Please allow Katie Melua to introduce herself: "I'd love to kill you while you eat," she sings over the eerie pedal steel guitar of the opening track. The Soviet Georgia-born, British-raised singer-songwriter is a superstar in the U.K., but she's barely registered in the States. The House, her fourth disc, is a stylistic leap for the theatrical performer who owes no small debt to Kate Bush. Melua tapped Madonna producer William Orbit to add a little sparkle to guilty pleasures like the sci-fi disco fantasy "Tiny Alien," but keeps things grounded on organic bluesy brooders like "The One I Love Is Gone." A mixed bag of atmospherics that somewhat justifies Melua's chart-topping popularity back home.

“Baby Got Back”

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”