Few genres got a bigger boost from file-sharing in the early years of this decade than danceable European pop music. The spread of mp3s around the world allowed for the creation of a thriving global pop underground teeming with shoulda-been hits by coulda-been stars who previously had few options to find an audience outside of the tight playlists of corporate radio. Annie, an enigmatic Norwegian bombshell with a sweet wispy voice and a taste for slick neo-80s production, was the first of these acts to make it big on the same terms as countless indie bands– well outside the bounds of the mainstream, but beloved by a significant number of fans hungry for the sort of dazzling, witty, and unabashedly hooky pop music that had nearly vanished from American radio. Unsurprisingly, most of the attention on Annie’s debut record, Anniemal, was placed on the singles– the melancholy hyperballad “Heartbeat” and the delightfully coy “Chewing Gum” stand as two of the great almost-hits of the decade– but the entire album is stacked with gems, from Richard X’s effervescent “Me Plus One” to the psychedelic disco meltdown of “Come Together”. –Matthew Perpetua