4. The Alpine - On Feel Trips
My favorite debut of the year, The Alpine have the gift of creating perfect power-pop. Any band that can make this type of music sound so life-affirming deserves all of the success they get. On Feel Trips is a whopper of an album. There's barely room to breathe between one huge epic chorus and the next. They've really found the perfect blend between girl/boy vocals, guitar and keys.

Album Track: Iceland - Not one of the band's most uptempo cuts, but definitely one of their most catchy, this atmospheric ballad is so gigantic that you could probably hear it all the way from Iceland.

3. Melody Club - Scream
A ridiculously fun pop release from one of my favorite pop bands, this is the kind of music that should be setting radio waves on fire, yet seems only to gain any sort of success in Scandinavia. Comprised of eleven tracks that recall the best of the eighties, Scream is the band's funkiest, most propulsive effort to date, and one of the best pop albums of the year.

Album Track: Last Girl On My Mind - A hotbed of hooks, the anthematic Last Girl On My Mind is one of the album's early highlights, opening with stabbing strings and only getting better from there.