While my instinct is that folks out here in the blogosphere wouldn’t get nearly as excited about new singles from established artists, I am constantly proven wrong by the near fanatical buzz when a blog’s patron saint releases a single, and then you see the ripple effect across other nearby blogs. There are several examples of hyped singles, with varying degrees of success.

1. Kelly Clarkson/My Life Would Suck Without You – The buzz has been deafening, and most folks are declaring that Kelly is BACK! Well, okay. I’ll give you that. Kelly is back, and she’s tucked her tail between her legs so tightly you’d swear she was hiding her candy. Don’t get me wrong…I do love me some Kelly Clarkson. “My December” was highly underrated, but you can never go home again, although she’s sure giving it the old college try. Besides, I would argue that P!nk did this much better just a few months ago.

2. U2/Get On Your Boots – Trans World Entertainment, which is basically the last stand-alone music store chain in the U.S., blamed some of it’s soft holiday season sales on the decision by Universal to push back fourth quarter releases like Eminem, Dr. Dre, and U2. While that’s a big ol’ cop-out in a lot of ways, they probably would have had a better Christmas had those releases come out. So it’s not a big overstatement to suggest that U2’s upcoming “No Line on the Horizon” would sure help Universal’s bottom line. There’s no comeback relying on this song blowing up, but if this is indicative of the rest of the CD, they’re gonna need a comeback for the next record, because this song is LAME.

3. Lily Allen/The Fear – Here’s one where the buzz just completely turned me off, and I think I may have been too hard on the song initially. I haven’t been enamored of Lily, so she’s got a little more work to do with me. Once again, not bad, but not great. But today I came across the new Wideboys remix of the song, and on first listen, I fell in love. It all makes sense to me now. Her vocals belongs with the blips and bleeps of this version, and the Wideboys deserve some kind of award for their remixing vision.

4. Rascal Flatts/Here Comes Goodbye – Seriously…hear me out on this one. Rascal Flatts haven’t been country for a few albums now, and they ended up with one of the more distinctive pop hits of 2007 with “What Hurts the Most”, so I perked up when I saw their new single leak yesterday. Maybe there’s something to be said for low expectations, but “Goodbye” starts with a slow building verse, leading into a violin-punctuated first chorus. By verse #2, Gary LeVox’s vocals kick into overdrive, and the song just takes flight. Some will pishaw this track, but I promise that if Carrie Underwood or Kelly Clarkson had recorded it (and I can easily hear either of them on it), those same folks would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the daily.