Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love"
Any reasonable, objective evaluation of this year's hopefuls would have to find Lewis's "Bleeding Love" among the front-runners: It's simple, immediately catchy, and already a radio hit despite the fact that its hook uses knife violence and life-ending blood loss as a metaphor for falling in love. Lewis is a former winner of Simon Cowell's British show The X Factor and, as such, has the combined weight of her record label, Sony BMG, and the American Idol machine behind her. It's a top-ten hit in pretty much all civilized countries and already spawned a number of ironic indie-rock cover versions. Unless somebody writes an even catchier track about being ax-murdered, our money's on Lewis this summer.