Gavin DeGraw will never be cool. Like John Mayer and Jason Mraz, he's a nice-looking white dude with music-school chops and mainstream tastes; his songs are too well-made, too catchy, too unapologetically pop-rock to appeal to tastemakers. And what's wrong with that? The 10 songs on Sweeter, DeGraw's fourth album, are taut, efficient and hook-packed, with guitars bolstering the big choruses. DeGraw is an excellent singer, with a hint of grit in his tenor that tips power ballads like "Soldier" toward soul music. He's also an incurable cheeseball: Sweeter's love songs are tinged with cringe-worthy bromides and painful "sexy talk" ("Damn, damn, girl, you do it well, and I thought you were innocent"), and give off an unmistakable whiff of self-regard. Then again, if you could sing and play like DeGraw, you'd be a little full of yourself too.

Listen to "Sweeter":

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“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.