FASHION Magazine

There’s a certain sound and fury that belongs to women scorned: the bitter, yearning, whisper-and-shout chorus all barbed with deceptively sweet melodies. It’s the unrequited love song, the crown jewel in any grown-up pop star’s tiara. Who would Toni Braxton be (er, have been?) without “Un-Break My Heart”? Could we forgive Kelly Clarkson’s baseball-mom style if it weren’t for “Since U Been Gone”?

There’s been a good string of these gems lately—as Passion Pit would have it, “tears like diamonds”—and I should’ve started blogging them weeks ago. But the merit of such heart-strung-out ballads is their repeatability. The unrequited love song takes time. Here, three recent favourites:

Sounds like we’re under new MGMT: Cambridge-bred cool jammers Passion Pit (above, myspace.com/passionpitjams) and their first full-length, Manners (Frenchkiss Records), have all the hallmarks of this summer’s it-band. Like the “Kids” kids, they’ve got psych-rock heroes (it’s one fantastic trip from the Beatles to Animal Collective) and ridiculous pop hooks. They, too, mix synthy disco with sweet-voiced children in chorus. And their first single, “The Reeling,” is as crankable—and endlessly remixable—as “Electric Feel” ever got.