“Reflektor” by The Arcade Fire

"Reflektor" was the first single and title track from Arcade Fire's fourth album in 2013, and it's the sound of a band trading arena anthems for the disco. James Murphy, Markus Dravs and the band produced it, and they built a long, glittering groove: congas from Willonson Duprate and Verrieux Zile, saxophones from Colin Stetson and Stuart Bogie, Kid Koala on sampler and arrangements by Owen Pallett.

Win Butler and Régine Chassagne trade lines with icy cool, and then David Bowie turns up as a guest voice, which is about as big a blessing as a rock band gets. It was first pressed on a limited 12-inch credited to a fake band, the Reflektors, it came with two videos, one of them interactive, and NME ranked it the second-best single of the year.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.