5x5: The Five Best New Songs to Show Off What 2013 Has In Store for Music

Yo La Tengo Fade

One of the greatest bands in the history of indie rock has returned with a top-notch album, Fade, their first collection of new material since 2009's Popular Songs. They recently performed two of their tracks on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon", the opening track/single "Ohm" and a simple yet elegant rendition of the album's finest track, the intimate and beautiful "I'll Be Around."
After nearly three decades of entertaining the (not-so-big) masses, Yo La Tengo is still on a roll, with no signs of slowing down. Fade clocks in at 45 minutes with 45 seconds (45:45) but the time flies by, ending too soon.




David Bowie "Where Are We Now?"

For his birthday, Ziggy Stardust released "Where Are We Now?", his first single in a decade AND announced a new album, Any Day Now, which will be released March 12. The track and accompany music video is both fresh and nostalgic, as Bowie revisits Berlin in the lyrics and in the video.



Dropkick Murphys Signed and Sealed in Blood

After releasing the best modern-era Christmas song of all ("The Season's Upon Us", which appears here), this Boston band is back (which is referenced in their opening track "The Boys Are Back") with a collection of hard rock anthems that are not telling a story of a guy's life (like 2011's Going Out in Style).

Here is "The Boys Are Back" performed live on Halloween in St. Louis.



Darwin Deez "Free (The Editorial Me)"

Darwin Deez is one of the most imaginative and underrated songwriter/musicians to have come out of New York in the past decade. As the leader of the titular band, they released one of the best albums of 2011, Darwin Deez, which features the outstanding tracks "Radar Detector" and "Up in the Clouds."
The man and the band are back with a new song and an upcoming album, Songs For Imaginative People (out February 12). "Free (The Editorial Me)" is a bit more ambitious, lyrically and production-wise, but it still retains to their style of part-pop, part-funk, and part-modern rock.



Justin Timberlake featuring Jay Z "Suit & Tie"

After what seems like an eternity, Justin Timberlake the musician has returned to reclaim his throne as a member of pop music's royalty. With some from Hova himself, "Suit & Tie" is in the similar style of the material from his two top-notch solo features, Justified and Future Sex/Love Sounds, in the chorus but the verses are more like the soulful and seductive songs from a more distant bygone era, like Al Green at his peak. In just two days, over a million people have listened to this track on YouTube and hundreds of thousands have downloaded the track from iTunes, which could be the most popular (in terms of sales) track of his sadly-unprolific career.