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"Big In Norway" is usually code for "small in non-glaciated countries," but the half-Norwegian Mena has a voice that fits on American pop radio while also setting her apart from all the other teen girls with a stylist. She scats her way through the verses, which allows her to fit in lots of sensitive/spooky Morissette-ish ramblings ("I probably forgot to tell you this/Like that time when I forgot to tell you about the scar/Remember how uncomfortable that made you feel?"). Then she hits the high notes in the chorus with surprising joy and clarity.
RAP
"Flap Your Wings" NELLY
Never mind that no one has heard this song yet. As one radio programmer put it, "Even if it's just Nelly farting for four minutes, every station in the country is going to play that record--probably twice an hour." Who said radio consolidation was bad? Word has it that this Neptunes-produced track from Sweat, one of two albums Nelly will be releasing simultaneously in August, is in the same vein as Country Grammar and Hot in Herre, the rapper's previous summer hits. You can bet it will have a heavily layered but distinctive beat, an instant catchphrase and lyrics about two of Nelly's great musical obsessions: pot smoking and orgies.
"Scandalous" MIS-TEEQ
Remember driving with your parents and hearing a song that had a cringe-inducing bit of innuendo? Remember the awkward silence you shared as they tried to figure out if you knew what it meant and you tried to figure out if they knew you knew? Relive that precious moment with Scandalous, in which the spelling-impaired British hip-hop trio drops such lines as "Solid as a rock/How many ways can you hit the spot" over a lush, string-heavy track that is no less great for sounding as if it had been ripped off from Dr. Dre's studio. If the lyrics don't provide sufficient notice that subtlety is not Mis-Teeq's MO, then the blaring siren in the chorus should do the trick.
COUNTRY
"Redneck Woman" GRETCHEN WILSON
Three months ago, Wilson was a complete unknown. Now Redneck Woman is the No. 1 song on the country chart, and the rest of the nation cowers in fear at the crossover to come. Like its Achy Breaky ancestor, Redneck is such an exaggerated piece of cornpone--"I'm a redneck woman/I ain't no high class broad/I'm just a product of my raisin'/I say 'hey y'all' and 'Yee Haw'"--that it succeeds as both a genuine ode to hillbillies and a genuine joke about hillbillies. Wilson, who has obviously been studying her Shania Twain, sells the song hard, and with an endorsement from Kid Rock, who appears in the video, Redneck should rampage out of the South and dominate seventh-inning stretches as far north as Detroit.
"Live Like You Were Dyin'" TIM MCGRAW