New pop songs in the spotlight this week!

• Chris Brown puts a third song of his in my top hits playlist this week, "Forever". Thank heavens, it's not another syrupy ballad like his duet with Jordin Sparks, but it's not a gem. Set on top of an oddly stilted, old-fashioned disco beat, the song itself is OK, but I can't tell if he's intentionally mimicking T-Pain's heavy use of vocoder style or if the auto-tuner his producer used is so heavy-handed due to Mr. Brown's weak singing.
  
• Weezer has returned to the top 20 with "Pork And Beans". They've been a reliable source of good indie-rock tunes for a long while, but this one is a mixed bag. I like the groove and the underlying guitar riff, but the song is marred by a monotonus melody and weak lyrics. The chorus also seems like a retread of a bunch of other Weezer standards--in a bad way.
  
• Wiley is an act I haven't encountered before, entering the UK top 20 with "Wearing My Rolex". I'm pretty sure I've heard him perform on The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free--and with Dizzee Rascal--but this track is more classically grime than The Streets (grime being a UK hip-hop style that blends synthetic drums and synthetic bass in a more obvious style than the American styles). The subject matter of this track is a little American-style shallow for my taste, but I still enjoy Wiley's rhyming. The wordplay is first-rate and there's a pleasing galloping quality to the beat.
  
• "Leavin'" marks the latest top 20 hit from Jesse McCartney. It's a curious mix of a stomping rhythm and a chirping synthesizer accompanying Mr. McCartney's unfortunately reserved, whispy-voiced singing. There's not a lot to enjoy from these odd choices and some unremarkable songwriting.
  
• In a way, Gavin DeGraw is a lot like Jesse McCartney: a carefully marketed male songwriter with a so-so voice (and reasonably good-looking). "In Love With A Girl" rocks a little harder than I recall Mr. DeGraw usually does, but it's so dominated by studio musicians that it rocks like a Garth Brooks tune (yawn).
  
• Pendulum is an act I haven't heard before and they debut in the UK with "Propane Nightmares". This song is another pastiche of styles that you only hear on the BBC and it makes me cringe. After a mariachi-tinged opener, the tempo picks up into a cheesy, cheesy minor-key figure that dominates the recording to the point where I can't tell if there's a song here.
  
• "Cold Shoulder" marks a new single from Adele. She comes to us on a wave of hype and has the kind of voice that the British seem to favor: dry and a touch husky, as if it's a relic from the 1960s. I wasn't a big fan of her last hit, "Chasing Pavement" and this doesn't impress me, either. Perhaps the British press likes to push her voice quality as if she's the next Dusty Springfield because she's not an attractive woman, but I also don't think much of her singing. This song is a dusky, shuffling blues number that very much recalls Ms. Springfield's work.
  
• Colby Odanis debuts in the USA with "What You Got", which also marks the return of Akon to the top 20 after an unusually long absence (it seems like either Akon or T-Pain has been on the charts continuously for the last couple of years). It's a dreary love song with a peculiar sense of urgency that doesn't suit Mr. Odanis' soft voice and delivery (Akon's brief appearance makes that much more obvious).
  
• The Last Shadow Puppets are a UK side project for a couple of domestic stars (if you don't know the Arctic Monkeys, you won't care). "The Age Of The Understatement" must be an homage to Ennio Morricone's soundtracks to the old Sergio Leone spaghetti Western films of the seventies. It's more of a novelty than a lasting work, and not a bad one.