Welcome to the year-ender non-special installment of the Groovee Playlist™ series (see the previous list). To remind you, the Groovee Playlist is my way of highlighting the recently (relatively) released songs that I dig. As in previous playlists, I’ll link to the Wikipedia article about the song (if it exists) as “[W]”, and to the YouTube search (or official music video) for the song as “[U]” so that you can sample the song and see if you like it as well.

• “Young and Lovestruck” by Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. [U] This is a wonderful and happy pop song from a band with a really weird name.

• “Insomnia” by Craig David. [W] [U] Well, Craig David has released a Ne-Yo-esque club-friendly song in “Insomnia” and it’s pretty good! It’s not the usual Craig David “sound” that I’m used to but who cares? I like how it flows into my ears.

• “Still Alive” by Lisa Miskovsky. [W] [U] I got alerted to this cool new console game called Mirror’s Edge and I instantly liked the background instrumental music of this trailer I saw on YouTube. In one of the extremely rare instances when comments on YouTube are actually helpful, I learned that the song is called “Still Alive” and that it has actual lyrics. I also learned that it has several remixes and I even heard the Paul van Dyk remix on Episode 377 of Armin van Buuren’s A State of Trance radio show, which I listen to. Update (January 2009): I’m a bit shocked to hear the original mix of “Still Alive” on Jam 88.3. It’s quite rare for me to hear a club mix of a song and subsequently hear a normal or acoustic mix on Jam. The last time I encountered such a scenario was with Linkin Park’s “Shadow of the Day” (featured on the June 2008 playlist).

• “No More Alone” by Giuseppe Ottaviani feat. Stephen Pickup. [U] Among the songs included in Paul van Dyk’s In Between album that I bought in 2007, it was the collaborations with Giuseppe Ottaviani that I liked the best. So I wasn’t surprised that I took a liking to this work by Ottaviani which I first heard in Episode 368 of A State of Trance.

• “Miss Independent” by Ne-Yo. [W] [U] Wow. Ne-Yo just keeps on releasing hit after hit (I’ve already included two of his songs, “Closer” and “Go On Girl”, in this year’s playlists). “Miss Independent” is another sure hit and it definitely fits the Ne-Yo “sound” that I really like.

• “Mad” by Ne-Yo. [W] [U] Yes, another Ne-Yo song. Can I help it?

• “Crack the Shutters” by Snow Patrol. [W] [U] I still like “Chasing Cars” the best among the Snow Patrol’s songs I’ve heard, but this march-tempo’ed song is really good.

• “If You’re Out There” by John Legend. [W] [U] This song was inspired by Barack Obama’s campaign and was performed at the Democratic National Convention, which was the meeting that selected Obama as the Democrat presidential candidate. Like Obama’s campaign of change and hope, the song also inspires in the same way.

• “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé. [W] [U] This is a really catchy song with an equally catchy music video. You simply have to watch the video (if you still haven’t—have you been living under a rock?) and see the popular copycat and parody videos in YouTube. The best ones would have to be Shane Mercado’s nearly flawless single take performance of the original dance and the SNL spoof featuring Justin Timberlake. Hilarious! The partner single “If I Were a Boy” and its music video is also pretty good.

• “Cologne” by Ben Folds. [U] I am simply amazed by Ben Folds’ music (since his eponymous band’s “Brick”) and this chorale-backed song is pretty neat. The music video shows that the song’s accompaniment is composed of several pianos—some are prepared—a tambourine, and a bass drum. (The video also shows a human acting as a cat which I absolutely have no idea what she’s there for.)

• “Still Time? (Aly & Fila Remix)” by FKN feat. Jahala. [U] This is definitely this year’s latest best trance song I’ve heard thanks to Armin van Buuren’s ASOT Episode 375. The song’s main sequence is pretty dreamy and uplifting, just like what modern trance should be.

• “Right Now (Na Na Na)” by Akon. [W] [U] Akon has this really distinctive voice that would probably grate on the ear if he weren’t singing. Yet I find this song quite catchy and definitely as likable as other songs that featured him: “Dangerous” and “Bartender”.

As always, reactions on the selected songs as well as other music recommendations in the comments are very much welcome.