Western pop music, says producer Johan Karlberg, “wouldn’t be the same if we weren’t influenced by African or Middle Eastern music. But if you argue too much about these things, you’re thinking too hard and not listening.”

Karlberg is Swedish, Etienne Tron (his partner in the production duo Radioclit) is French, singer Esau Mwamwaya is Malawian, and all three live in London and work together as the Very Best. On a buzz-generating mixtape last year, the trio collaborated with indie rockers who draw from African pop styles like highlife and soukous (Vampire Weekend and the Ruby Suns) and a pair of alt-minded rappers with world-spanning tastes (M.I.A. and Santigold). Mwamwaya sang in at least four languages. And Radioclit took samples from as diverse sources as Architecture in Helsinki, Hans Zimmer, Cannibal Ox, and the Free Willy theme song.

So the Very Best—which performs tonight at DC9 with Javelin—has heard plenty of arguments about globalization and appropriation and authenticity, and could probably debate them all day. But the more you intellectualize music, Karlberg says, the more meaningless it can become. Life’s too short not to dance.

And not just dance, but smile.

“The Very Best is our sunshine project,” Karlberg, 27, says. “Esau came along at a time when we were a little fed up with darker music and with club music. I’m really happy about it because if you bring something positive to music, people will get that—that’s a really good thing to be able to do with music.”

As Radioclit, Karlberg and Tron make what they call “ghetto-pop,” a gloomy, trance-y blend of U.K grime, American hip-hop (they seem especially taken by Dirty South), and whatever African dance style has their attention at the moment. For a recent mix, Karlberg said, he and Tron explored the Ivorian Coupé-Décalé style.

The new Very Best album, Warm Heart of Africa, is as eclectic as Radioclit but far more upbeat. And unlike their concoctions as Radioclit, Karlberg and Tron’s Very Best beats don’t brood in the foreground, instead allowing room for Mwamwaya’s exuberant, space-filling vocals. ”Esau’s almost like a big instrument,” Karlberg says. “So we held back on the production, keeping it really minimal, and he brought out the best out of it.”

“The only thing we didn’t want to do was make a straight African album,” Karlberg says, even though “there’s obviously African music in some of the tracks more than others.” “Nsokoto,” notably, simulates thumb pianos and has a call-and-response chorus, while the title track, featuring Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, samples the Nigerian musician Victor Uwaifo’s sunny 1966 hit “Guitar Boy and Mamiwater.” Elsewhere on Warm Heart of Africa, there are bottom notes of Caribbean music, synth pop, jungle, and grime, among other styles. The album shares its title with a slogan from a Malawian tourism campaign, but its sound is hardly continent-bound.

The Very Best came together in 2006, not long after Tron walked into the second-hand shop Mwamwaya owned, which happened to sit on the same East London street as Radioclit’s studio. When Karlberg and Tron heard that Mwamwaya had played percussion in a band in Malawi, they invited him to collaborate—and quickly discovered his talents as a vocalist. They recorded the song “Chalo” that day.

For the next two years, “Esau would come in as often as he could, and normally he’d pick up a few beats, write at home, come in and record the song,” Karlberg says. “Most of the tracks were done in a day or two, tops. We had tracks we worked on for several weeks, but usually scrapped them because we felt they were overworked.”

Just as listeners shouldn’t always think too hard about music, Karlberg says, neither should producers. “A lot of the time I work on music, the best things happen very quickly and intuitively,” he says. “A lot of people say ‘If something doesn’t work in an hour, it doesn’t work.’”

The Very Best performs with Javelin at DC9 tonight at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. Photo courtesy of the Very Best’s MySpace page.

Mocky & GZA: “Birds of a Feather”
It’s a bit of a stretch to call this song, assembled by Canadian producer Mocky, a collaboration. The rapper merely plops into the middle of the song, drops a single throwaway verse—a free-associative rant about birds—and abruptly vanishes. Plus, the tweeting birds and sunshiny jazz-pop seem a little out of character for the man who helped found Wu-Tang Clan.

Usher: “Papers”
Honestly, you’d think women would be a little more discreet when hanging out with Usher. The guy’s constantly blabbing about his deepest and darkest secrets. His breakout album was called Confessions, for God’s sake. Then again, it must be pretty hot to hear somebody like Usher sing your dirty business. “Papers,” the first song to leak from Usher’s new record, tentatively titled Raymond vs. Raymond, finds him giving everybody the skinny on his recent divorce. Apparently, it sucked. “At 10 I lost my mama/And I been through so much drama/And I turned into the man that I never thought I’d be/I’m ready to sign them papers,” he sings, presumably from his analysts’ couch.

Bear in Heaven: “Dust Cloud”
It’s hard to imagine how Brooklyn space-rock band Bear in Heaven can make it through a band practice without having a box of Dramamine on hand. “Dust Cloud,” from the group’s second full-length, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, surpasses mere wooziness and goes all the way to seasickness. Do not walk and chew gum and listen to this song at the same time.

I’ve suspected this Stone of rolling downhill for a couple years now (when Beck’s “Modern Guilt” engenders the same critical acclaim as the Jonas Brothers’ “A Little Bit Longer,” one questions Jann Wenner’s editorial prowess). But the magazine’s ranking of the top 50 albums of the past year was the nail in my subscription’s coffin; 2008 seems to have forced Rolling Stone’s critical condition into just that.

Number one is TV on the Radio’s “Dear Science,” a solid, if predictable, choice. Having no real gripes with that one, I turn the page to find Dylan’s dusty bootlegs “Tell Tale Signs” stealing Lil Wayne’s #2 position. Neither new nor revelatory (nor objectively musically “good,” if such a thing exists), the Dylan album seems out of place on this list. What’s more, British divas Coldplay clock in at #7, while refreshing and revered eponymous debut of Ivy-punk/Afro-pop darlings Vampire Weekend rounds out the top ten.

These are but minor and (by now) expected disappointments from Rolling Stone. And for the most part, I can live with the flaws and false praise until I get to numbers 39 (Taylor Swift, “Fearless”), 40 (Jonas Brothers, “A Little Bit Longer”), and 41 (AC/DC, “Black Ice”). Teen queens Swift and the Jonas Brothers not only beat out time-addled Aussies AC/DC, but the trinity takes precedence over David Byrne and Brian Eno’s collaboration “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.” Eclectic, fresh and always creatively relevant, Byrne and Eno’s work is everything that trinity is not – heck, everything Dylan’s bootlegs, at #2, are not (there’s a reason Dylan is just now releasing those cataloged cash cows).

So that I may let my frustration with Rolling Stone’s list rest in peace, I’ve rearranged their top 10 of their 50 “Best” Albums of 2008:

1. Vampire Weekend, “Vampire Weekend”

2. Lil Wayne, “Tha Carter III”

3. Beck, “Modern Guilt”

4. David Byrne & Brian Eno, “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

5. TV on the Radio, “Dear Science”

7. No Age, “Nouns”

8. Fleet Foxes, “Fleet Foxes”

9. The Magnetic Fields, “Distortion”

10. Girl Talk, “Feed the Animals”

Below: this year’s top-sellers at Melody Records. Glad to see Gnarls on there; chagrined to see Coldplay; not surprised to see either; curious whether any other stores were able to move the Hancock album like this.

1. Madonna, Hard Candy
2. Coldplay, Viva la Vida
3. Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One
4. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
5. Portishead, Third
6. Jennifer Hudson, Jennifer Hudson
7. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
8. R.E.M., Accelerate
9. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
10. Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple
11. Sigur Ros, Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
12. The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely
13. TV on the Radio: Dear Science
14. Herbie Hancock, River: The Joni Letters
15. Duffy, Rockferry

Finding words to describe Vampire Weekend seems futile, since they’ve become the A-list blog stars of 2008. But in case your Internet has been disconnected since January, Vampire Weekend is the project of four Columbia-educated Upper West Side turned Brooklynites who play intoxicating indie pop imbued with Afro-beat inspired soukous rhythms and melodies. The band’s eponymous debut album was released in January and has become one of the most vibrant and refreshing albums of the year. They’re playing tonight and tomorrow at 9:30 Club with The Teenagers. (Sorry, kids, both shows have been sold out for months, but there’s still hope!).

Drummer Chris Tomson took a few questions from Black Plastic Bag before they electrify a sold out audience tonight.

Have you seen Twilight or Let the Right One In? What’d you think? If not, do you have a favorite vampire movie?

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen either movie, although my roommate (the notorious Buddy Herms) did see Twilight. He described it as being “entertaining enough to not be upset as it takes your money.” I’ve never been one for Vampire movies in general, but I would have to list The Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland as my all-time favorite.

Do the recent collaborations with Chromeo speak to the direction of Vampire Weekend’s sound? More synth on the next album? Possible Discovery cameo?

I think that the Chromeo collaborations speak to how awesome they are rather than anything for our sound. It started with their remix of “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance,” which we all felt took the song on a great new tangent. And then our jamboree-style live take of the same song really opened our eyes to the joys of live talkbox! Chromeo definitely does their own thing and does it extremely well, so we’ll leave the synth-jams to them.

What’s the best part about playing on Conan?

Meeting Conan! He was super nice, and it was very interesting to watch their read-throughs of potential monologue jokes. It made it clear that to be that consistently funny, you’ve got take it at least somewhat seriously.

Why do you think so many reviewers place importance on your alma mater? What do you wish they’d emphasize instead?

With the way that we dress and some of our lyrical directions, I can see why people would try to place a lot of importance on our collegiate background. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t really bother us, and as our album has been around for a while now, that sort of thing has not been as prevalent. As long as reviews, whether positive of negative, are focused on the music that we’ve made, that’s really all we can ask for.

Do you ever just want to thumb your nose at the preppy, hyper-literate mold and come out on stage in cut off shirts and combat boots?
What does hyper-literate mean? We all pretty much perform in what works for the situation. If its 100 degrees at Coachella, then I’ll wear a sleeveless t-shirt and the appropriately short shorts. Or, if its mad muddy at Glastonbury, Ezra will come on in his Wellington rain boots. When any amount of people have paid money to see you, though, you kind of want to look nice, right?

What did you guys do last time you were in DC?
Well, our keyboardist Rostam is from DC, so his mother cooked us an incredible dinner and then we played at the Rock and Roll Hotel. After a solid night’s sleep, we drove the minivan up to Philly for the next gig.

All time favorite DC band?

Off the top of my head I would say my favorite DC musicians are Henry Rollins and Rostam Batmanglij! After a quick wiki search, though, I would also like to add Duke Ellington and Marvin Gaye.