Maia, Heidi, Miranda, and Ashley

--Strong analysis and advocacy by girlboymusic and skyecaptain for Maia Hirasawa's "South Again," a song I'd hitherto casually disliked. E.g., from girlboymusic:

She loves him, but her heart isn't with him - it's everywhere else. In the south with the cows, in the north with his parents, in the east with her sister and her friends. (And those are the places where she's surrounded by music - she plays piano as much as she wants, and somebody's always singing along: the cows, the mom, the wind - so I don't think her "best" means "she does her best work as a musician" so much as "she is a stable and responsible person." Because in addition to being surrounded by music in the other places, she's also lazy and selfish: she doesn't have to pretend, she doesn't have to deal with people, she sleeps all day, she eats her sister's food, she spends all her time with her friends. She's an adolescent, basically.)

( Heidi Montag )

( Miranda Lambert and Ashley Tisdale )