Blog: PopMatters

True to its title, The Listening is an album in love with the simple joys of listening to pop music. Lights, the appropriately incandescent alias of 22-year-old Canadian singer/songwriter Valerie Poxleitner, made the best pop record that you probably did not hear in 2009. Despite what would appear to be a reasonably marketable pop-pixie image and smooth New Wave-lite sound capable of evoking both fond nostalgia in older listeners and fashionable cool in kids weaned on The Postal Service, she has yet to receive much exposure beyond Canadian music television, where several of her colorful...