A Loser Wins

In the history of pop music, there is exactly one great song about winning: We Are the Champions, by Queen. Otherwise, from Orbison to Springsteen to Eminem, losers and loners have ruled the school. Kathleen Edwards, an alt-country singer from Ottawa, has titled her jangly debut album Failer, so clearly she has been paying attention to market trends.

Edwards' loser love affair kicks off with Six O'Clock News, a nearly great song about a pregnant woman who watches as her lover is shot dead during a police standoff. Read the chorus--"I tried to come clean but I guess it's no use/Your face is all over the six o'clock news/They cleared the streets and then they closed the schools/I can't even get inside"--and you will pine for the good cheer of a Morrissey album. But Six O'Clock News opens with a wry guitar riff, and Edwards' upbeat, breathy vocal comes through surprisingly carefree, suggesting she knows that too much tragedy — like a Road Runner cartoon — is its own brand of comedy. On One More Song the Radio Won't Like, the humor is unmissable, as Edwards sings of a cheeseball A.-and-R. exec, "Says he's got a strategy/I'm a test of his sanity."

Failer sags in its second half as Edwards, 24, succumbs to a premature world weariness that betrays a dangerous Ryan Adams crush. Still, she generates enough goodwill early that she deserves a place at the table, somewhere between Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow. Not a bad table, for a bunch of losers.