Earlier this year, while the Hold Steady were on vacation, their workaholic frontman, Craig Finn, decamped to Austin to record a low-key solo LP steeped in the literate roots rock of his native Midwest. This seven-inch single is our first glimpse: "Honolulu Blues" is an artfully shambling Seventies boogie with plenty of dust on its mudflaps and loads of Catholic guilt tearing at its transmission, while "Rented Room" is a post-breakup blues on which Finn rolls out elegantly frayed guitar majesty that suggests he's more than just a brilliant lyricist.

Listen to "Honolulu Blues":

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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."