The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - contender, 2009

"Though it is tempting to tag The Pains of Being Pure at Heart as dream pop, shoe gaze, or even twee, according to Kip Berman, they simply make pop music, "without hyphenation or any other strange and unnecessary caveats." Instead of allowing their vocals to be swallowed up under layers of effects, the male and female harmonies of Kip Berman and Peggy Wang-East ring out and become a real centerpiece of their music. Together, Berman and Wang-East sing about both saccharine-sweet topics like young love and some harder hitting topics like death, drugs, and heartache."