I should turn my feelings about Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" into one of those Perfect Moments In Pop pieces for Stylus, but I'd have to wait until late February to have it published, which means I'd listen to the song every day for another month. This is still a possibility, but there's no reason to make it a given.

I originally wrote it off as Thankfully Uptempo Whatever, but revisited it frequently after Maura pointed out how much the verse sounds like Interpol. Revelling in the commercial co-option/corroboration of value, I started singing it around the apartment in that flat holler, wishing the guys would turn it into an ironic live encore. But how would Paul Banks deal with the climactic bridge? Can he unleash his voice like she does when she JUST can't take it, again and again and again and AGAIN?

He couldn't. Interpol are frustration junkies; lyrics full of wannas and gonnas and a total lack of resolution. Clarkson uses their musical blueprint to acknowledge the addictiveness of emotional unrest (it's the only state in which some people feel like shit matters), only to achieve catharsis by morphing into Irene Cara. There's no certainty that she's really going to stop thinking about the guy (resentment has a tendency to endure - see the video), but pwning my drama dealin' bad poet du jour is impressive enough.