2008: #8 - "Paper Planes"

If "Boom Boom Pow" was the weirdest chart hit of 2009, then international star M.I.A.'s U.S. breakthrough single "Paper Planes" - with its impenetrable lyrics, genre-defying sound and hooky yet impossible-to-sing-along-to chorus - was the weirdest of 2008.

It took a couple of appearances in hit movies, another appearance on a chart-topping hip hop album, some playful borrowing from a new jack swing-era rap hit, and a perfectly executed Clash sample to make it all come together, but fortunately for us and the rest of the music-buying public, it did, and it was inescapable in the summer of 2008.

Only the most curmudgeonly serious Clash fan could object to the guitar sample - to us, it's not a rip-off of "Straight to Hell" in any way, just a whimsical and deftly modernized re-working. And M.I.A.'s repetitive, childlike and simplistic rapping fits in perfectly with the dreamlike quality of the beat, not to mention the disturbingly violent, surreal hook sung by a chorus of children. It all made it impossible to classify, and as such it got airplay on mainstream pop, dance, rap and modern rock stations alike. And it probably got stuck in everybody's head at least once.