Blubox has listened to 92.3 FM with too much frequency the last few months. Down deep we are thirteen and pissed.

Yet recently we find ourselves sick of all that my-life-sucks yelling and faux-suicidal angst. And we are stricken with a yen for sensitive pop music, likely to be found on 95.5, i.e. the station we quickly shut off when a friend calls so they don't ask, "Yo, is that Michelle Branch I hear in the background?"

An avalanche of great songs has buried me under a fluffy blanket of pop. First, there's that Jason Mraz song with the white geek half-rap about "the remedy" and the soaring sing-along chorus declaring that he will NOT worry his life away. Ayyyyee....

If John Mayer had introduced his second album with this gem, we would have subwayed our ass to Virgin, bought it on sale, and then sat in Union Square, listening on our headphones, hoping to slip into a realm of sight and feeling, detached from the bounding thoughts that buzz in your head. Instead, Mayer came out with a solid single, but not the tune you take into the shower with you.

Then we are lucky enough to find Dave Matthews going through (or tantalizingly into) his thinking-man solo artist phase. With David Gray and Pete Yorn failing to deliver on their follow-up albums, perhaps it will be Matthews who can echo the full of wonder and trouble songwriting found on such classics as Jackson Browne's Saturate Before Using and James Taylor's Sweet Baby James.

We are also big fans of the new Dido single, which sounds like the song in the movie after the goodbyes are said, with enough acceptance to brave going on, commencing with a voyage on a train bound for Spain.

And finally, we have to mention the new single by Outkast. The video is genius, a Top Of The Pops tv-studio performance seen through neon green psychedelic wraparound lenses, and the song has that exact mix of whiteness and blackness to make asses shake on a universal level.

So what does this all mean? Are we becoming less thirteen and pissed? We think definitely.

Maybe even next week.