Hit count: Blood on the 32-track

Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love": The new Mariah or Whitney? Nah, more like the new Paula Cole, with a better voice and lesser songs (notwithstanding a cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" that she does nothing with; definitely withstanding "A Moment Like This"). Which means we in the U.S. can hope to ride her out and after three months never hear from again -- unless she gets on a goddamned soundtrack, which seems like just the sort of thing known sadist Simon Cowell would inflict upon us. This is as close as she gets to a good song, but OneRepublican Ryan Tedder and chipmunk Jesse McCartney run the metaphor into the ground: "my heart's crippled by the vein that I keep on closing" indeed.

Mariah Carey, "All I Want for Christmas Is You": After Leona, the real thing seems very good indeed. Now that Mariah's enduring superstardom is finally assured, you'll hear this every December for the rest of your life, and it's better than all the post-Spector secular alternatives. I'll leave it to Tris McCall to determine whether it's better than her "O Holy Night".

Linkin Park, "Shadow of the Day": By now it's clear that this is an above-average radio band when Mike Shinoda gets to rap and a below-average radio band when he doesn't. Their previous single, "Bleed It Out", was one of their best, with Brad Delson building Walls o' Guitar around Shinoda. Sadly in this one, they don't just rip off U2's guitar sound but their song structure as well. Needless to say, the song doesn't go anywhere.

Finger Eleven, "Paralyzer": Franz Ferdinand as Canadian idiots. Not nearly as fun as that sounds. If "it's been sheety and I feel uk-WARD" is their idea of an acceptable lyric, I'll keep my irony, thx.