In a year that has already seen Akon’s “Lonely” and Rob Thomas’s “Lonely No More” break into the U.S. top ten, it comes as sheer coincidence that three of the songs I’ve been listening to lately also feature that forlorn word in their titles.

Colette - What’s Wrong with Being Lonely?

Colette’s debut album, Hypnotized, teeters on the edge of my comfort zone regarding female-fronted house music, but I think what ultimately rescues it from lapsing into the generic diva wail that mars too much of the genre is that the DJ herself is the singer, thus lending the vocals an unexpected intimacy. On this track, she moves fluidly from an automatic coo to a full-bodied croon — but the real treat is all the sparkling electro flourishes, especially that undeniably bouncy synth-bass line that starts off and locks everything together.

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Feist - Lonely Lonely

For a singer-songwriter record, Feist’s Let It Die is remarkably varied, touching on both sleek, intricate Sade soundalikes and scorched-earth hollers before alighting upon a piano plinking romantically like an old, wine-soaked Michel Legrand score. For this reason, I didn’t even notice “Lonely Lonely” the first few times I listened to the album. And then, all of a sudden, I became obsessed with it. I reveled in its spacious meandering, her sweetly sad melody made vulnerable by audible breaths, and still couldn’t wait for the final 45 seconds, a jaunty, folksy guitar figure that, because of its brevity, becomes an absolute tease.

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Belle and Sebastian - The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner

This past week, I’ve been reading Paul Whitelaw’s Belle and Sebastian: This is Just a Modern Rock Story, which, along with providing all sorts of trivia (apparently the band can’t stand If You’re Feeling Sinister, because they were unhappy with how the recording turned out!), has encouraged me to go back and revisit much of the B&S catalog. This track is from the Jonathan David EP, released at a low point in the band’s career, between the poorly reviewed fourth LP, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, and their failed experiment in film scoring, Storytelling. But it picks up on some of the interesting soul elements that came to the fore on those records, from the mellow wurlitzer part to the terse, rhythmic guitar solo, and seems to work just fine as a trifle.

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