The worst thing about living in Austin (besides the not-talked about segregation and the rich environmentalists who drive Land Rovers) is the loathsome cedar allergy season. See, unlike most normal places in the world where vegetation has the good sense to die off and not pollenate in the winter, the exact opposite happens here. The mountain juniper, also known as cedar, pollenates when the temperature is below freezing, dropping pollen bombs (no, really!) that saturate the air with grossness. The thing is, you'll be immune for a few years when you first move here, but it seems that eventually everyone feels a cedar allergy at some point. Anyway, my office sounds like a TB ward (a dry, hacky cough is a common symptom) and we're all tired and spaced out all the time. This sucks when you're entering the busiest time of year in your real job and your second one as well. SEC filing deadlines and SXSW loom large, and you know, I'm just dreadfully tired right about now. (Don't ask me about how I nearly literally cried when the pharmacuetical sales breakdown in the GlaxoSmithKline preliminary earnings release didn't add up correctly yesterday. It was off by ... $1.5 billion. Good job, investor relations!)

Anyway, yeah. Spaced out. Like this morning. Which is why I've decided it's a very good time to share with y'all some tasty pop treats because I sure as hell need to hear them. The first track, "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me," from the UK's The Pipettes -- this is easily the best new song I've heard this year. I know that's a big endorsement -- but if you love cascading girl group/Northern Soul hooks intersecting with a rousing shout-along chorus, recently re-popularized by the lovely Gwen Stefani, you need to hear this.

And I'm ultra-thrilled with Swedish band The Concretes' new record, In Colour, produced by that lovely Nebraskan Mike Mogis -- he who gave a hand up to Rilo Kiley and helped make them famous. He's beginning to have a production MO as distinct as someone like Jon Brion or Van Dyke Parks or even Phil Spector -- deeply layered, perfect pop arrangements that somehow remain chiming and frothy and light without disentigrating into sonic mush. "On the Radio" invokes The Carpenters and Burt Bachrach without turning to utter cheese -- be still my heart!

The last track is from a request I recieved months and months ago -- Susan McSassypants, this one's for you: Mahogany's cover of OMD's "Bunker Soldiers" off of Pretending to See the Future: A Tribute to OMD. I finally found it, sweetiepie!

Oh, and what the heck. What we all obviously need is some P!nk. I watched her play pool with my friends once, back when the front room at Emo's still had a pool table. (Yes! Pink was hanging out at Emo's, I'm not kidding!) I myself am a horrible pool player and did not participate. She's very tiny and sassy and really, how can you not love "Stupid Girls?" It's a shout out to the weird and smart girls out there, and a wonderfully cranky indictment of what my BFF and I like to call "boobies girls" -- you know the kind -- they get drunk and scream stupid stuff, and make out with other boobies girls to get attention from boys and think that sex must always be just like it is in porn? L-a-m-e.

The Pipettes -- Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me
The Concretes -- On the Radio
Mahogany -- Bunker Soldiers
Pink -- Stupid Girls (dirty)