Duffy shot to stardom in the U.K. with a variation on a beloved brand: Amy Winehouse without the train wreck. She's just what Brits like in an R&B singer — a pretty girl who loves stately soul ballads. Her second album is tasteful, well-made and kind of dull. Duffy has a fine voice, smoky and touched with grit, and she opens with "My Boy," which gets funky oomph from guest backup band the Roots. But where Winehouse's singing grabs you by the lapels, Duffy's feels affectless. Her ballads and neo-disco songs are steeped in lovelorn melodrama, but her bland persona doesn't give the storms life. You're left with saggy stylistic gestures that seem to drag on, endlessly.

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“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”