This confident and catchy major-label debut from 23-year-old singer-songwriter Elle Varner is made even stronger by its smart musical details – a subtle ESG sample on the slinky J. Cole duet "Only Want To Give It To You," a rolling baseline on "Sound Proof Room" that sounds like desire pushing forward. Varner's vocals accentuate the plain-spoken nature of her lyrics: On the adoring "Leaf" her soprano curls around simple proclamations of love, while the exquisitely pained "Damn Good Friends" sounds as if its lyrics were lifted from a crumpled-up letter to a too-close confidant. The body-conscious "So Fly" is the strongest testament to her chops; her flippant delivery and last-verse embrace of her self save the track from being an R&B "Cathy" strip. 

Listen to 'Perfectly Imperfect':

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."