Evans The Death.

In this week's Voice I offered up a midseason report of sorts, listing 12 particularly outstanding tracks from this year. Here, for your listening pleasure, are the 12 songs in streamable form (via a combination of YouTube and Soundcloud so as to not lock anyone—or any songs—out). Happy listening, and if you'd like to share a 2012 song that's particularly tickled your ears, by all means do so in the comments.

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Looking for something funky, fresh, and 45-based to do this evening? Check out Mobile Mondays at Bowery Electric, which kicks off tonight with the Brooklyn-born Masters At Work partner Kenny Dope headlining and spinning a set of nothing but 7-inch records. In advance of the funk shindig, we got Kenny to look through his vinyl stash and pick out his five most valuable 45s.

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The PMRC is one of those faint memories that music fans that grew up in the '80s try to brush away. The Parents Music Resource Center was launched in 1985 by a group of Washington power wives—the most visible face being the wife of then-senator Al Gore, Tipper—who saw rock and rap as, in Ms. Gore's words, "a poisonous source infecting the youth of the world with messages they cannot handle."

While the PMRC's power eventually only yielded one major change—the ubiquitous black-and-white "Parental Advisory" insignia that you can still find on physical copies of albums—at the time the metal, punk, and hip-hop artists that it would have affected most made some loud and vehement statements against what they saw as potential censorship of their work. With that in mind—not to mention Mother's Day and the current pieces of proposed legislation that are threatening our access to information in the modern age—let's take a quick stroll down memory lane to take a listen to some of the best of the anti-PMRC bunch.

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In his recent review of R&B singer Miguel's fantastic Art Dealer Chic series of EPs, The A.V. Club's Evan Rytlewski explained the singer's rise in popularity by floating the idea that his 2010 album All I Want Is You contained "arguably the most engaging singles run of any R&B album since Usher's Confessions." This argument is much closer to the truth than it may seem on first blush.

Though the genre has experienced a bit of a downswing in the past few years, it's been a reliable source of great pop music since Confessions' release in March 2004. But is Rytlewski's claim correct? Let's look at the R&B albums with the best runs of three consecutive singles since the beginning of 2004 and find out.

But first, some ground rules: The three singles must have been released consecutively—a dud single at any point breaks a string—and off a single album (sorry, Ciara and Ne-Yo); each must have charted on Billboard's R&B chart; and the three singles don't have to be the first off the album, though on this list they all ended up that way.

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The Beach Boys on The T.A.M.I. Show.

Beach Boys YouTube wormholes can take many paths, from sunshine-draped reveries to sudden decisive turns towards the seriously depressing. But no clickbait-enhanced listicle of questionable Mike Love sartorial/dance/aesthetic moves, horrifying Brian Wilson zombie moments, made-for-TV movies, or John Stamos appearances could ever possibly top the legendary bootleg Endless Bummer: The Very Worst of the Beach Boys, which has all the Brian rap, Budweiser ads, drunken in-studio rants by stage-father Murry Wilson, and Spanish versions of "Kokomo" that one might (hopefully) ever desire. With the band coming to town for two shows at the Beacon Theater this week, and at least a few people planning to go—plus the onset of actual summer and all that—it's good vibrations only today. You can Google the rest yourselves.

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Now that the calendar has flipped to May, and the schedules for the area's big sheds have been announced, and the Hot 97 Summer Jam lineup is on the verge of being made public, it's time to think of other musical concerns related to the year's hottest months. Today, let's wonder about what song will be the year's official Song Of The Summer—that jam rendered inescapable by blaring bodega radios, cruising cars with the sound turned up, and people gleefully singing along to it when it comes on the sound systems at parties. Previous winners of the title: Foster The People's "Pumped Up Kicks" (2011); Katy Perry's "California Gurls" (2009—hey, I didn't say everyone had to like the song for it to count); Rihanna's "Umbrella" (2007-09). Six contenders for the imminent summer's top musical dog below.

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Morrissey rolls his eyes at the mere suggestion of a reunion.

So this morning one of those British music-news sites decided to engage in a little bit of traffic-goosing rumormongering by posting a breathless item about the Smiths reuniting, citing "a source [who] revealed that the 80s icons had been in talks to perform with a well-known promoter." This game of Telephone spread around the Internet fairly quickly, and earlier this hour Marr took to his Facebook page to defuse the rumor.

In this reunion-saturated age, when some acts are reportedly going as far to resort to modern technology to take a look back at their glory days, the rumor of a Smiths reunion wasn't all that surprising; certainly the financial windfall that the band could receive would be substantial. That the individual members are holding out, though, is sort of inspiring. What other bands might similarly stick to their principles and stay broken up, even in the face of ever-increasing retromania? Are there any? An attempt to think of some below.

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"Please listen to my demo!" That particular plea may no longer be heard coming from plucky upcoming rappers, what with the Internet age and all, but there's an undeniable pull about getting to hear the industry-ears-only dusty tapes that begat some of hip-hop's finest album moments. This week sees the release of a collection of Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit associate Latee's previously demo-only tracks; each is produced by future Jay-Z collaborator Mark The 45 King and hails from the early '90s, and the whole shebang is released as a premium-priced vinyl-only offering from the Diggers With Gratitude stable.

The Flavor Unit prospered from over the river in New Jersey, so here's a run-down of six great '90s New York City rap demo tapes that are now just a Mediafire muddle away. (Note: The Internet is filled with a lot of alleged and actually unreleased material; we've plumped for the perceived demos that come closet to offering up a stand-alone listening session, as opposed to one-off tracks. Curate this lot together as a playlist and you won't be disappointed.)

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In honor of today being 4/20—every smoker's favorite day of the year—SOTC has compiled the 25 Best Rap Songs relating to weed. Though some may be more about bud than others, all are guaranteed to make your high all the more enjoyable. Be forewarned, though... this list doesn't have any happy hippy weed music—this is straight thugged-out entertainment. Locate your lighters.

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Kraftwerk fever might have ruffled many of you the prickly way, what with the Great Unobtainable Online Tickets Ruse blighting the band's series of eight chronological album-by-album shows at MoMA this week. But let's look on the bright side! Over the years the Dusseldorf dance merchants have churned out an exquisite sequence of moody electronic tracks, and done so in a manner that's influenced great chunks of the rap and electro scenes. Here's a look at seven fantastic samples from the vault of the 'Werk.

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