The “Play On” round-ups are where I highlight a random assortment of amazing songs I’ve discovered in the past few weeks/months.

This one is all pop, since I’ve been on a pop kick for the past month.

“Dear John,” Taylor Swift  – this raw, heartbreakingly articulate ballad addressed to John Mayer is the best track on Swift’s third album, and is not only one of the best pop ballads I’ve heard in a long time but also one of the best breakup songs I’ve ever heard. It owns my soul.

“Won’t Even Start,” David Choi – this rising Asian-American artist has a gift for simpe lyrics that evoke universal emotions. This warm, wistful, incredibly catchy breakup song has the same emotional honesty as Swift’s “Dear John”, which is perhaps why it works. I’ve had it on replay for weeks.

“All About Him,” Auburn. Auburn Williams is a 23-year-old urban pop singer who will release her  mainstream debut album sometime this year. Talented and adorable, she channels a sassy, more cheeky Rihanna in music videos like “La La La,” but is just at home with bubbly, quirky love songs like “All About Him.” There’s a self-effacing playfulness that runs through all her music that is incredibly endearing, and her songs are very upbeat and catchy.

“Trouble is a Friend,” Lenka.  I don’t know much about this Swedish pop artist, except that I assume she’s relatively popular since I came across her song, and that it seems to perfectly express the nature of my boy problems. Fast-paced and hook-laden, it’s a bubbly, absolutely delightful song that gives a light treatment to a trouble-filled life.

“Lovers in Japan,” Coldplay. I may have heard this before, but if so, I rediscovered this only recently. Coldplay is one of those artists I very rarely choose to listen to, yet whenever someone else plays them or they come on the radio I’m reminded how good they actually are (even if best in small doses). Beautiful, even brilliant lyrics, anthemic choruses…good stuff.

“Sunday,” Hurts. More Brit pop. Epic, fast-paced, and catchy – what’s not to like? (And yes, they are influenced by Coldplay. A lot of Britpop is).

As always, songs not uploaded by me.

The “Play On” round-ups are where I highlight a random assortment of amazing songs I’ve discovered in the past few weeks/months.

Rocketeer, Far East Movement feat. Ryan Tedder of One Republic

Dog Days Are Over, Florence and the Machine, from their new album “Lungs”

Who’d Have Known, Lily Allen- quirky, playful hipster love song

Why Try to Change Me Now, Fiona Apple – I’m not usually a rabid Fiona Apple fan, but this cover of a Frank Sinatra classic is just stellar

Where Did You Go, Jets Overhead

As always, songs were not uploaded by me.

“We wanted to begin a band that sounded gigantic”, We the Living say on their website, but oddly enough, this 3-member indie rock/pop band from Tennessee mostly crafts songs that are beautifully contained and tender, even wistful. Their website is a little too wordy and cerebral (probably an influence of Ayn Rand, from whose book of the same name I assume they got their name) – their first album apparently is split into “heaven” and “earth” sections and their Myspace page lays forth a manifesto about “spread [ing] the idea that everyone needs a personal philosophy”. Since their music is lucid and unpretentious however I won’t hold it against them. Download their newest EP, “Boom Forest”, by signing up for the mailing list. I just did and the EP consists of 5 exquisite songs. Check out “Left and Leaving” and “Re: Stacks” below.

You can also check out their website and Myspace page

Odds of Being Alone, Trent Dabbs and Amy Stroup(from the Life Unexpected soundtrack)

You Don’t Know What You’re Sorry For, Sweetbox

Remember the Name, Fort Minor feat. Styles of Beyond

Don’t Give Me One Kiss,Alyse Black

Brother, Color of Clouds

In the Sun, She & Him – She & Him is the insanely cool collaboration of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward, and this is the single off their second album, set to be released in March

Blow Me Away, Breaking Benjamin- first single from the rock band’s new album Dear Agony

Pick Up the Phone, Dragonette – insanely addicting pop hit from the Canadian electropop group’s second album Fixin’ to Thrill

Good Riddance(Time of Your Life), Green Day

Scars, Allison Iraheta - marvelous second single from the American Idol contestant’s first album Just Like You

1. “Meme Si (What You’re Made Of)”, Lucie Silvas & Gregory Lemarchal. I must’ve listened to this 30 times in the first week of discovering it, and a week later I’m still listening around twice a day. Obsession doesn’t even begin to cut it. “You’re not in love this time – but it’s all right”.

Download

2. “Dear You”, Josh Aeur. Oddly, this reminds me of “Hey There Delilah”. As classic as the Plain White T’s song? Probably not, but it’s held good for me through months of re-listens and I firmly believe it will become a classic.

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3. “Hazy”, Rosi Golan feat. William Fitzsimmons. A stellar little gem resonant with tenderness. “Without you, things go hazy”

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4. “From Sarah with Love”, Sarah Connor. One of those iconic love songs that comes along every once in a while and perfectly captures a certain mood/situation. Helped Canadian songstress Sarah Connor on her road to stardom.

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5. “Poison & Wine”, The Civil Wars. Wait for the chorus, and fall with the same mad crash that I did. Then listen every day for at least two weeks. “I don’t love you, but I always will”.

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6. “The Saltwater Room”, Owl City. Obviously. Even non-music aficionados eventually heard this one. It took so many re-listens for me to get tired of it.

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7. “If”, Charlotte Gainsbourg feat. Etienne Daho(or is the other way around?). This one’s probably just me – I love Charlotte Gainsbourg and have a weakness for duets and songs that are a mix of French and English.

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8. “Kathleen”, Josh Ritter. Kind of like “Dear You”‘s lesser cousin – it has the same epic feel, but it’s quieter, reaches for less. Nevertheless amazing.

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9. “Be Mine”, Robyn. The second this Swedish pop sensation’s throaty vocals kick in on the song’s opening line- “it’s a good thing tears never fall in the pouring rain”, you know you’re in good hands. A thread of bitterness/anger keeps it from sliding over into emo territory.

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10. “Back Broke”, The Swell Season. I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t disappointed overall with their new album, but even so it was hard picking just one song out of it to go on this list. I went with this one because it has the same driving wistfulness and sense of loss and risk as “Low Rising”, but warrants, for some reason, more re-listening.

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Song of the Day:

“Say It’s All Over”, Paper Moon

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Here is their insanely cool album cover-

I haven’t listened to the rest of the album as yet, but you can check out the Stereogum Fixin’ the Charts premiere article and a (negative) review from LineofBestFit (like I said, I haven’t listened to the album yet, but I’m interested to see if I agree with his criticisms), and you can also can buy it from Amazon or Itunes.  The Amazon description goes as such:  “2010 debut from the British outfit featuring Eddie Argos from Art Brut and Dyan Valdes from The Blood Arm. Everybody Was In The French Resistance…Now are correcting the mistakes of Pop songs past. So far, they have defended the belittled blue-collar worker from Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger,’ told Gerry And The Pacemakers that, in fact, it is okay to walk alone, dumped the manipulative Martha Reeves on behalf of poor Jimmy Mack and have taken the misguided instructions of a 17th century ballad to its logical conclusion. They are ‘fixing the charts’!”

This led me in turn to check out Art Brut itself, and while I think overall I prefer Everybody Was In The French Resistance…NOW(and yes, every one of those words should be capitalized, and yes, that last “now” should be in caps, before you ask), Art Brut itself is also quite interesting. Their debut album, Bang Bang Rock & Roll, was released on 30 May 2005, with its follow up, It’s a Bit Complicated, released on 25 June 2007.  Their name comes from a kind of outsider art, “art brut”, defined by French painter Jean Dubuffet’s as art by prisoners, loners, the mentally ill, and other marginalized people, and made without thought to imitation or presentation.

I hate their music videos but it can’t be helped so here goes-

Art Brut on Myspace

Official Website

Review: (most of which can also be applied to Everybody Was In The French Resistance…NOW) The good first – they’re funky and funny, aggressively cheeky and offbeat, a bit in-your-face and always tongue-in-cheek. What they have essentially done is taken an original concept(I’ve never quite heard their brand of screamo-tinged angst, conversational-rock-not-quite-rap-rhythms, and sarcastic societal commentary before) and having found what they with some reason consider to be a good thing, run with it quite consistently.  The bad – I would categorize the band overall as a an excellent mix-seasoner(ie one or two Art Brut tracks per playlist) rather than a consistently pleasing artistic effort, because once the novelty wears off their songs all sound pretty much the same. There’s only so much clever-but-angry almost-screamo I can take at one time, and while I am very much a lyrics-focused person, when I’m forced to fall back on lyrics alone to differentiate between songs which all have essentially the same rhythm and beat, I begin to think that perhaps the songs are too intensely lyrics-driven. Despite my appreciation of their musical playfulness and innovation, it feels as if Art Brut got lazy once they’d invented their own particular musical style, applied it haphazardly and without restraint to all their songs, and then settled down to write clever lyrics (hint: the “without thought to presentation” aspect of art brut only works if you’re making music for purely self-indulgent purposes). The result is that more often than not the lyrics get lost in the dominant choruses. Also, Art Brut faces the danger of any band with anger as a part of its repertoire – that the line between angry and whiny is very, very, very thin. It has been the undoing of many a more brilliant group than this one. If they can learn to tone down and focus their admittedly exciting brand of energetic sarcasm, they could become something great (or at least good).

Having said all that, Art Brut is delightfully offbeat group and I will certainly keep an eagle eye on them in future (they remind me, inexplicably, of Flight of the Conchords, a group whose brand of cheery-instead-of-angry societal mockery and constantly-morphing playfulness Art Brut could do well to take a page from).