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Here’s my favorites from March – listened to a lot due to SXSW and some great releases so I broke it all out into two parts rather than go for a 50 song monstrosity. Too much to write about all these songs but will fire from the hip

♦ 2 minutes and 14 seconds into Reptar ‘Context Clues’ is the best specific window of music I heard all month – swirling keys, bass, horns and Graham Ulicny’s earnest yelps coalesce into an indie-funk-electro musical climax. Whoops, too sexual.
♦ Included some other Reptar standouts as they dominated my late-March playlists, along with multiple tracks from Foster the People (basically picking up where MGMT left off from Oracular Spectacular in 2008, hype = warranted), Alex Winston, and The Head and the Heart (my current favorite band and I’ll continue to inundate anyone that will listen with their tracks, the video below is one of my favorites I’ve seen this year).
♦ Absolute pure French-disco ecstasy by way of Madeon. His remixes of Yelle and particularly Alphabeat are criminally cheesy in the best possible way, as his is original work. Breakbot, Jacques Renault, and Star Slinger join with some other solid electronic numbers as well. Also, props to Chad Valley for somehow producing superb chillwave, remixes, and fronting Jonquil. That’s talent.
♦ Some forgotten old tracks I should have put on past editions but did not – Josh Ritter creates a lyrical Deadwood (RIP) in ‘Folk Bloodbath’, Pony Pony Run Run channels some excellent French funk with ‘Hey You’, and Crystal Fighters hit a sweet spot of tribal 1980s-via-Yeasayer pop with ‘At Home’, a track so instantly catchy that it appears twice here in both original form and a liquid-smooth remix from Kido Yoji.
♦ Noah and the Whale shamelessly rips off Tom Petty ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ with L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. (Seriously, listen) while Benjamin Francis Leftwich possibly plagiarizes Death Cab ‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’. Either way don’t care, two great tracks.
♦ My girl-friends mock me for how much chick-shit electro-pop I listen to – plenty more here. Fun times via Oh Land, Alex Winston, Icona Pop, Zowie (RAC basically turns her single into an indie Ke$ha) and Kimbra.