Splat between Katy Perry (“I Kissed A Girl”) and Josie Cotton (“Johnny, Are You Queer?”) is Norway’s hard-eyed Ida Maria, who right now doesn’t care so much who her particular partner is as long as they’re naked, hence the hit “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked.” Americans smacked out this kind of girl-which-snarls punk-pop by the federal hour in the mid-‘90s—Tilt? Muffs? Chubbies?—but Ida Maria recharges the form with a fearlessly enthusiastic display of personal neurosis (“Find a cure, find a cure for my life,” from “Oh My God,” and further lyrics that probably punched the pen through the notebook paper) and a voice that flats and spikes at strange but charming moments. Her best are her quietest—girl, guitar and suggestions of an unexpectedly sophisticated... More >>>