Click to listen to 'Soul Punk'

For ex-Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump, "solo album" is more than a record you make when you leave your band. It's a record that you make by yourself, playing every note on every instrument – drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, trumpet, trombone, sax, mandolin. Besides handling instrumental duties, Stump supplied some terrific songs, too, with big hooks ("People Never Done a Good Thing"), electro pep ("Spotlight [New Regrets]") and lots of unabashed Michael Jackson. Stump is an excellent, nimble singer, but it's his songwriting that makes this one of the most irrefutably catchy albums of 2011. Soul? Punk? Try pop.

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• Rolling Stone Live: Patrick Stump, 'Spotlight'
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• Video: Patrick Stump on How Going Solo Compares to Being in Fall Out Boy

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.