New songs in the pop spotlight!

We've got plenty of new songs to talk about.

• Leona Lewis arrives with a follow-up to "Bleeding Love". It's called "Better In Time" and it's a cynically commercial power ballad from the "X-Factor" winner. I don't think you'll find much to recommend it.
• Danity Kane returns with a notably awful track, "Damaged". Puffy makes a brief cameo, which rarely improves things. I'll admit he's got OK taste as a producer, but he hardly improves matters when he raps.
• Another recent hitmaker debuts his latest with "There's Nothin'". Sean Kingston's new song has a couple of guests and a nicely energetic beat. It's not memorable, but pleasant enough.
• Atreyu gets their first real hit with "Falling Down". It's funny, I remember this act as a kind of cousin of Linkin Park, but this is a bouncy, hard-rock blues shuffle with cheesy horns. It's kind of appealing, in a shallow way that recalls the 90's band, Extreme. And there's no good way to do that.
  
• Tokio Hotel is a European teen-pop act that's arriving at these shores on a big cloud of hype. It's kind of bizarre, they present themselves like a sort of "safe" goth look that's all harmless-looking and well-scrubbed. The track, "Ready Set Go" is anxious guitars and too-young voices trying unsuccessfully to match the slim angst of a rather lightweight, over-produced song.
• Sugababes is another of those calculating, packaged British pop acts that sound (and look) like they've been assembled by either a committee or a very diverse focus group. I enjoyed one song from them once. "Denial" isn't it. It's inoffensive.
• The most distinctive track this week is Elbow's "Grounds For Divorce". Outside of a remarkable resemblance to a Peter Gabriel track, this is an odd amalgam of blues guitar and verse with a near-industrial beat and a chorus straight from Mr. Gabriel's bag of tricks. It's not a classic, but a nice listen.
• It's been a while since we saw a single from The Futureheads and they show up this week with "The Beginning Of The Twist". They've clearly lost some of their underdog cachet, but they replace it with some of the swagger more familiar from Franz Ferdinand or Oasis. This is a punishingly energetic number with a chanting chorus that doesn't match their best, but it's still mighty appealing.

CDs listened to today:

• Stephen Albert: Concerto For Cello
• Beatles: Yellow Submarine
• Bill Watrous: Manhattan Wildlife Refuge
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas For Cello And Piano, disk 1
• De La Soul: De La Soul Is Dead
• Juraj Filas: Sonata For Trombone And Piano (At the end of the century)
• William Bolcom: Concerto For Violin In D
• P. J. Harvey: To Bring You My Love