Freezepop

If you ever want to travel back to the year 1986 — and God knows why you'd want that, but at least Dick Cheney wasn't running the country — this disc should do the trick. It's filled with the sort of manically synthesized pop we all remember from those days of boxed wine and rayon roses. The only instruments in evidence here, aside from some heavily reverbed voices, are drum machines and synths (and more synths). It's not exactly a shocker that this Boston-based trio has become a staple in the videogame soundtrack world.

Still, this is ideal party music. It's catchy, throbbing, and just smart enough to recognize how ditzy it is. "Pop Music Is Not a Crime" sounds like an updated version of "Video Killed the Radio Star." It might as well serve as an ars poetica for the band. "It's just that I really like to dance," vocalist Liz Enthusiasm explains. "I guess it sounds pretty trite. Would you dance to a song about dancing? Guilty pleasures feel so right."