"I'm standing under a white flag," sings Danny O'Donoghue, positing his Dublin trio as inheritors to the Emerald Isle's greatest band. The Script have enjoyed Euro-chart success with a mix of lite rock, rap rock and Guinness-informed crooning they call "Celtic soul" — at once soaring, melancholic and treacly. Their second disc's big ballad is "For the First Time," about boozing your way through Ireland's recession. But if O'Donoghue references locally, he thinks globally; B.o.B lends verses to the piano-drenched "Walk Away," and O'Donoghue shifts from singing to raps that could come from an American kid who wouldn't know County Kerry from Katy Perry.

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“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”