Musical qualities that automatically make any song better

-Handclaps
-Wordless background harmonies
-Upbeat acoustic guitar strumming
-Bright piano chords
-Slap-bass
-A healthy dose of spunk

Songs I've heard lately that have many of the preceding characteristics:

Noah and the Whale's "Five Years Time"

It's effervescently catchy, comfortable in its laidback, midtempo pace and likeable enough that the whistling at the beginning and end barely interfere with its execution. Plus, Charlie Fink somehow imbues his simple, silly lyrics with a certain whimsical grace (sample couplet: "In five years' time we could be walking around the zoo, with the sun shining down over me and you"). His voice sounds like a grainy love child of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum and the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne.

Jamie Lidell's "Another Day"



White dude can sing! The lush keyboard riff is a bubbly bit of faux-Motown. Critics seem to hate on this guy cuz he admittedly rips off virtually every black soul singer from the 60s and 70s (album cut "Figured Me Out" is a pretty spot-on imitation of Jamiroquai, who himself robs Stevie Wonder more or less wholesale). That said, I challenge anyone to find anyone else who has come out with such genuinely buoyant R&B in the past couple years. It's usually all overbelted, overproduced or simply joyless (see anything by Mario or Ne-Yo). Give me some derivative Stevie-aping over shitty soul any day...