Feist

Don't let the glacial, finger-snapping groove of "1234" (a.k.a. "that iPod song" that you've been humming and hand-clapping along to for weeks) fool you into thinking that Feist is simply another singer-songwriter with a penchant for lightly sweetened love songs. On one hand, her skillful cover-song arrangements hint at everything from edgy, electro-shocked vocal jazz ("Sea Lion Woman," a reinterpretation of Nina Simone's "See Line Woman") to a spotlight-stealing scene in a Broadway musical (the steady beat and playful strings of Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart"). And then there are her originals, a seemingly effortless mix of airy melodies ("I Feel It All"), muggy horns ("Mushaboom"), and pounding piano keys ("My Moon My Man"). Cozy up to our Next Steps and you'll find even more to love, including a dazzling array of remixes and duets.

If Feist's soft, delicate features look vaguely familiar to some of you, it might be because she used to perform with her roommate Peaches, flexing a sock puppet as the raunchy singer battled with bass-heavy beats. Which brings us to the tease-me-please-me Peaches cover "Lovertits," a fitting tribute that also features key Let It Die collaborator Gonzales. It's one of many Next Steps that fill in the holes of Feist's from-the-underground-on-up success story, including a moonlit Gonzales cut ("Starlight") and her recurring role in the Canadian collective Broken Social Scene (the pulse-spiking orchestral-pop rush of "7/4," a spare alternate version of "Inside + Out" by the BSS-related project Apostle of Hustle).

Hard to believe that Feist was playing to 100 or so people just a couple years ago, what with the sudden career-catapulting success of "1234" — the song that, in 2007, made her a mainstream curiosity of epic "Who's that girl?" proportions. (In one week alone, she performed on both The Today Show and The View.) Spend some time with our catalogue-skimming Essentials playlist and you'll see why she's been such a crossover hit: At her very core, Feist is a splendid pop singer, letting her breathless harmonies loose in a room full of balmy jazz tones; skittering, scampering electronic effects and traces of Tropicália ("Leisure Suite"); mirror ball-sparkling disco (the Bee Gees cover "Inside and Out"); and lighter-lifting torch ballads ("Let It Die," "So Sorry," "Honey Honey"). One more time, then: "1, 2, 3, 4, tell us why you now love Feist more."