While fellow pop stars like Lady Gaga and Ke$ha squabble over who's the boldest freak, Natasha Bedingfield has found a niche repping for the wide-eyed average gal. "Strip Me" is a deceptively saucy name for the lighter-waver that launches the U.K. diva's third disc – like her smash "Unwritten," it's a bouncy female-empowerment anthem. When Bedingfield strays from her airy Kelly Clarkson vibe, she can be gorgeously soulful ("Run-Run-Run"), but she has the most fun rocking out to "All I Need," a synth-heavy dance track that recalls Rihanna's "Shut Up and Drive."

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“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."