Jenny Lewis

If Jenny Lewis has learned anything from her high-profile friends and semi-frequent collaborators Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard, it's this: The bigger you get, the more people hate on you, so let the authenticity of the music be the final word. Nowhere is this lesson more obvious than on Lewis's first solo effort, Rabbit Fur Coat, a twelve-song modern folk classic brimming with an uplifting sense of yeah-but-what-can-you-do-about-it sorrow. Backed by the harmonizing of the Watson Twins, the Rilo Kiley frontwoman breathes simple lyrics over simple melodies. Painfully honest lyrics like "When you're kissing someone who's too much like you/It's like kissing on a mirror/ sWhen you're sleeping with someone who doesn't get you/You're gonna hate yourself in the morning" are brutal in their familiarity, as though someone actually listened to all that shit you said at the bar last night. Or maybe they've just been through it themselves.