Our most serious, long-standing pop music crush has been on Tracey Thorn. She sings with a gorgeously thick, melancholy timbre -- you can't learn it, you can only live in it. And she knows what to do with the gift, how to phrase, how to draw listeners to her. No pyrotechnics needed.

Thorn is half of the inactive duo Everything But The Girl with her multi-talented husband (singer, writer, producer, deejay) Ben Watt. Over the years since their start in 1982, the group moved through a number of musical genres including folk, pop, jazz, bossa nova, and electronica. But Thorn hasn't been singing much lately as she raised her family.

So we're counting down the hours until the release of her new solo album called "Out of the Woods" on March 20.