If you want to know how we got to this ecstatic, scientifically-engineered paradise of weaponized choruses and overwhelming female bombast, start with this piece right here, in which Sean Fennessey explains the genius of Dr. Luke and by extension, his most singular protégé, Katy Perry. The two team up again here for "Teenage Dream," the second ridiculously effective single (after the still quite lively "California Gurls") from the forthcoming album of the same name. Baltimore dream pop duo Beach House, who were foolish enough to also name their third album Teenage Dream Teen Dream, have got to be wondering where they went wrong today, and how they got so surpassed by one extra syllable. Prepare for delight, followed by utter, unyielding, endless ubiquity:

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Start freaking us out, guys

For some among us, the announcement of a new album by NYC surrealist field researchers/electronic-music duo the Books immediately trumps most anything on the release docket. Their triptych of LPs so far is pretty stunning, if you like to vibe to alternately glitched-out and gorgeous folk/musique concrete that often feels sourced from a vintage condenser mic shoved into UbuWeb's archives. Its been five years since Lost and Safe, a tepid echo of the fractured majesty of their first two records--it's high time to come back and freak me out, guys.

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Rap Radar has your hookup: I am beginning to suspect that Big Boi's (finally!) imminent Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (which it's not even clear if this song is even on) is going to be fantastic. Here we have one of those heartbreakingly rare de facto Outkast reunion tracks, a simple-enough sex jam, but the ascending synth line snaking through it is salaciously beautiful, and then there's shit like "Like we work at IKEA/Test every piece of furniture to see if it is stable." If this doesn't make Chico Dusty it follows that at least someone believes there are 12-15 better songs to choose from. It's not impossible.

A pleasingly vapid synth-cheese jam here from Ms. Minogue, about whom we've felt quite fondly since she dropped by last fall and changed costumes 10,000 times. Kylie's at her best with just a slight element of menace/sleaze ("Two Hearts," say), and this don't exactly qualify, but if you're 55 minutes into a spin class this'll still push you toward the summit. New album, Aphrodite, in July. Hopefully she comes back around here soon.

Listen to it here. No "Tightrope," but pretty lithe and groovy and weird. Super-weird. Topics: terrible fixations, androids dreaming of electric sheep, Peter Pan, Juicy Fruit. Great drum sound. (It's no "California Gurls," but what is?) Also: This is a straight-up Of Montreal song in which Janelle herself barely merits a "featuring." She is entirely subsumed by Kevin Barnes' titanic psych-pop otherworldliness: Best you can say is that their two voices here seem to merge into one really really high-maintenance androgynous diva android. This record (out next week) is gonna be 50 different kinds of just fuckin' crazy.

It's true that Christina was a bit more interesting back when everyone thought this was her, but to be fair, this tune, pledged to her upcoming Bionic, is better than the last track to surface, though no less libidinous: "Woohoo" refers to a part of the female anatomy, you see. ("You don't even need a plate, just your face," etc.) A schoolyard stomp in the theoretical "Lip Gloss"/"Milkshake" vein (with cool electro synths, it's true), the tune is further improved, as all tunes invariably are, by the presence of Nicki Minaj, whose famously volatile accent this time is a sort of increasingly agitated Shakira patois. Nothing here is Michelle Trachtenberg-level quotable, but, like Xtina (usually), it's nice just to hear her voice.

Get it from the dudes themselves here. (Nice logo.) You've got a pretty good sense of what's gonna happen here by now: ominous, chilly grandeur with stupendous atmosphere if nothing else, coupled with lyrics of quietly somber corniness ("I want you to po-lice me"). Unclear if these guys have a second act, or need one, or if we want them to have one, etc. Wacky Carlos D fashion accessory (and new album details) to be revealed soon, we assume.

The sequel to "Airplanes," the crossover anthem B.o.B and Hayley Williams released last week in Bobby Ray's final gambit to catapult himself out of the rap universe and directly into college dorm-room stardom. And who better than Eminem to reach an entire army of people who don't care about rap except when he makes it? "Airplanes Pt. 2" sports an Em verse far better than what B.o.B probably deserves, and virtually guarantees that a guy who once threatened retirement before he had even released a record will have one of the ten or twenty biggest songs this summer. Somewhere Andre 3000 is shaking his head. [2DopeBoyz]

Leave it to The-Dream to make us impatient for the end of a T.I. verse. What works great on a T.I. album--"Like I Do," anyone?--isn't exactly what we want for Love King, the new Dream LP for which this record is presumably intended. The-Dream, who has written a hit for pretty much everyone in the last four or five years, obviously has a collaborative streak. That said, we adore his albums most for being bizarre private spaces in which Dream stretches his legs and says and does things far more bonkers and honest than he would on a Rihanna record; last year's incomparable Love Vs. Money had only two guests on it, and they were probably two too many. On a first couple of listens, "Love Again" is compelling but never quite blasts off into space. Great hook, but T.I. makes no sense here--he is many things, but romantic isn't one of them. [Download the song at Rap Radar.]

After quoting liberally from Kanye West's "Welcome to Heartbreak" on their Five Souls EP--then telling us in an interview that they'd like to be adopted by him--How to Dress Well return with "Can't See My Own Face," the "Crazy in Love" (what else?) referencing quasi title track to their newest EP, Can't See My Own Face - The Eternal Love 2. The five songs here (a few of which had already been released) are among the most assertive and straightforwardly longing HTDW have put out in their antic, seven EPs in seven months fall-winter-spring sprint. While Sean's point the other day about indie appropriation vis a vis R&B music is probably fair, so is the fact that Tom Krell can sing, and has the rich aural fantasy life to prove it. This stuff is like a memory. Hear it below:

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