Leona

Five years after Leona Naess gave it one more shot at the big time with an Ethan Johns-produced eponymous album, she returns with Thirteens, a subdued album that feels a bit like a rebuke to the splashy, hyped records she made at the turn of the millennium. Naess' downshift into a quieter gear came from the combined blow of losing her major-label contract and then losing her father, two events that helped her re-evaluate life.

The goal of Leona Lewis' 2007 debut, Spirit, was to prove that an X Factor winner could be a phenomenon not just in the U.K., but in the rest of the world. The goal of her second album, 2009's Echo, is to prove that success was no fluke, to build upon "Bleeding Love" and turn Lewis into an actual diva. Certainly, Echo in any of its incarnations – its song listings are tailored for individual markets, with the U.K. getting a cover of Oasis' "Stop Crying Your Heart Out," while the U.S. gets a second song co-written by Justin Timberlake – uses the chilly, synthesized "Bleeding Love" as its foundation, creating a sheet of sound equal parts Euro-pop and modern American R&B.