"You said a record is not just a record/Records can hold memories," Elizabeth Morris sighs on a wistful ballad called "My Sweet Friend." It’s an apt thesis for her U.K. band's second disc of sparkling indie-pop love songs. Morris' narrators use music to measure their lives: hunting for a bar that has Toots and the Maytals on the jukebox, missing a friend who loves the Silver Jews, cheering on a pal's riot-grrrl band. Allo Darlin's sound is less scattered than those name-checks might suggest, fitting squarely within a tradition that honors the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian above all. What sets them apart are Morris' understated wit – "They could name a star after you and you'd still be complaining," she sings on "Neil Armstrong" – and the clear enthusiasm of her bandmates, who hurtle through every jangly chord change like they're falling into a new romance.

Listen to 'Europe':

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Karma Chameleon”

Boy George has said this song was about standing by what you believe in. However, at the time, he was involved in a secret affair with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. "Now people can understand the songs better," he said. "They were written about my relationship with Jon, and they were also written about being a gay man in a homophobic world." The lines "If I listen to your lies, would you say/I'm a man without conviction/I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction," described his life at the time, he said. "I was selling this big lie."