And you thought her divorce merited just one angst-pop anthem. Katy Perry whiffed with her first Russell Brand-breakup ballad, the guitar-powered "Part of Me." (Revenge like that is a dish best served by Kelly Clarkson.) "Wide Awake," another cut from the deluxe edition of Teenage Dream, is more her speed: a mid-tempo ballad, with throbbing dance-pop production. Perry's A-team – Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Bonnie McKee – delivers the goods, packing "Wide Awake" with hooks and sealing the deal with a monster chorus. Choice lyric for the tabloid jackals: "Outta the lion's den/I don't have to pretend/The story's over now/The end."

Listen to "Wide Awake":

Related
• Photos: Katy Perry's Best Looks

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”