Twenty-six-year-old Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" is weapons-grade teen pop; after global warming kills us all, insects will still be doing karaoke routines to it. On her second LP (she released a singer-songwriter-y debut after placing third on Canadian Idol in 2008), Jepsen breathily body-slams pillow-clutching choruses from the likes of Max Martin and LMFAO's Redfoo. Justin Bieber even floats by for the acoustic dote "Beautiful," playing James Taylor to Carly's Carole King. But Kiss too often defaults to mediocre dance pop like the Owl City collaboration "Good Time" – heavy on Disney-fied thump, light on memorable hooks that might highlight her unassuming adorableness.

Listen to 'Kiss':

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.