(3 of 4)
It's unclear exactly when it happened, but sometime in the past decade it became acceptable for country music--loving tough guys to shed the occasional manly tear. Now Nashville's big guns want buckets. For those who gulped their way through George Strait's Desperately and sat stoically by as Alan Jackson asked Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning), McGraw has composed the toughest test to date: call it Tuesdays with Morrie, the ballad. McGraw wrote this elegy following the death of his father, charismatic ex-Big League pitcher Tug McGraw, from cancer in January. Lyrically, it's shameless--and that's from a fan--with life lessons ("love deeper," "read the good book") so trite they might raise a skeptical eyebrow at the Hallmark store. Vocally, McGraw drawls his way through with such perfectly controlled emotion that, while you question his depth, you never doubt his authenticity.
R. AND B.
"Confessions Part II" USHER
He already has two No. 1 singles from his multiplatinum album Confessions, and as Evan Harrison, the general manager of AOL Music, says, "You'll have to leave the country if you want to get away from Usher this summer." Usher's third single is about what happened when his "chick on the side said she got one on the way." The chick on the entree plate was Chilli from TLC, so gossip alone will help keep this on playlists through September. It's also a perfectly acceptable bit of I'm-so-sorry-baby R. and B. It'll have chart competition from U Saved Me by the unkillable R. Kelly, but Usher should have enough momentum to prevail.
ADULT/CONTEMPORARY
"Accidentally In Love" Counting Crows
This is, quite frankly, a profoundly horrible song. It opens with a wacky kazoolike guitar effect. That's the best part. But after one listen, the melody spins in your head like a relentless hamster wheel. Commissioned for the Shrek 2 sound track, it was designed to be the kind of sticky thing young children and their grandparents could enjoy together. That may shed some light on the line about strawberry ice cream, but it does not explain why a once respectable band consented to sing a song so sugary it would send the Archies into shock. This is catchier than bird flu and possibly just as dangerous.
ALTERNATIVE/INDIE
"Portions For Foxes" RILO KILEY
The tightest thing to emerge from the indie-rock Petri dish in years--it's an adult bad-relationship tune ("I know I'm alone if I'm with or without you/But just being around you offers me another form of relief") punctuated by a hook-y guitar line and lead singer Jenny Lewis' bittersweet and oft-repeated wail that she's "bad news." It's notably smarter than anything else on this list. But, says Morning Becomes Eclectic DJ Nic Harocourt: "I played it on the show, and I couldn't stop singing along with the 'bad news' part. This belongs all over commercial radio."
"Run" SNOW PATROL