Best known for placing sixth on Rock Star: Supernova in 2006, Ryan Star returns with a much-delayed major-label debut album filled with second-rate pop rock and a formula he beats senseless: He takes his brooding rasp from a muttered whisper to an overwrought rock howl about nine times too many. Veering off the format once with "Start a Fire," Star actually said he wanted to sound like "Katy Perry meets Pearl Jam." Oddly enough, the description is accurate. Not so strangely, the song is about as unnecessary as that sounds. The album's highlight is Star's hit single for the unemployed, "Breathe." But like most reality-show stars, you're better off listening to the artists they're trying to emulate.

“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.