We are knee-deep in springtime here in the ‘Burgh. If optimists and newcomers to the area thought that the transition of seasons would be a steady one, they must be rethinking that assumption now. But just because the sun cannot be depended on just yet, there is no reason to feel that the drizzly days are mucked up.

To help you stay impervious to the changeable weather, here is my advice: Get your galoshes on and your iPod loaded. On top of anything jazz or blues, check out the following songs to keep you jiving during these rainy times:

Thom Yorke — “And It Rained All Night.” The song is brilliant in its frenzy of electronica sounds, funky beats, and clever lyrics. The rim shots mimic the sound of falling rain while the searing synth exudes a paradoxical type of mellow aural lightening. The overall effect is a Radiohead vibe with the exact “indefatigable” motion needed to carry anyone through the grayest of days.

Anne Peebles — “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” The sound is simple: percussion, plucked stringed instruments, very light keyboards, great female soul vocals. Not a huge hit outside of Europe when it was first released, “I Can’t Stand the Rain” gradually arrived at the position of acclaim it deserves. Peebles sings moving lyrics for when it is really pouring.

Tracy Chapman — Let it Rain. I cannot select just one song from the 2002 release; the entire album is just such a solid art piece. Chapman’s voice is strong and genuine. I recommend the title track and “Almost” in particular, but if you have time, sit with your favorite hot drink and relish the entire thing.

Josh Ritter — “Rainslicker.” Ritter’s whole album Hello Starling is worthwhile and alt-country and folk in persuasion. “Rainslicker” is a definite personal favorite because of its poetic lyrics and acoustic style. The song is calming and charming with its feeling of reverie — I catch myself singing to it every time.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — “Sunshine and Clouds (And Everything Proud).” I cannot explain why I love this song — all 1:02 of it. Instrumental, it is like a defunct music box. It starts, builds, and finishes with its manic funkiness before you realize what hit you.

Beirut — “Elephant Gun.” I just saw on my play count that I have succumbed to “Elephant Gun” a whopping 76 times, and I just got the album Lon Gisland EP a couple of weeks ago. It is smooth, clashing, moody, and layered with trumpet and accordion, and somehow Bavarian in sound. As the band advises, “Let the seasons begin.”

Last week, Alexander Smith discussed preference of vocals, suggesting that “listeners prefer vocalists of the gender they want to sleep with.” Perhaps this has merit — I do, in fact, own many more songs sung by highly emotional men, from Joy Division’s Ian Curtis to TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebumpe, than I do from women.

But really, like Smith hopes, it is more than just a vocalist’s gender that makes or breaks a song for me — soul, realism, authenticity, sincerity, and passion are all key factors, to name a few. Whatever you’d like to call it, it’s that X-factor that puts the human back into the song. It’s not the gender, race, or age of vocalists that turns me on; it’s the personalities they manage to convey through their singing styles and the tones of their voices.

As Smith mentioned, there are many “love it or hate it” vocalists out there. I hate Kate Bush, for one. Her shrill, warbly vocals, to me, are not only aurally displeasing, but emotionally irritating, too. Through her songs, I get the sense that her character is far too dramatic, pretentiously artsy, and overall just too much for me. On the other hand, Björk’s vocals are just as dramatic (if not more so) and yet seem stronger, sturdier, and more confident than Bush’s. Björk is a woman who knows what she wants and says what she means — even if it is in broken English. I appreciate those qualities in a vocalist as I do in a friend, and I am thus a fan of her vocals. I don’t particularly want to sleep with either one of these women, but I can see why their vocals might appeal to people.

Perhaps the personality in vocals is the problem I, and many others, have with a lot of pop music. The singer, in these cases, is not a part of the heart of the song, but instead another glossy pitch-perfect instrument. Much of the time, I don’t get the impression that, upon meeting these pop singers, I would be at all inclined to get to know them. I’ll admit, though, that I’ve fallen prey to such great pop songs like Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Cassie’s “Me & U,” and the entirety of Justin Timberlake’s album FutureSex/LoveSounds. To me, all of these singers manage to elevate the mechanized beats with some sort of genuine emotion in their voices. In “LoveStoned,” Justin just sounds so damn serious that he truly lives up to the song’s name, although perhaps that’s just because I wouldn’t mind sleeping with him.

How can one sense an authentic personality through vocal delivery, though? Beats me. How do you know if you’re in love? You could probably break it down scientifically into the speed of your heart or dilation of your pupils, but that dissection of something so human takes the joy out of it.

One of the things that has always fascinated me about music is examining the properties that endear an artist to a specific listener. I know I prefer bands that put emphasis on drums and bass, while a friend of mine has distilled her “perfect formula” for listening down to something like: syncopated beat, handclaps, British male singing.

No area of music is more difficult for people to understand their preferences in than vocals. Much has been written about Bob Dylan’s love-it-or-hate-it voice, but that’s just the beginning. A different friend of mine and I have had a long-standing debate on the subject.

It started with an artist named Max Tundra, who asked his vocally untrained sister to sing on a few tracks of his album Mastered by a Guy at the Exchange. Her voice is technically terrible, I’m sure, but I really enjoy it, while some of my friends can’t stand listening to it, calling it “breathy and grating.” Then there was Joy Division, the vocalist for which I find forced and straining, but some of my friends find natural and powerful.

The confusion about vocals doesn’t start and end with my friends, though. Witness critically acclaimed but technically horrendous Slint and Sonic Youth. Or, one person might love old Kate Bush records, the next despises them. More recently there are bands like Battles (who “sound like robots”), Joanna Newsom (who alternately receives glowing praise and comments that she “sounds like a frog” from reviewers), or the Knife (heavily accented and indescribable). The list goes on, full of conflict with little explanation but personal preference.

Then there are artists who do non-traditional things with vocals. Bogdan Raczynski pitches his voice way, way up and sounds sort of like a children’s special gone wrong. Experimental German group Can’s Damo Suzuki blabbers about nothing, repeats words incessantly, and even just burbles vague sounds — yet fits the music surrounding him perfectly. Halfway through Naked City’s “Leng Tch’e” the guitars drop out and an utterly bloodcurdling scream comes in, lasting for 15 minutes. I was actually frightened when I heard it the first time. Would it have been possible to get this effect with words or singing? Would it have been possible with instruments only?

We have a large vocabulary of terms that we use to describe instrumental parts, yet I’m not aware of any technical terminology like this for vocal parts. Is there any? Or are we just doomed to the cliché observation that in popular music, listeners prefer vocalists of the gender they want to sleep with? This correlation is borne out when I think back over discussions I’ve had in the past, but I have to believe there’s more to it than that.