"Should have been a lawyer," barks Katie White on the Ting Tings' second album.  She certainly knows how to argue her case. In 2008, the English duo emerged as international stars with sassy punk- pop rants like "That's Not My Name." Here, the band again is at its best when White is proclaiming ("I'm gonna paint my face like the Guggenheim!") and dissing ("Liar, liar/Your words expire") in a voice pitched somewhere between cheerleader, rapper and Tourette's sufferer. The music dips into ska, Eighties electro and power ballads, and the sumptuously noirish torch song "In Your Life" proves White's heart is as big as her spleen.

Listen to "Hang It Up":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“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."