay’s continuous evolution as a producer is best heard on the lead single, “Call it Home,” and “On a Day Like Today,” which goes great with sunshine and a two-step.

Stacy Barthe, “Flawed Beautiful Creatures” from P.S. I Love You

You probably know Stacy Barthe’s work even if you’ve never heard her name. The major labels have her on speed dial, and she’s worked with everyone from Britney Spears and Katy Perry to T.I. to John Legend. But she’s managed to keep a few gems tucked away for her own projects. This year she put out her third offering, P.S. I Love You. The track “Flawed Beautiful Creatures” was the absolute standout of the EP, with its deceptively simple statement, “I’m only human” beautifully elaborated.

The Hics, “Tangle” from Tangle

If you long for the good old days of PG-13-rated R&B, look right across the pond to the U.K. Meet The Hics, a London sextet whose members all studied music at the same school. While they aren’t bound by a specific genre, the group’s sound is clearly influenced by R&B and soul music. The title track of the EP The Hics put out this year is a composition that starts small and swells into something we haven’t heard in quite a while. The way the band’s chord sequences fuse with Roxane’s gentle tone and Sam’s downright eerie vocal is stunning. Next year, look for The Hics to make that jump from “slept on” to “best of” lists.

Iman Omari, “Gravitate” from Vibe(rations)

Everything about Iman Omari’s method is unpredictable. In 2011, with virtually no warning, he put out his debut EP, Energy, and set the Internet ablaze. He was tapped for a number of guest spots and collabs but no solo offerings until this summer when he released an LP called Vibe(rations). The album was available to stream only for a few weeks, then vanished for another few and, finally, in August, was made available for purchase. His sound is equally convoluted and intriguing. The song “Gravitate” serves as the best illustration of this, with vocal layers stacked to create fascinating harmonies.

Kelly Rowland featuring Pharrell, “Feet to the Fire” from Talk a Good Game

I’m confident pinpointing 2013 as the formal resurgence of Pharrell Williams. He’s had his paws on everything from the #1 pop hit of the year to random album and mixtape placements. He was so prolific, some of his tracks ended up sleepers — most notably a bonus track on Kelly Rowland’s Talk a Good Game. On “Feet to the Fire” Rowland and Pharrell tag-team verses over a crispy snare and sticky Rhodes to create a classic mid-’00s Neptunes feel. It’ll never get old.

Omar, “Bully” from The Man

Omar is another example of an artist from the U.K. schooling today’s American singers. He returns after a seven-year hiatus with his best album to date, The Man. The writing and subject matter on his latest opus shows distinctly that Omar has stayed sharp while away from the game. The glaring horns and percussion on “Bully” dare you not to move at least one body part, sugarcoating a message of peace in a West Indian-inspired jam.

Bilal, “Lost for Now” from A Love Surreal

Many great songs are the result of great pain. Bilal’s “Lost for Now,” from his latest album, A Love Surreal, exposes his agony during the darkest hour of heartbreak. It’s the moment he accepts the fact that it’s undoubtedly over. Backed by just guitars and drums, Bilal’s lyrics poke at his fresh wound. In the past he’s displayed vocal acrobatics over tracks by some of hip-hop’s greatest producers (Dr. Dre, J. Dilla), but it’s refreshing to hear him subdued on a stripped-down instrumental. The song is a brilliant moment of maturity.

The Stepkids, “The Lottery” from Troubadour

The Stepkids stuck to the script on their second go-round (Troubadour) after making waves with their 2011 debut LP. “The Lottery” is a summer jam whose jagged groove spans genres. Although there’s an initial correlation to Fagan and Becker, the trio sonically infuses Parliament Funk, Philly soul and a curveball of Nashville country into one arrangement without sounding contrived. When the synths and harmonies kick in, the sound is completely organic. Only thing missing is the crackle of vinyl.

SZA, “Teen Spirit”

TDE’s sole singer unleashed “Teen Spirit” following her signing to the former all-male, all-hip-hop label. The accompanying video brings teenage producer Wondergurl’s cryptic soundscape to life. SZA crawls over the track, injecting passion but never overpowering it. I think it’s safe to say that this song showcases only one facet of SZA’s abilities. After all, she ends by repeating, “You don’t even know me.” She’s been drafted into the big leagues, but it’ll be interesting to see which way the pendulum swings for SZA in 2014.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

But I like to see the positive repercussions of tagging art in such impossibly vague ways. It means that I have all the more good music to dig into, even if I never hear a fraction of what’s out there and worth hearing. So I invite you to consider this list of 10 albums I’ve really enjoyed this year as simply a jumping-off point for discovery — and please tell me what I’ve missed via Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments section here.

And be sure to check out all the great international picks on NPR Music’s other year-end lists, from our 50 Favorite Albums to our 100 Favorite Songs. Needless to say, there’s plenty of globalismo in the year-end picks offered by my friends Jasmine and Felix over at Alt.Latino — so go check out their excellent list. I was delighted to see that we had only one point of intersection, which means there’s just that much more for me to hear in 2014.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

“Blurred Lines,” Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell and T.I.

If you were breathing in 2013, you couldn’t escape hearing this retro disco summer anthem. But the reputation of the year’s most Shazam-ed song has already come into question, first by the way critics railed against its ambiguous, possibly pro-rape lyric, and then by the claims of Marvin Gaye’s estate that “Blurred Lines” infringes on the late singer’s classic 1976 “Got to Give It Up.” The question of whether “Blurred Lines” is a total rip or just a friendly homage is a legal conundrum for the courts to sort out. But Thicke has already damaged some public goodwill by seeming to further a long, bitter tradition of white artists stylizing the work of black innovators without giving proper credit or financial remuneration. (To say nothing of the way he’s been tried in the public courts in 2013 for his ill-advised twerking session with Miley Cyrus at MTV’s VMAs.) Still, no other tune in 2013 — except for that other disco summer anthem, Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” also featuring ubiquitous Pharrell — was as purely galvanizing and pleasurable on a musical level. 2013 might be remembered by some as the year when “blue-eyed” soul ruled. But Thicke is nothing if not consistent: he also made his 2002 debut with “When I Get You Alone,” a propulsive groove pop tune crafted on the success of an earlier disco hit (Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven.”) It’s audiences who’ve finally caught up.

“Hurt You,” Toni Braxton and Babyface

The ’80s and ’90s’ most creatively gifted and prolific R&B songwriter-producer, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds delivered his best work writing songs that gave dimension and diversity to women’s emotional issues — as on his 1995 magnum opus, the all-female performed Waiting to Exhale soundtrack. Babyface’s writing and production hit machine reached its peak with his musical marriage to husky-voiced Toni Braxton; unfortunately their streak of chart success in the ’90s came to a close on the heels of her bankruptcy while signed to his LaFace label. Now that the Braxton family has rebranded itself thanks to reality television, Braxton is a household name again, and she and Babyface have announced plans to re-unite for a full-length duet album set to drop in 2014. “Hurt You” is the preview single — a delicate, bass-bumping midtempo that feels no need to break new ground. Instead, it’s satisfied to remind us that emotionally invested, mature, grown-folk R&B is enough on its own. To my ears, “Hurt You” is every bit as smooth and seductive as Drake’s Toto-esque 2013 smash “Hold On, We’re Going Home” — and it doesn’t sound as if it’s sung by a mannequin.

“Simplify,” Omar

The U.K. godfather of nu-soul, Omar Lye-Fook was delivering soulful sounds over broken, jagged funk grooves long before it was universally fashionable. His music continues to be a reminder that it was the U.K. soul renaissance of the ’80s and ’90s (Sade, Paul Young, Wham, Soul II Soul, Human League, Lisa Stansfield, etc.) that first carved out musical and sonic space for the U.S. renaissance that followed in the ’90s via artists like D’Angelo, Erykah Badu and J. Dilla. Though Omar was recently bestowed with an MBE, he’s never really received his full due outside of select markets and R&B collectors with sophisticated tastes. “Simplify,” the near-classical debut single from his 2013 The Man, finds Omar’s wise tenor floating over a nerve-twitching groove and intricate pizzicato synth patterns. Recalling bits and pieces of mid-’70s Leon Ware as much as post-Songs in the Key of Life Stevie Wonder, The Man is the undeniable work of a master of his craft. Fans of D’Angelo’s Voodoo and Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange should hear this album once; even Welsh bassist and D’Angelo collaborator Pino Palladino makes a cameo.

“Guns & Synth,” Kelela

One of the biggest R&B stories of 2013 was the mainstream return of deep groove and disco; another was the continued artistic development of the so-called “alternative R&B” sound, led by eccentric cross-Atlantic female cultural rebels like Alice Smith, Laura Mvula, Solange and Dawn Richard. Los Angeles transplant Kelela is quickly becoming a critics’ favorite of the movement, especially on the heels of her 2013 mixtape Cut 4 Me. What her introspective soprano lacks in technical depth, soulful heft and professional polish, it makes up for in emotional urgency — Aaliyah had that same fragilility, that same dark trouble at the core. Drawing on the recipe of experimental electro-R&B that Brandy and producer Rodney Jerkins cooked up in the early ’00s, and matching it to innovations in minimalist techno and post-dubstep, Kelela and her visionary producers like Girl Unit and Bok Bok (most of whom are associated with the label Fade to Mind) are pushing the envelope of what R&B can potentially sound like. “Guns & Synths” is all moody atmospherics; I’m tentatively emboldened by the sonic future it suggests.

“The Apple,” V V Brown

Innovation in R&B has shifted in the last 24 months or so away from hip-hop influence toward the retro synth-robotics of groups like AlunaGeorge and Disclosure. Jamaican-Puerto Rican Brit V V Brown’s sound has evolved too: she caused quite a stir when she released her debut in the late ’00s, and she’s now come back in 2013 with Samson & Delilah, an electronic pop soul album that’s just as bold and artsy as anything Little Dragon or Robyn or Lykke Li has delivered of late. What I love about her singing on the bubbling, majestic “The Apple” is that arch, imperial attitude, halfway between throaty Grace Jones and operatic Victoria Wilson-James. Given her model looks and sonically evocative music, V V Brown has, of late, become quite the fashion icon and brand collaborator; let’s see if her music catches on with a wider global audience.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.