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It's a deluxe album as only Gaga could do it: larger than life, over the top and, yes, even monstrous. The Fame Monster is stuffed to the gills with eight -- count 'em, eight -- new tracks. Most don't radically depart from her debut's uber-hipster dance-pop vibe, but they do reinforce Gaga's particular talents -- namely, making somewhat familiar musical ideas a wee bit edgy and a whole lot addictive. The vaguely tropical pop of "Alejandro," with its borderline-telenovela drama, for instance, is positively coated in "La Isla Bonita" and "Fernando" (down to the similar sound of its love object's name). It's so close, it's almost a cover -- and yet, something is slightly off. This is where Gaga lives, right smack in the midst of our comfort zone, where she sets up camp with the goal of screwing it up, just a little bit, just enough so that we feel not quite as certain of where we are. Then there's the Beyonce-featuring "Telephone." Now undoubtedly, this is a calculated collaboration from which both of these artists will benefit. And frankly, nothing about it is shockingly novel. But that's what's kind of interesting. Beyonce's cameo sounds every inch like a Beyonce track -- that's immersed in a track that's every inch Lady Gaga. Despite her relative youth as an artist, Gaga at once manages to pay tribute to those who have gone before her and yet make those influences her own.

Gorgeous Johnny is finally out. Sweet. I’ve been waiting three years for a new album from the Skygreen Leopards. Their last, 2006’s Disciples of California, is so good it had me writing all kinds of wacky copy about Jerry Garcia fronting Television Personalities in a dive bar in Santa Cruz. (Oh, wait a minute. Maybe that was Mickey Dolenz and the Go-Betweens?)

Disciples strikes the perfect balance between 1980s twee and rootsy, West Coast folk-pop. Since its release I’ve stumbled across more than a few indie bands exploring similar turf. I dig a lot of them, particularly San Diego’s Donkeys, whose Living on the Other Side is just splendid. But for the most part very few of them can do what the Leopards do. Even with the Donkeys, you can point to a specific guitar lick or riff and say “That’s so Neil Young” or “Man, that sounds a lot like ‘Ripple.’” What makes Disciples special, in contrast, is how the album channels the golden age of California pop, folk and country without ever aping it, without ever sounding like a Monkees tribute band or the Grateful Dead, Jr. Ultimately, the Leopards are more about capturing the feeling of that era rather than its actual sound.

Now having said all that, Gorgeous Johnny finds the Skygreen Leopards backing away from their love of classic California. I mean, it does have its moments, like the Smile-inspired vocal magic of “Goodnight Anna” (the album’s third best song after (1) “Can Go Back” and (2) the title track). But overall, Gorgeous Johnny is way less pastoral, way less wandering-the-countryside-on-a-Saturday-afternoon music. In fact, it’s really kind of urban. Like one of America’s half-dozen classic flatiron buildings, it’s lined with finely detailed ornamentation. The album’s artwork gives all this away. Where Disciples’ cover is a dusty country road (albeit one with a gigantic skull hovering at its end), this new record sports a colorful painting of a city block full of towering apartment buildings.

Though the Leopards’ artistic core are singer-songwriters Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn, the recent addition of multi-instrumentalist Jason Quever helps explain the sound of the new album. This dude is the brains behind Papercuts. If you dig richly textured dream pop, then check out their latest release You Can Have What You Want, released this past spring. Quever, unlike Quinn and Donaldson, doesn’t sound as if he writes songs while strumming a guitar underneath the protective canopy of a redwood forest. He’s more of a composer-type, one who probably develops ideas on the piano. Of course, I’m just guessing here, but I think I’m on to something. A good chunk of Gorgeous Johnny feels more composed, more baroque -- more rococo. (Ha! That word rules.) Several songs unfold like mini-suites stitched together from two or three song fragments. The most striking just might be the oddly titled “SGL’s et al.” It opens with piano and handclaps drowning in echo, that whole recorded-down-the-hall effect. This ends abruptly, giving way to Quinn mumbling like Lou Reed after staying awake for 36 straight hours. He’s saying something about the band getting in the van and driving to the sea. Gradually, Quinn melts into a hazy, droning chant involving a little strummed guitar and about three or four hushed voices. It’s really quite... gorgeous.

Then again, so is the rest of this more-than-worthy follow-up.

PS - You in need of even more Skygreen Leopards? Then check out their Rhapsody celebrity playlist! It’s packed with all kinds of good stuff: The Kinks, Jerry Jeff Walker, The Clientele, Lou Reed, Outrageous Cherry and more.

This will sound kind of strange to a lot of you, especially those who know their jangle pop and roots rock history, but this new Deer Tick album, Born on Flag Day, has my noggin drawing comparisons to the La’s, that Brit pop band who put out one truly astounding record in 1990. To begin with, there’s John McCauley’s voice: The dude croaks, burps, belches and hiccups like Lee Mavers -- had, of course, a witch turned the La’s mercurial frontman into the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. Secondly, and this is the far more important point, Deer Tick is a lot like the mighty La’s in the way the group takes sounds and styles that are more or less pre-British Invasion and feeds them into a scrappy, shaggy brand of alternative rock equal parts quiet/acoustic and loud/electric.

But where Mavers and company drew their inspiration from skiffle, a countryish folk-pop trend popular in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s and early ’60s (see Lonnie Donegan), Deer Tick looks to classic American music from the same period, everything from twangy instrumentalists (the Ventures, Duane Eddy) to rock & roll artists who cut rockabilly with Tin Pan Alley. These include Ritchie Valens, Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson, as well as Buddy Holly and his legion of followers: the Bobby Fuller Four, Bobby Vee, Tommy Roe, etc. Now if you didn’t spend your childhood with ears glued to the oldies station, then check out this playlist I recently put together. It features a lot of the vintage rockers I just mentioned. It totally rocks, if I do say so myself.

Deer Tick also differ from the La’s in their overt revivalism. Mavers, even when penning timeless jangle pop like “There She Goes,” never really went straight-up retro. McCauly, in contrast, lifts scraps of melodies, rhythms and vintage guitar licks directly from his heroes. “Easy,” Born on Flag Day's opening track, as well as its lead single, isn’t too far removed from the Meat Puppets or Dinosaur Jr. But dig beneath that initial burst of feedback and those scratchy guitars, and you come to rumbling tom-toms and a chiming ride cymbal that are so “I Fought the Law.”

McCauley’s love for early rock & roll reaches a fever pitch on “Straight into the Storm.” From that classic-sounding title to the dude’s exuberant shrieks, this song reeks of nostalgia. You can easily imagine a group of young and greasy punks, maybe the even The Outsiders, rocking out to it back in ’61. Hell, it’s total El Paso rock.

Of course, this entire review, however positive, implies that McCauley is nothing more than a master of pastiche. Oh well. I really don’t think that’s such a bad thing, especially when the master in question can pen a classic ballad like “Smith Hill.” When spinning this track, pay extra special attention at the 2:55 mark. Coming out of the chorus, Deer Tick could easily slip into a guitar solo or whip up yet another verse. Instead, McCauley cranks the string section and reaches for this melodramatic teen opera climax. It’s a trick torn from the pages of the Roy Orbison songbook. Like so much of Born on Flag Day, it’s an utterly delicious chunk of pop music.

Ms. Jazmin Lopez is an up-and-coming star of duranguense -- the Mexican regional music that is a kissing cousin of the Southwest's brassy banda and the accordion-driven norteño, but also grew up in Chicago. Even this early in her career, however, Lopez's resume is already impressively diverse: She also hosts MTV Tr3s's ReMexa and is a connoisseur of both the regional Mexican music that program showcases and the urban dance and hip-hip sounds on rotation at MTV Tr3s's parent station. Her self-titled debut is a tribute to her wide-ranging interests and experiences:

Jazmin Lopez: Jazmin
Banda and duranguense have always seemed like long shots for breaking Mexican regional into the pop mainstream. And yet the oom-pah-ing horns and synth beats of these genres share a common ground with the dance beats of the pop charts -- and Jazmin Lopez may have homed in on it. Jazmin is ebullient and infectious, like both good banda and good dance pop are. But like her paradigm-challenging predecessor Yolanda Perez, the savvy Ms. Lopez also manages to work in more mainstream pop elements, intertwining her husky "Oo! Oo!"s and throaty vocals with R&B flourishes ("La Carcacha") and hip-hop beats ("Tu").

Further Listening
Playlist: Jazmin Lopez Picks the Hits, a playlist of her inspirations and favorites

On its fifth full-length and second self-titled record, the melodic metalcore quintet made a surprise move by tapping a new producer for the first time in its decade-long career, yet the overall results are quite subtle. That's no slight on prolific producer Brendan O'Brien, though, who primarily worked with Killswitch's strident vocalist and powerful skinsman; it's evidence of how effective, if understated, this matchup was (see "Starting Over" and "Never Again"). It also proves that Adam D., the band's goofball guitarist and polarizing co-producer, still lends plenty to Killswitch's overall sound. Along with duties as co-producer, Dutkiewicz solely handled the mixing and mastering of the album, and his fingerprints are all over the powerful guitar tracks. The combined result is a solid, clean, melody-driven record from start to finish. Lyrically, Howard Jones doesn't stray much from the passionate pleas he has always sung about, but the songwriting has certainly grown: Proof is in the monster riffs and calculated pacing of tracks like "Take Me Away" and "I Would Do Anything". As a whole, the second coming of Killswitch Engage helps uphold these favored New Englanders as leaders of their genre.

Music for Men is Gossip's coming out party in every sense of the term: It's their major label debut, their first album after becoming Kate Moss-befriending-hype-generators, and it's an announcement of their commitment to the alt-dance (life)style they first experimented with on Standing in the Way of Control. In short, this album is under a lot of pressure -- which it withstands rather admirably. The sleek dance beats -- this time drawing from both '80s pop and four-on-the-floor disco beats -- are polished to a pricier gold lamé sheen (courtesy of Rick Rubin), but are also more elegantly blended with their chicken-fried roots (see "Spare Me from the Mold"). Their melodies could do with a bit more variety: Beth Ditto either really enjoys a certain progression of notes, or her distinctive, full-throttle wail has a tendency to make every vocal line sound like, well, that distinctive, full-throttle Beth Ditto wail. And Kate Moss or no, the once-and-future scrappy garage punks are still probably a bit too queer (in all senses of the word) to hit the big-time Stateside. But they are in a rather fascinating position, poised somewhere between glitzy pop stardom and avant-garde underground. It's a position that makes for some very interesting musical choices: Though nothing on Music for Men really sounds like a conventional pop song, the album quotes from them liberally, couching, say, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" in the gradually building, minimalist keys-and-beats of "Love Long Distance" or Salt 'n' Pepa's "Push It" in the straight-up hipster disco of "Love and Let Love." In fact, Music for Men is almost -- dare we say it -- kind of a camp, taking up and queering bits and pieces of a popular culture to which the band has an ambiguous relationship. In all, it's campy, danceable and political -- everything a fabulous coming out party should be.

Read the review and listen to the Jonas Brothers' new album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times below.

There are at least two qualities necessary for success in Disney's magic star-making kingdom: wholesomeness and versatility -- and the ability to balance both so that kids adore you and parents approve and can stand to hear your album 5,000 times in the minivan. The Jonas Brothers display both qualities in spades on their fourth album. Lines, Vines and Trying Times is a genre-jumping melange of puberty-voiced pop-rock, country balladeering (some of it featuring Miley!), a pinch of '80s pop (that'd be oldies to them, friends) and a lot of this new sort of Chicago-meets-Stevie-Wonder's-harmonica-oeuvre adult-contemporary. The pop-rock is less pop-punk-oriented than it's been on their earlier albums, though the boys still maintain their G-rated edge on '90s alt-style tracks like the enticingly unsettled "Paranoid" (which has an oddly Oasis-esque vibe) and the Weezeriffic "Poison Ivy," which pulls the old "almost say a bad word but instead replace it with a flamboyant guitar strum" gag (the tweens will totally heart it). (Both of those tracks, by the way, also offer slightly warped and/or jaded takes on relationships, no doubt a nod to Joe Jonas's breakup with Taylor Swift. Joe also takes a rather nasty swipe at Swift on "Much Better," a mellow bit of horn-driven '80s pop that explains how "much better" his new lady friend is than the one with "all the tears on her guitar." Ouch. Where's your Disney spirit, boys?) It's all pretty compelling stuff, if at times so eclectic it lacks focus, as if the Jonases were just trying on every pop hat they could get their hands on, rather than really honing any of the styles they experiment with. The track that will totally blow minds (in the surreal, "did I just unwittingly jump into a parallel universe" kind of way) is "Don't Charge Me for the Crime," a collaboration with Common. Yes, Common. Musically, the track is surprisingly not horrible (although it's definitely weird). But for a very "whaaaa?" moment, take a closer listen to the lyrics, which feature a dark rhyme from Common about the state's role in the perpetuation of criminality and greed, followed by a Jonas singing about a friend with bags of cash making him scream so loud "like the females in the crowd." (Wow, what, did that friend mug him for his purity ring or something?)

It’s not entirely accurate to say that DJ Quik is underrated. Ask any hip-hop head who are the best producers off the West Coast, and Quik usually occupies the second slot (behind the good Doctor, of course). But the Compton producer had the misfortune of emerging before the era of the superstar producer, and thus he’s not exactly a household name outside hip-hop circles, though he's not without his commercial accomplishments. He produced for Pac, Snoop, Dre and Jay-Z. And his own '91 debut, Quik Is the Name, is a seminal G-funk album and went platinum.

The Black Eyed Peas seem to be in the throes of an identity crisis. Their fifth album (the third with Fergie) is a sleek, minimalist and rather dark affair that sounds more like the wasted, exhausted wee hours of the morning after than the big, over-the-top, glam party they usually throw. Don't get us wrong, though. There are still plenty of party-oriented anthems on here; this is the Black Eyed Peas, after all. Their rhymes are often overly simplistic and their flow can be a little rough, but that is not the point. The point is to have fun -- to make hip-hop and pop a big, old, sometimes silly but always jumping good time.

Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, the Dave Matthews Band's first album in nearly four years, had the potential to be their darkest to date, easily surpassing the brooding "Lillywhite Sessions" (which saw the light of day in the form of 2002's Busted Stuff). The primary reason for this is the tragic death of sax guru LeRoi Moore in August 2008, when the group was in the initial stages of recording Big Whiskey. Moore was more than just Matthews' bandmate. A dear friend, as well as a talented songwriter and arranger, Moore was the band's heart and soul. But instead of mourning his passing with a set of moody adult contemporary pop, Matthews decided to celebrate his fallen pal with what might just be the hardest rock set of his group's 18-year career.

All this is evident right from the get-go. Big Whiskey's cover, created by Matthews himself, depicts an exotic, Mardi Gras-like celebration -- half funeral procession, half joyous parade. The centerpiece is a banner containing the saxophonist's visage. With his gaping mouth and a crown perched atop his gnarled dreads, Moore is the celebrated GrooGrux King. He is the man, goddammit.

Then there's the music itself. Big Whiskey opens with the sound of Moore's wailing horn. It's not at all sentimental, but sassy, smoky and utterly robust. After the instrument climbs to its upper register, the sound gives way to a demented cackle from Moore (a fine slice of studio gimmickry) and the twin axes of Matthews and one of his other old-school friends, collaborator Tim Reynolds, who was last heard on 1998's Before These Crowded Streets. Here, on the second track, "Shake Me Like a Monkey," the group sounds totally amped up, particularly when Matthews shrieks, "I like my coffee with toast and jelly, but I'd rather be licking you from your back to your belly."

Whoa, Dave.

Those big guitars are one of Big Whiskey's big heroes. Recording with modern rock whiz Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Alanis Morissette) inspired Matthews to set aside his trusty acoustic. This gave the band some much-needed heft and could win them a few more supporters, namely those who have always thought the D.M.B. were a bit soft. The tune "Why I Am" even boasts a peppy riff reminiscent of the Knack's power pop classic "My Sharona."

But even though this tune contains some killer guitar work, it's Matthews' words that are most important, as he reveals exactly why Big Whiskey is more celebration than mourning. It's because, you see, he's "still dancing here with the GrooGrux King." In other words, though Moore has left us, he lives on in Matthews' heart. And that's what needs to be embraced.

Now I don't want to imply that Big Whiskey lacks pain or the ability to reflect upon loss. It definitely has its fair share of tender moments, most of which come during the album's middle stretch, from "Lying in the Hands of God" to "Squirm" (excluding, of course, "Why I Am"). But ultimately, Matthews understands that from death emerges life. And so Big Whiskey is a heartfelt sendoff to a fallen comrade wrapped inside the beginnings of a brand-new sound for the Dave Matthews Band.

In preparation for Rhapsody's big premiere of one of 2009's most anticipated releases, I studied up on Green Day more than I ever crammed for any test, final or fate-deciding exam. I ran through their bio, pored over their every move and had their entire catalog on repeat for about a month straight. We were honored to premiere the Bay Area punks' new album, 21st Century Breakdown, but through all the celebratory hoo-ha, I -- a big fan of the trio myself -- couldn't help wondering why anyone should still care about Green Day.

I was first struck with the Green Day bug at age 13 when I saw the video for "Basket Case" on MTV and quickly traded in my Ace of Base CD (yeah, I totally saw "the sign") for Dookie. It was a monumental album for my suburban teenage self and it subsequently led me to bands like the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. But I admit I lost some of my lust for the trio after Dookie -- besides a few singles here and there, the band never quite caught my attention again in the same way. Even my feelings toward American Idiot's big-boned conceptual rock didn't initially measure up to my first foray into Green Day's early material.

But going back through their catalog, I started to appreciate their significance more and more. I realized not just why I clutched Dookie so close to my heart in 1994, but why I still do: Green Day spin modern life into tunes that articulate the thoughts and frustrations piling up in the heads of American adolescents, when they "feel locked up in a world that's been planned out for them," when they "sit around watching the phone, and no one's calling," when they're simply "burned out and growing bored." Of course, it's no secret that this was Green Day's appeal 15 years ago. What's amazing is that, two decades later, they're as good at it as they've ever been.

If red is hot and blue is cold, and we applied that standard to music to signify what was heavy and what was soft, the different shades of reds and blues necessary to illustrate what Isis have done here on their 5th studio album would be enough to make artist Shepard Fairey rethink his whole Obama poster palette. This weighty-in-sound/ weighty-in-emotion opus offers not only urgent passages, crushing departures, and wistful nuances all in the same journey, but builds upon Isis's post-metal groundwork. Beginning with the enlightening "Hall of the Dead" and ending distraughtly with "Threshold of Transformation" Wavering Radiant sees seven beautiful soundscapes showcasing heavy distortion and layered riffs shift in and out of poignancy. But the clean production thanks to Joe Baressi (Queens of the Stone Age, Melvins) makes the usually murky fog and thick wall of sound less dense than expected, revealing a stark depth to the use of keys and the mix of clean vocal textures with pained, oft urgent growls. Working cohesively as a whole, repeated listens are necessary.

The band formerly known as Dio-fronted Black Sabbath introduce their first album under their new moniker (or if you're keeping score, their first album together in seventeen years,) and the result is so powerful and so malevolent, it's already being compared to Sab's 1970 masterpiece Paranoid. Having shed their Black Sabbath skin for this moment in their long, heavy history matches all too well with The Devil You Know's overall disclosure of a darker, more focused side for Tony Iommi's unearthly riffing, Geezer Butler's down-tuned bass mastery, Vinny Appice's pace-setting backend and Ronnie Dio's powerful, annunciated shouts. Opening with the wicked creepy-crawl of "Atom and Evil" before calculatedly plowing through the powerhouse benchmark "Bible Black", other highlights include the evil bass intro of the infectious galloper "Double the Pain," the sludgy, bluesy anthem "The Turn of the Screw," and the astounding thrasher (yes, thrasher) of "Eating the Cannibals." Housing all the classic Dio-Butler-Iommi-Appice elements while expanding upon their own bricklaying ideas, The Devil You Know demonstrates how these metal masons are not only still slaying; but still showing everyone how it's done right.

Play Together Through Life


As the decade closes, Bob Dylan's 67-year-old mug will grace yet another cover of Rolling Stone -- his eighth cover in 10 years -- a nearly obligatory commemoration of his 33rd studio record, Together Through Life. By all accounts, he's been worth it too; recent years have seen America's alpha songwriter enjoy one of the most fertile periods of his career and unanimous approval from a critical echo chamber that rings his name with a deafening din. This was punctuated by the Rolling Stone cover celebrating the last Dylan offering. The headline screamed: "The Genius of Bob Dylan."

Relatively, Together was anticipated and received rather quietly. Rolling Stone's David Fricke called it a "mixed bag" that lacked "the instant-classic aura" -- a far cry from when Modern Times had Robert Christgau stammering for comparisons from everyone from Matisse to Sonny Rollins. You can chalk up part of the limpid response to fatigue: the blue-faced stammer of critics over Uncle Bob has been on full tilt since 1997's Time Out of Mind. (Our jazz editor, Nick Dedina, loves to point out the shift in groupthink that saw unanimously high praise for last year's The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs -- a record culled mostly from B-sides of critical bombs from the '80s and '90s.) While Together Through Life may not be shortlisted among Dylan's sunset triumphs as a whole, its success lies in the fleeting details: brief sparks of brilliant singing and playing that are more commanding, more chilling, more gutsy, more everything than anything on his most cohesive albums of late. Even if it misses the roaring approval of the critical community, it undoubtedly continues Dylan's streak of late greatness and is certainly the liveliest offering of the bunch.

Suckers for pomp and survivors of circumstance, Depeche Mode have long been torn between a penchant for grandiosity and more guileless, confessional tendencies. That tension has fueled their music since at least the days of Some Great Reward, with its mix of leering outbursts and fetal desire, through succeeding decades, in which they mastered a swaggering brand of stadium glam that drew its strength from an almost Pentecostal obsession with sin and redemption. DM revisit well familiar territory on Sounds of the Universe, the band's 12th studio album in a 28-year career, but they do it with the kind of focus and even comfort that sometimes faltered on recent albums.

Even at their best, DM have sometimes sounded like they were slogging through the motions, dutifully fulfilling modern-rock expectations with swollen arrangements and a tumescent suggestiveness. But on Sounds of the Universe, they make doing what they do seem somehow effortless. The standout songs are here in spades; after a dozen listens, virtually every track on the record feels not just familiar but almost inevitable, a piece of the canon that was just waiting to fall into place.

Make no mistake, DM stick to their comfort zone, turning former quirks into habitual gestures. Tumbleweed guitars, badges of a long-running Wild West fetish, bring familiar grit and snarl to "Miles Away / The Truth Is." The closing "Corrupt" shuffles in on a triplet rhythm recycled from "Personal Jesus," while "In Chains" is but the latest installment in a quarter-century interest in bondage. But the band, working again with Playing the Angel producer Ben Hillier, has stripped back the production to focus on details: The synth-pop of their very earliest albums braces the whole record like a scaffolding, but it never feels retro. Instead, analog synths -- buzzing, growling, lush -- form a skeleton that's filled in with a warm, rock 'n' roll heart.

It sounds, in fact, like Depeche Mode distilled down to their essence: cleansed, purified even. The album's most surprising moment might be Dave Gahan's hymn-like confession halfway through -- "Peace will come to me" -- though not for the subject matter (the erstwhile wastrel and his companions have long been looking for refuge). It's that, despite the future-tense lyrics, Depeche Mode sound like they've already made their peace -- with their pasts, with their unshakable habits, with the impossible expectations placed on them as alt-rock icons.For almost any other band with such a volatile sound and history, peace would be the death knell.But on Sounds of the Universe, the band's maturity is like that of their beloved vintage synthesizers, sounding richer as their idiosyncratic circuitry settles and smolders.