1. Pink - “Raise Your Glass”
I kind of went back and forth for a while with this song; I gave it a positive score on Singles Jukebox the first couple times I listened to it and just kind of had a vague “I like other recent Pink songs, this sounds like those” reaction. Then I listened to it closer and found it annoying. Then I heard it enough times that the annoying parts retained a certain charm and before I knew it I was dancing around the apartment to it to entertain my son.

2. Patrick Stump - “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)”
Patrick Stump’s solo album Soul Punk might be my most anticipated album of 2011. I’ve always thought the guy was pretty talented and it’ll be interesting to see what he’s capable of doing outside of Fall Out Boy. At first I wasn’t so taken with the lead single, but I like the fact that he’s released two very different versions of the song to let people figure out which they like best; “Spotlight (New Regrets)” is the more pop, radio-friendly version that will be a hit if the song is any kind of hit, and while that one is growing on me, I still like the more rock-sounding version, “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia).”

3. Chris Brown - “Yeah 3X”
I’ve featured Chris Brown songs in this space twice since that whole beating-Rihanna's-face-in thing happened (”Crawl” and T-Pain’s “Freeze”), but since those songs were kind of flops, and I hated his big recent hit “Deuces,” I got to kind of avoid feeling like I was at all culpable in this guy’s undeserved comeback. Now, I like one of his new singles on the rise, and for the first time I feel a bit more conflicted and embarrassed about liking it, especially because it’s on that douchey Eurohouse tip that so much R&B has been turning to lately. But it is a catchy song that’s been growing on me, and I’m just being honest about what I’m listening to here. Also I kind of love the title.

4. Kings of Leon - “Radioactive”
Speaking of guilty pleasure, I never thought I’d have to worry about grudgingly enjoying a song by these guys, and this one seemed especially stupid and worthless at first. But dammit, I kind of started to enjoy it at some point.

5. Paramore - “Playing God”
It’s kind of freaky how Paramore made this a single and released the video right before the shit hit the fan with two members leaving the band. So while Josh and Zach Farro were releasing a statement accusing Hayley Williams of being a diva with her own management whose lyrics have gone against the band’s religious beliefs, they’ve got a song out called “Playing God” (with lyrics about accusations and finger pointing), and in the video Williams is keeping the boys in the band tied up in her basement, and at the end she walks up to the surface and leaves them behind. Also, it’s a pretty good song, one of my favorites off brand new eyes, so it’s nice to see it as a single, even if it’s a low profile one from the very end of the album cycle.

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