Don't wanna kiss, don't wanna touch, just want one cigarette and run

It's been a very good few days for leaked songs.

Generating some of the most column inches have been Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance" and "Alejandro." The former is the final version of her new single, following up on the leak of the demo a few weeks ago. I might just be suffering from "preferring what I'm used to" syndrome, but I prefer the sound of the demo at this point; the final version has elements that occasionally come across as harsh and unmelodic--synths that are distractingly abrasive, random shouting, changes to the way her voice is handled--and cuts ones that enhanced the opposite perception.



Luckily, we've still got the synths-meet-ABBA/Ace of Base-ish "Alejandro," a clip of which leaked as "Don't Call My Name" a while ago, to make up for that loss.

I mentioned on Twitter that I was looking forward to Timbaland's new album far more than I would have expected given the lack of any high quality material out there (some of the low quality recordings are tantalizing, though, including what we've heard of the Miley Cyrus song), but we've now actually got something to listen to: "Morning After Dark," featuring French artist SoShy. Timbaland's voice sounds strangely high-pitched on the chorus, but if you can get over that fact, "Morning After Dark" proves that the producer, much maligned by many for repetition after his revival in 2006, still has something to offer pop fans.



Contrary to what one of my recent posts may make you think, I don't often take to really hating songs. That's at the point I'm at with Leona Lewis's "Happy" at the moment, though. Knowing she had songs like "Strangers" and "Perfect Stranger" for her upcoming second album helped me accept that disappointment, but as it turns out, neither of those tracks made the tracklisting in the end. Luckily, "I Got U" did.



Penned by Max Martin, "I Got U" is the closest Leona has come to recapturing the magic of "Bleeding Love" in my eyes. It bears more similarity to Leona's debut single than it does most of Max's recent work, though you could make a case for Backstreet's "Bigger," I guess. It's the best of Max's late '90s/early '00s sound combined with "Bleeding Love"s drums. "I Got U" is gorgeous, a ballad but with a quicker than a ballad feel, with a pulse, and with a smart repeated "hit it strong-back off" two-syllable pattern to emphasis its chorus. Leona's "I Got U" may not be a cover of the also Max-written Nick Carter song "I Got U," but it's just as special a ballad.