Is it possible that certain traits are latent within every musician, rising to manifest themselves openly in some cases while lying dormant in others? If Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is any indication, the four men of OK Go have reemerged in 2010 for an unabashed unveiling of their funky side.

Depending on who you talk to, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon is either a brilliant song cycle from the musical and lyrical genius of Roger Waters, or one of the most bloated examples of classic rock conceptual excess, ‘70s style. No matter on which side of the debate you fall, no one can argue the album’s success in appealing to the masses and continuing to prove an important touchstone of musical youth.

These New Puritans make songs that are spastic, harsh, and urgent, founded on coats of electronics and repetitive, vague, and half-spoken vocals from frontman Jack Barnett. Hidden, the young British group’s sophomore full-length, was made much in the same vein as 2007’s Beat Pyramid, but at times it’s even less coherent.

If one wants to understand the difference between merely writing a song and composing a song, listen to 99.9% of contemporary music, and then turn on Clogs. Composed by Padma Newsome during a residency in 2005, The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton features some stirring compositions that walk the line between classical and something else entirely.

On “1999,” the opening track of Shout Out Louds’ third album, singer/songwriter Adam Olenius sings that he “never felt so alive since 1999.” That was two years before Shout Out Louds was formed in Stockholm, Sweden. A decade later, the band found itself in a different place. Literally.

A Joanna Newsom song is impossible to describe. Not Newsom’s voice, of course, which conjures up adjectives like “gossamer” and “sprightly,” or her harp, which is an instrument she pretty much lays sole claim to in 21st-century pop music, but her songs themselves, the way they bend back on themselves and wander away.

Chris Otepka, the indie rock singer/songwriter from Elburn, Illinois (now residing in Bellingham, Washington) performs under the stage handle, The Heligoats. On the back of the former Troubled Hubble frontman’s latest LP, Goodness Gracious, is a black ink drawing of a Nubian goat with a rotor system coming out of its spine and a tail boom on its hindquarters. It’s a funny image, but something about it fits the rustic and slightly psychedelic folk-rock contained within.

The second in Hip-O’s The Costello Show campaign of live Elvis Costello releases is a concert from June 4, 1978, documenting the then 23-year-old Costello and his recently formed Attractions three months after the release of Costello’s classic sophomore album, This Year’s Model.

I’ve always been obsessed with Europe—particularly its compact countries that allow citizens to step from border to border at will. It’s blessed geography that allows them to indulge in mini-bouts of wanderlust in the span of a single weekend, forcing them to expand their comfort zone with multiple languages, cultures, and cusines—all a stone’s throw from home. On his third album Everyone Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight, Belgian musician Dieter Sermeus (The Go Find’s bandleader) perfectly evokes this pocket-sized yearning, fine-tuning electro-spattered folk that could take up residence in any number of indie rock “countries.”