Australian singer-songwriter — and occasional Lost At E Minor contributor — Ben Lee has a new album, The Rebirth of Venus, and will be co-headlining the Big O university shows across Australia from late February to early March. On top of that, he got hitched in India recently. No wonder he’s glowing. We checked in with him to ask about his latest single, I Love Pop Music, and whether he recalled the moment of epiphany when he wrote its timeless sing-along chorus: ‘I had a less politically loaded version of the song that was a sincere tribute to pop music. It was only when I juxtaposed that with all the statistics and facts that the chorus really seemed to take on a feeling of being special. Bubblegum tastes best after a salty snack’.

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We featured the Secret Playlist of Australian-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Lenka Kripac recently. Well, here’s the scoop: she just happens to have written the catchiest damn song of 2008. The Show is a bouncy, jaunty, almost nursery rhyme-like paean to the joys of showbiz. And it’s been splashed across every TV show that knows what’s good for it. Ugly Betty, any one? We checked in with Lenka while she was on the road [right before a performance in Seattle to be exact], and asked her about the songwriting process behind her debut hit: ‘I wrote The Show with a singer-songwriter called Jason Reeves. We’re both with the same publisher so we sat down together in their writer’s room with piano and guitar and played around with some ideas. The metaphor of life being a show came about because we were both feeling a bit overwhelmed by our lives at the time. We wanted to write something jolly to cheer ourselves up. It’s one of those things where a spontanious energy just takes over and you go along for the ride. An hour and a half and the song was complete! Hasn’t changed at all since that day’.

Australian singer-songwriter, Lenka, responsible for the catchiest song of 2008, has written a Secret Playlist for us which cites a disparate range of musical influences, from She and Him, to Goldfrapp, The Beatles and The Stranglers. It makes for a fun read, even if we do say ourselves. Listen to Lenka’s debut single, The Show.