Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the music inside is so delightful! 'Tis the season for new holiday releases, so we've rounded up the best and the brightest of this year's offerings from rock, pop, country, jazz and more. Check out our nutshell reviews, don't-miss track recommendations, further listening suggestions and tidings of comfort and joy. OK, we'll stop with the corny Christmas references.
Glee CastThe Music: The Christmas Album
In a Nutshell: Isn't a holiday album from the cherubic-voiced, delightfully naughty Glee kids what you always wanted for Christmas? Gifted as they are, the kiddos deliver. By now, Lea Michele (Rachel) is like fruitcake: a little of that rich voice goes a long way. So it's nice to hear some of the other performers getting more ear time with several ensemble numbers.
Don't Miss: Amber Riley's Mercedes belting a heavens-reaching "Angels We Have Heard on High." And especially the sweetest tidings of all: "Baby It's Cold Outside," a duet between Chris Colfer's Kurt and his new love interest.
For Those Who Like: Kidz Bop Christmas Party, Camp Rock 2, Christmas break, secret Santas
Mariah CareyMerry Christmas II You
In a Nutshell: When you've already put out one beloved and (dare we say it) almost timeless holiday album, the stakes are high. But Mariah has the diva chops to pull off II. The old familiars are bolstered by Mariah's still-impressive voice: centuries-old carols sound as if they were written for her. But it's the originals that make a Mariah Christmas a cut above the usual Yule fluff. — Rachel Devitt
Don't Miss: The sky-scraping live cut of "O Holy Night"; "O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus," a duet with her opera-singer mama sure to warm any grinch's heart; new classic "Oh Santa!", which balances heady holiday joy and hip-hop cool.
For Those Who Like: Chestnuts roasting over an open fire with a bearskin rug in front of it, eggnog-soaked dates, heavenly choirs, "All I Want for Christmas Is You," "Last Christmas," A Very Special Christmas (1987)
Starting to feel snowed-in this holiday season? Don't worry; Rhapsody has your back, at least when it comes to the music. We have 
Throughout the 1980s and '90s, blues-rock meant 
When they started out, 
Call it Mexico's gangsta rap. The lyrics are violent, the language is littered with slang, and making paper is the order of the day — pretty much exclusively through drug smuggling. You can even hear the music shaking apart car trunks all over the United States, but that's where the comparisons between gangsta rap and Mexican narcocorridos end. Narcocorrido artists' instruments of choice aren't the sampler and mixing deck: think tuba and accordion, and the rhythmic up-and-down of a guitar. And while most gangsta rappers boast of their own exploits, narcocorrido singers detail the dramas of real-life drug kingpins in Mexico. And singing them can get you killed.
We've waited as long as we can, but we can't hold back the cavalcade of Christmas music any longer. Ready or not, here are all the new holiday releases that will help make you merry in the coming weeks. 
This week, 
Since the mid-1980s, few producers have exerted as much influence on modern rock as 
Punk rock, as theoretically invented in 1976 (even though it had technically been around for years before that), came off as a fairly artistic proposition from the get-go — plenty of high-minded academic theory involved, not to mention guys and gals who'd flunked out of art school and cared as much about their look as their sound. Also, lots of it pretty much just sounded like '70s metal played faster, but with fewer chops, and brutish soccer hooligans thought it a bloody good soundtrack for beating up strangers. So inevitably, as the decade wound down, some of punk's more thoughtful practitioners decided to branch out beyond those primal three chords and attempt to re-invent rock 'n' roll from scratch — or at least from ideas about noise, dub, doom, gloom, funk, feminism, communism, anarchism, amateurism and even old-school European art-rock eccentricity that could no longer be mistaken for mere greaser nostalgia. Hence, "post-punk." England (home of 13 of the 15 bands below) was inarguably the hotbed, but there was action on American and Australian peripheries as well. Some of it worked better on paper than in practice; most of it sold out by the time MTV went on the air. But it was really exciting while it lasted. 
Along with a smattering of new releases by high-profile country artists, the past few months have seen an abundance of greatest-hits packages whose releases were timed with the holidays in mind. Confused? We'll sort out the wheat from the chaff and get you caught up on all the country releases!
One of the joys of the holiday season is listening to Christmas music. But let's face it, sometimes this can be one of the sorrows of the season as well.
The 
The ego has landed. 
The question on everyone's mind (OK, ours anyway) as we listen to the 
Over the course of four platinum-plus albums, 
To understand why 
Google the phrase "
Whatever its actual popularity, dubstep is one of the most actively watched scenes right now, with everyone from 
Classic albums are built in part with mythology. Our impressions of how they were made, the circumstances under which they were recorded, and the influence they wield over us are often subjective, yet we treat them with reverence, as if they were just as important as the music itself. Such truths and half-truths surround 
There's a new 
Dubstep really isn't made for albums. That's not to say that dubstep artists haven't made some fine long-players. But the music's cold-sweat intensity is best experienced in a long, rolling rush, from bass riff to bass riff. To facilitate that visceral immersion in the deep end, we've created a brand-new radio station, The Lowdown: Dubstep and Bass. Here you'll find every variation of low-end pressure, from 
Don't call 
Post-rock may be something of a vague term; the emphasis on "rock" negates the complexity of this subgenre that is virtually boundless in its fusion of elements from jazz, metal, punk, shoegazer, Krautrock, classical and electronic music.
You may have heard that sundry surviving members of 
The 44th annual CMA awards has come and gone, and all that's left are the hangovers. Here's a rundown of the highlights and winners.
"I whip my hair back and forth, I whip my hair back and forth, I whip my hair back and forth." That's what it has sounded like in our heads the past few weeks, thanks to Willow Smith's unbelievably infectious debut single, which has been making the blogosphere rounds like some kind of freaking kiddie dance-pop epidemic. So in the interest of placating our new goddess by, you know, converting the rest of the world, we've dedicated this edition of single-phile to new and just under-the-radar artists like Ms. Smith — the smash hits of tomorrow by the best pop artists you aren't listening to. Yet.
Time again to catch up on new indie releases, and this batch seems especially dark. Perhaps winter's impending chill has brought the gloom out in everyone (even electro-pop partiers Matt & Kim bring it down a notch for a song or two). The dimness is all but inviting, though: traipse through the enchanting weirdness of Animal Collective's Avey Tare; lament with Elliott Smith; globe-trot with Dark Dark Dark; float in the starry-eyed synths of Small Black and Wild Nothing; and wake up your neighbors with the lo-fi fuzz of Crocodiles and Weekend. Discover these artists and more, read our thoughts on each album and listen to all of it on Rhapsody.
Love 'em or hate 'em, there's no denying the mega-impact of the greatest-hits package on classic rock. Let's face it: for the overwhelming majority of us, our first Steve Miller album wasn't 
This post is inspired by a commenter on my recent piece about 